Out of the box: Unpack the slightly twisted 'Boxtrolls'
What's this ‘Boxtrolls' about?
A boy raised by little underground monsters is probably going to need a makeover at some point.
In the stop-motion animated film “The Boxtrolls,” an adaptation of Alan Snow's children's book “Here Be Monsters!,” the human Eggs (voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright) lives beneath the British town of Cheesebridge with his beastly family of Boxtroll brethren. When an evil exterminator (Ben Kingsley) moves to wipe out the pesky creatures beneath the burg, Eggs decides he needs to finally venture into the sunlight and enlists the help of young Winnifred (Elle Fanning) to get him ready.
Fish, one of the senior Boxtrolls, acts as Eggs' surrogate father figure, says “Boxtrolls” co-director Graham Annable, “and we needed a character from the above-ground world to be his conflicted mentor.”
Winnie and her family are specific characters created “so that we could condense the prejudices and fears of the above-ground world into one family,” the film's co-director Anthony Stacchi says.
Annable viewed Winnie as Eggs' navigator through the upper world.
“She has her own take about what it's all about,” he says. “She guides Eggs through a lot of the social niceties, and they have this wonderful chemistry between the two of them bumping their way through Cheesebridge.”
Snow loves Charles Dickens, according to Stacchi, and a lot of Dickens' main characters such as Oliver Twist don't drive the story as much as they are, instead, symbolic of being virtuous.
In contrast, Stacchi says, Eggs was designed to “make more decisions in his life and bump up against characters he has conflict with. When we created Winnie to represent the prejudices of the above-ground world, that's when the story really clicked together.”
Who's who in the Boxtrolls world
Boxtrolls: Sub-species of usual trolls, they have a great interest in anything mechanical and live in boxes because they are shy.
Cabbageheads: They live underground and generally are considered the hard-working bees of the underworld.
Cheeses: Wild English Cheeses live in bogs and eat grass by night.
Fresh-water sea-cows: Living in drains and canals, they are friendly and great mothers.
Crows: Very intelligent, but with odd tastes in music and conversation topics.
The Man in the Iron Socks: A mysterious figure who carries a heavy “Walloper.”
The members of the Ratbridge Cheese Guild: Evil characters who rigged the Cheese market.
Trotting badgers: Fast, dangerous and unpleasant, they also stink.
Write on!
English author Alan Snow has written and/or illustrated more than 160 children's books. He first created the world of the Boxtrolls in “Here Be Monsters! The Ratbridge Chronicles, Volume 1,” which was published in 2005 in the United Kingdom and 2006 in the United States.
The book, a mix of fantasy and adventure, has more than 500 black-and-white illustrations by Snow. It is set in the fictional English town of Ratbridge. There have been subsequent books involving the residents of Ratbridge: “Going Under,” “The Worst Goo in the World,” “Cheezilla” and “Worse Things Happen at Sea: A Tale of Pirates, Poison and Monsters.”
The original book is available in a trilogy of shorter novels: “Pants Ahoy!,” “The Man in the Iron Socks” and “Cheese Galore!”
Another series of his books tries to explain some common things in our lives — “How Dogs Really Work,” “How Cats Really Work” and “How Santa Really Works.”
He told The Guardian newspaper that he's “waited with delight (and a little trepidation) to see what would happen” with the film. “Seeing the characters and the world of the Boxtrolls made solid by other artists is more than odd. It's like having a dream but knowing that there is a parallel universe outside of the dream which is slightly different.”
Trolling the site
Adults can spend way too much office time exploring the games and activities on The Boxtrolls website.
An entire half-hour lunch can be expended exhausting a drummer, running mazes and pulling levers to help Eggs get away from the Exterminators.
Each segment of that interactive adventure game offers a behind-the-scenes button that provides an in-depth education in another area of the art and craft of stop-motion animation, from drawings to camera-ready scenes and characters.
Straightforward but attractive games like Beat Box and Dumpster Dive challenge skills such as memory and hand-eye coordination, where computer game-savvy youngsters may have the advantage.
For those who still prefer their interaction in a more tangible form, there's a Print and Play section with puzzles, a coloring book and make-it projects such as a cardboard cellphone case and your very own Boxtrolls candy box.
Introduce your boss to the site — theboxtrolls.com/page/games — and she might let you have the afternoon off to go see the movie.
Will you buy it?
You, too, can own your own Boxtrolls keepsake.
Several websites are offering Funko Pop characters (those ones with huge heads) from “The Boxtrolls” — Eggs, Shoe and Fish for $10.99 each.
There are also Boxtrolls-inspired items available on Esty.com, such as necklaces for $26 and crocheted characters for $4.95.
T-shirts with a colorful image of a Boxtroll on the front can be found on eBay starting at $9.99, as well as a personalized Boxtrolls tote bag for $14.39 and a hoodie for $24.49 with “Here Be Monsters!,” based on the book by the same name.
Creepy kid flicks
Whether it's ghostly girls, creepy creatures or reanimated dogs, most kids love a good scare. There's a reason all those Goosebumps books (and TV show) were so popular.
The mayhem from the early '80s “Gremlins” and “Ghoulies” has given way to a plethora of live-action, animated and stop-motion frights in recent years.
Laika Entertainment, the production company behind “The Boxtrolls,” had success in 2009 with the stop-motion film “Coraline,” based on a Neil Gaiman book about a young girl and the sinister secrets in her new house, and 2012's animated feature “ParaNorman,” in which a boy who sees ghosts works to save his town from a centuries-old curse.
Disney's gotten into the act with live-action movies based on two popular rides, “Tower of Terror” (1997) and “The Haunted Mansion” (2003) with Eddie Murphy.
Tim Burton offered his brand of creepy, starting with the live-action “Beetlejuice” (1988), before switching to stop-motion in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993), “Corpse Bride” (2005) and “Frankenweenie” (2012), in which young Victor brings his dog Sparky back to life.
If you've got a taste for monsters, there's the animated “Monster House” from 2006, which has the neighborhood scary house gobbling up passers-by, and “Monster Squad” (1987), which pits all your favorite scary characters against some teen horror-movie geeks.
Misunderstood monsters
Sure, they might be kind of funny-looking and, maybe, indulge in some seriously odd behavior, but does that make them monsters?
The Boxtrolls are not alone in their undeserved bad rep. Many fictional characters have inadvertently come across as scary, mean, even malicious by misunderstanding townsfolk.
Take Shrek, for example. Sure, the surly ogre had some personality problems at first, but under that gruff exterior was a heart as big as ... a really big onion.
Then, there's Sully and Mike Wazowski of the “Monsters, Inc.” world. Their mission, at first, was to scare children to generate energy, but funnyman Mike discovered the real power was in getting kids to laugh.
Or the Beast, from “Beauty and the Beast.” Again, perhaps not the most even-tempered, but a good guy in the end. The Hunchback, Casper, E.T. — all seemingly scary to those on the outside, but beloved in viewers' hearts.
Even Jack Skellington from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” ended up a wanted man simply for trying to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year.
Build a better Boxtroll
The Imagination Foundation is sponsoring The Boxtrolls Cardboard Challenge, a chance for kids to get creative by constructing their own Boxtroll. The foundation has been hosting events in cities across the country — the Pittsburgh event was last weekend at the Carnegie Science Center.
But the Boxtrolls-building will continue through Sept. 28 on Twitter and Instagram.
Children are encouraged to make their own Boxtroll and share it for a chance to win an “Imaginational Box” for creative play that includes an Apple iMac, an iPad Air, Microsoft Office, The Print Shop and Kid Pix software, a $500 DiscoveryStore.com gift card and a $1,000 Michael's Arts & Crafts gift card.
Enter by creating a Boxtroll and submitting a photo of it on Twitter or Instagram using #TheBoxtrollsCC. Entries must be received by Sept. 28.
