'Wendell & Wild' review: Shock-filled animation is a cold and dark ride

This film has the creepiness of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' fused with the girl-power of 'Coraline' but for less pay-off than either. – Photos: Netflix

This is a film that isn't afraid to lean into the darkness, one frame at a time.

In the first five minutes of Wendell & Wild, our teen heroine loses her parents in a car accident, her town is economically gutted and she ends up in the back of a prison bus, her legs shackled and her hands cuffed.