Despite having read Colin Meloy’s Wildwood, and having watched every snippet of video Laika has released about their next animated film, it didn’t occur to me until just now that the story is kind of a sister story to Labyrinth. (Which also recalls Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There; we do love to steal little siblings in stories!) Except it’s no sexy David Bowie spiriting away the little brother of Prue McKeel, but a murder of crows. (An extremely believable bit of wild magic for Portland, where the story is set.)
But still: Prue has to venture into a world unlike the one she knows—and yet not so far away—to get her little brother back. En route, she will meet all kinds of characters and animals, and make her way to a castle of sorts. In this case the castle is Portland’s Pittock Mansion, recreated by hand.
This teaser trailer is so very Portland that one might wonder if the tourism board had a hand in it: the iconic St. John’s Bridge! The waterfront in cherry blossom season! The area around the Saturday Market! I won’t harp on it, but that’s a pretty long bike ride for a kid with her baby brother in tow…