Monster House

I think that I will switch gears and talk about an animated movie for “Halloween Month.” Yes, there are animated movies that are nice for kids to check out, depending on what it is. I don’t seem to review animated movies much, but today I will. Today’s review….the 2006 animated film, “Monster House.”

It’s great to see what nice voice acting, engaging characters, and beautiful animation can do in a film, isn’t it? When that is all put together, “Monster House” is enough of a horror film to satisfy a horror movie fan, and enough of a children’s film to have them entertained. Felix Vasquez Jr. said in his review, “I admit to writing off “Monster House” upon its arrival, only because while the film is wonderful, the story isn’t exactly original (ahem—Robert Wise’s “The Haunting”, anyone?), but the combination of a strong script, and truly down to Earth characters make “Monster House” a short but very entertaining piece of horror fantasy that reaches down into really human themes of loneliness, death, and puberty.” What you will enjoy about this film is that it’s in the same ballpark with other classics like “The Goonies” and “Monster Squad,” where a small group of kids that are outcasts that take on a daring challenge when no one will come in and help them out.

Then there are the classics: the love interest, our disinclined hero, his obese but comic-relief friend, and a teenage enemy who makes their plans difficult very often. Everything is here, a pattern from the films I mentioned right down into our creatively penniless civilization. DJ is the local kid who sits in front of his window and takes photos of his neighbor across the street, an old man named Mr. Nebbercracker who screams at kids to get off his lawn. One day DJ and his friend, Chowder, are playing basketball, and they lose their ball so DJ becomes brave and tries to get it back off of Nebbercracker’s lawn. Nebbercracker grabs DJ, but then he drops dead. After a few days of Nebbercracker being in the hospital, DJ is positive that the house is possessed, so he decides to go into the house to see what is going on and stop it.

Teaming up with a girl who has been eaten by the house, they decide to take this daring mission on saving the children in their neighborhood before Halloween arrives and a handful of children are eaten. “Monster House” has the feature of being blessed with three amazing performances by its laws. Mitchell Musso is great as DJ who has to find a way to get the house distracted so he can dig right into its core, while Sam Lerner steals much of the show as Chowder. Vasquez admits, “I loved Chowder and I can’t think of a reason why other people won’t.” Wearing a small red cape, Chowder gets himself into all kinds of trouble and quotes every one of the best one-liners.

With a combination of fear, and rich sensitivity, Chowder becomes a noticeable character, and Sam Locke is great as the courageous and clever Jenny, a survivor the house’s anger who decides to team up with DJ and Chowder to get revenge on the house. Of course an animated film could not be complete without an all-star cast. We have voice work done by Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Kevin James, Jason Lee, John Heder, Kathleen Turner, and Steve Buscemi who voices Nebbercracker, while Maggie Gyllenhaal is memorable in her punk rock performance as Z, DJ’s irresponsible babysitter.

Vasquez ends his review by saying, ““Monster House” is an utterly simplistic but hilarious adventure that only a select group of its target audience will find entertainment with, and I don’t recommend bringing along anyone under the age of eight, because the fantastic animation manages to spawn an awfully horrific house that’s more demonic entity and less bricks and wood. I suspect, and hope that “Monster House” will become a Halloween classic, because it’s too fun to be forgotten. Sadly, “Monster House” is too short an experience for what I can consider one of the better animated films I’ve seen in a while.” This might be too scary for toddlers, but “Monster House” will satisfy a lot of the audience because of a great script, amazing performances, and beautiful animation.

If you have kids, then you can show this film to them, depending on whether they can handle scary animated movies. But this is a lot of fun for the whole family to watch. I saw this in the theater with my sister and two younger cousins, and we liked it a lot. I haven’t seen it since then, but if I ever caught it again on TV or rented anytime, I would definitely watch this again. Even if someone asked me to watch it with them, I wouldn’t say no.

Thanks for joining in on today’s entry. Stay tuned tomorrow for more scariness in “Halloween Month.”