‘Wildwood’ stuns viewers as the longest stop-motion animation film ever made

One thing I have always considered one of the best types of art is animation. Not only animation, but specifically stop-motion animation.

The fact that someone can spend months on two seconds of animation is absolutely unfathomable. This form of animation bleeds creativity and hard-work. I could never imagine someone making a stop-motion animation that is two hours long. That would take years, maybe even a decade.

Enter: LAIKA Studios. The creators of “Coraline,” “Corpse Bride,” “Paranorman” and many other beloved projects. In September of 2011, two years after “Coraline” released, they announced that they were making a movie based on the novel “Wildwood”. The first trailer did not come out until May 13, 2026, 15 years after the announcement. In between this time, LAIKA Studios released four more movies. “Wildwood” was released on Oct. 23, 2026. And how was it, you might be asking? Was it worth the 10+ year wait?

There is no other movie I have seen, and I mean no other movie, that as I was watching I thought what I was looking at was impossible. There are some impressive animations in the media. Such as, “Into The Spider-Verse”, “Arcane,” and many others. The visuals in this movie are too beautiful to put into words. It becomes a lot better, when you realize that this is made only with human hands. There is a scene where the main character, Prue, is soaring through the air, and I cried. I did not cry at any emotional scenes, which there are a lot of. I did not cry at the ending or anything like that. I cried at the sky, the clouds, the smile on Prue’s face, her hair blowing in the wind, the music, everything.

Every set piece feels like a new movie, a new world to explore and dissect. One thing that this studio does more than any other studio, is bombard you with behind the scenes videos. Just so you know how much hard work, effort, care and love they put into this movie.

But with the obvious out of the way, the story is phenomenal. There is a perfect story about grief, acceptance, letting go and growth under this beautiful blanket of visuals. This movie has very dark tones and themes within it.

As LAIKA’s first PG-13 movie, they went above and beyond by giving us a gritty story with surprises that made me almost stand up in the theater. Each character is very unique not only in looks but inactions, expressions, speech and demeanor. Some characters do not even get names, but they are all so well executed, making you care for them every step of the way. 

This movie is about magic as a whole, but it  also seems to be made  with magic. The magic of the human hand. When the first trailer dropped for Wildwood, there was text that said, “From the hands that made Coraline.” Not the minds, not the people, the hands. If you watch this movie, even if you do not like it, just remember my question at the beginning. What is art?