Move over, Paranormal Activity. It’s time for the animated ParaNorman to start scaring up some attention ahead of its 2012 release. The first official trailer for Chris Butler and Sam Fell’s adventure-comedy has hit the Web (via Yahoo Movies), setting up the story of a young boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee of Let Me In and The Road) who can talk to the dead. Now he has to protect his small town from a centuries-old curse. Take a look below or in HD over on Yahoo!:

That song you hear is "Season of the Witch" by Donovan and it’s just ideal for the material. I didn’t even notice until halfway through the teaser that there wasn’t any dialogue and they were just relying on the song. Butler and Fell worked on Henry Selick’s Coraline and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and you can see the gothic influences though the animation is their own.

This will be their feature film debut, and they’ve landed some big names for vocal casting. In addition to Smit-McPhee, ParaNorman boasts the voices of John Goodman, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Jeff Garlin, Leslie Mann and Broadway legend Elaine Stritch. It won’t be in theaters until August 2012, so this truly is a teaser. But it gives us an idea of what’s in store, and so far, I’m intrigued.