Visionary stop-motion animation Director Henry Selick joins forces with the brilliant mind of Oscar-winning Jordan Peele with a story about trauma, horror, greed, and a world of monsters & their demons. A fun return to form for Selick who has co-written the screenplay with Peele that also serves as a reunion for the comedic duo of Key & Peele.

Wendell & Wild follows the story of Kat, a 13-year-old punk-rock-loving orphan who is sent to a run-down boarding school in the same ghost town she lost her parents. While at school, she learns she is a "Hell Maiden" with powers including the ability to summon her personal demons from down below, Wendell & Wild. The demon brothers offer her a deal to bring back her parents, but it has deadly consequences.

The collaboration between Selick and Peele is a match made in heaven. Both who have different backgrounds in crafting nightmares share the same vision regarding great storytelling. However, the story structure feels a bit uneven which takes the focus away from Kat and Wendell & Wild when the film decides to shift its focus to another form of evil that has plagued the town for years.

There is A LOT to unpack with this film which is a credit to Selick and Peele's screenplay that handles mature and complex themes of death and how greed pushes people to do horrific things. Compared to Selick's other films like The Nightmare Before Christmas & Coraline, the film approaches almost every character's trauma including minor characters which at times can be very interesting but also a bit overwhelming as you want to keep the focus on Kat and her strange relationship between Wendell & Wild as her personal demons. If the story focused on them, her "Hell Maiden" powers, and how she deals with her trauma in a different way compared to others, the film would feel a lot tighter and not all over the place which is very distracting at times throughout the film.

The return of Key & Peele and the glorious stop-motion animation shines the most in this dark twisted fantasy tale which hopefully serves as a comeback for more of this kind of animation in films to come. Kudos to Netflix for taking a chance on this film and bringing together Selick & Peele, a collaboration that hopefully has more films to come as a writing duo.