Laika Is Back with WILDWOOD: Watch New Trailer

I have been saying this for years, but LAIKA quietly replaced Pixar as the purveyor of original and challenging animated films (from the USA) more than a decade ago.

It has been seven (long) years since the studio behind Coraline, Paranorman and Kubo & The Two Strings, released a feature film, and judging from the teaser-trailer below it will be well worth the wait.

A mixture of dark fantasy, contemporary mental health, and parenting anxieties, Wildwood looks to up the 'this will freak out your kids' factor by even the high bar set back with Coraline in 2009. Grace notes of Jim Henson's Labyrinth and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds accompany what is frankly the most epic animated trailer to come out of an American production house in some time.

Adapting Carson Ellis's 2011 novel of the same name, and directed by Travis Knight (who also has Masters of the Universe coming out this year), Wildwood features a voice cast consisting of Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, and Richard E. Grant.

It is only May, but this might be the trailer of the year.