We had an absolute blast last weekend attending the world premiere of WONDER PARK at the Regent Village Theatre in Westwood. In addition to your typical star-studded red carpet affair, the area outside the theatre was transformed into a huge carnival! We played games for WONDER PARK prizes, got glitter tattoos, took a million photos and stuffed our faces with pizza and cotton candy that was as big as our heads! Altogether, it worked perfectly to get us in the mood for this fun animated film.

WONDER PARK is a delightful story of love, hope and perseverance. June (voiced by newcomer Brianna Denski) is a daring 8-year-old girl with a knack for engineering. June and her mother (Jennifer Garner) have been using her skills and wild imagination to construct a fantastic miniature theme park, ‘Wonderland,’ together in June’s bedroom. They cherish their time spent working on it, creating blueprints for wacky and magical rides such as ‘The Fantastic Fish Carousel’ and ‘The Skyflinger.’ June’s mom nurtures her talent and tells her she “can create anything she can imagine.”

Unfortunately, June takes that statement a little too literally, leading a team of neighborhood kids in building a makeshift roller-coaster in their backyards, and causing quite a ruckus. It’s shortly after this that WONDER PARK gets pretty heavy. And by heavy, I mean I definitely shed a few tears. We find out that June’s mother is very sick, and needs to go away for treatment. Understandably, June begins to withdraw from the things she used to love, tearing her Wonder Park apart and putting it into storage. Eventually, June’s father coaxes her out of the house to attend a summer math camp.

It’s when June runs away from the camp to make sure her father is ok at home without her that she stumbles upon something astonishing. The amusement park she and her mother had dreamed up has become real! Real, but in shambles and threatened by unexplained darkness. The Wonder Chimps have turned into Chimpanzombies (yes, ChimpanZOMBIES! – this was really fun for us horror fans) and they’re tearing Wonder Park apart piece by piece! Aided by the animal staff (inspired by her collection of stuffed animals), June must fight against all odds to save the magical world she created.

From Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies, WONDER PARK is a daring, sweet and inspiring animated romp. It features a stellar voice cast that includes Garner and Denski, as well as Mila Kunis, Matthew Broderick, Norbert Leo Butz, John Oliver, Kenan Thompson, Ken Jeong and Ken Hudson Campbell. While it has a few scary and dark moments – sick parent, scary action and fight scenes, ZOMBIES! –  it will still be suitable, and enjoyable, for the whole family. Now, I’ll just be here waiting for someone to build the Skyflinger in real life!

WONDER PARK arrives in theaters tomorrow, March 15th.

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Sara Kinne

Co-Owner at The Haunt List

Sara is a contributing writer for Nightmarish Conjurings and a horror, haunt and Halloween geek. On the off-Halloween season she makes a point to attend any escape rooms, immersive events, and pop-ups that she can get to. She works as an artist manager and has spent the last 12 years navigating the ups and downs of the music business. She loves nearly anything with a great theme (including her favorite place, Disneyland) and is a proud parrot mother.

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