Henry Selick’s Monkeybone: a live-action stop-motion experiment

Known for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, Henry Selick tried something different 25 years ago with Monkeybone: a primarily live-action film that mixes stop-motion, puppetry and computer effects. The movie follows cartoonist Stu Miley as a coma sends his soul to Down Town, a limbo populated by strange creatures and the mischievous cartoon Monkeybone.

Stu, played by Brendan Fraser, watches as his creation Monkeybone (voiced by John Turturro) becomes a problem: after the soul-world issues an exit pass, Monkeybone sneaks back and takes over Stu’s body. Whoopi Goldberg appears as Death and helps Stu inhabit a reanimated corpse (Chris Kattan) to try to stop the chaos, while supporting turns include Bridget Fonda, Giancarlo Esposito and Bob Odenkirk.

The film’s production design offers real pleasures. Monkeybone’s stop-motion form and the hand-shaped island of Down Town carry Selick’s visual flair, and Esposito’s half-goat Hypnos and Kattan’s physical comic work stand out as memorable elements.

henry selick, monkeybone, stop-motion, live-action, brendan fraser, john turturro, whoopi goldberg, down town, giancarlo esposito, coraline