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Scare Shack
Everybody has some experience with the creepy house down the block. Legend has it that the place is haunted, and even though all the kids know that nobody lives there, the window shades somehow are open one day and closed the next. There's even websites dedicated to all the creepy places that people claim are haunted (scroll about a quarter of the way down the page, and see the high school my sister went to in Drexel Hill). It should be no surprise, then, that this almost universal childhood experience made its way into a movie. The only real head scratcher is why Monster House, a brilliantly balanced family-comedy- meets-horror-film, was released in the middle of the summer and not at Halloween.
The kids so obsessed with the title house are D.J. (voiced by Mitchel Musso), his cape-clad doofus of a best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner), and the object of their pubescent affection, Jenny (Spencer Locke). The house gobbles up everything that touches its property, from tricycles to basketballs to jerk boyfriends voiced by Jason Lee. They believe that it's mean old Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) who's orchestrating the house's poor temper, but as they discover more about it, they learn that the house is a living, breathing beast. Of course, none of the adults believe them, and the kids have to try to defeat the house on their own.
Though the movie never went near Pixar's studios, it embraces the idea that action and visuals for kids can exist in the same place as jokes for adults. Chowder, in particular, is an unforgettable character with some great throwaway lines. Yes, the house upchucks objects when its uvula (a chandelier; the porch's floorboards turn up for teeth and a hallway rug is the tongue) is stimulated, and there are several crude jokes about bodily functions, but there is much more to enjoy in the film. Great side roles voiced by Nick Cannon, Kevin James, and Jon Heder in a role that makes him extremely tolerable serve to augment the already immensely enjoyable action.
The movie might be a bit too scary for the crowd who'd mistake its animation for a "Jimmy Neutron" clone, but should be enjoyable for the tweeners whose age matches that of the protagonists. Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg get nods as executive producers, but probably deserve a good bit of credit for the feel of the movie, as does first-time director Dan Harmon, who keeps the story tight and interesting. It's funny, eerie, and imaginative, and could easily stand next to E.T. or The Nightmare Before Christmas and not be overwhelmed.
Rating: * * * 1/2 of 5
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sjuhawk31) wrote,
