Monster House (film)

Monster House is a 2006 American 3D computer-animated supernatural horror comedy film directed by Gil Kenan in his directorial debut from a screenplay by Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab and Pamela Pettler about a neighborhood being terrorized by a demonic haunted house. Starring the voices of Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke, Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Nick Cannon, Jason Lee, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara and Kathleen Turner, the film features human characters animated using live-action motion capture animation.

Produced by Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, the film was released theatrically by Columbia Pictures on July 21, 2006 to critical and commercial success, grossing $140 million worldwide against a budget of $75 million.

Plot
The parents of 12-year-old D.J. Walters leave town for the weekend, leaving him in the care of his babysitter Zee. D.J. has been spying on his elderly neighbor Mr. Horace Nebbercracker, who confiscates any item landing in his front yard. After D.J.'s best friend Chowder loses his basketball on Nebbercracker's lawn, DJ is caught by Nebbercracker while trying to retrieve it but the enraged homeowner apparently suffers a heart attack and is taken away by ambulance. That night, D.J. gets phone calls from the house with no one there, and eavesdrops on Zee's boyfriend Bones telling Zee about losing his kite in Nebbercracker's lawn when he was younger and that Nebbercracker supposedly ate his wife.

Later, Bones sees his kite in the house's front door but is suddenly devoured by the whole house alive while attempting to retrieve it. Meanwhile, D.J. meets up with Chowder, and the two investigate the house, but retreat when it comes alive and attacks them. The next morning, a girl named Jenny Bennett is selling Halloween candy, to which D.J. and Chowder see her going to the house; they rush out to save her before she gets eaten by it. Jenny then calls police officers Landers and Lister, but they do not believe the trio.

The trio consult Reginald "Skull" Skulinski, supposedly an expert on the supernatural. They learn from him that the house is a rare monster that is created when a human soul merges with a man-made structure and that it can only be killed by destroying its heart. Concluding that the heart must be the furnace, the trio create a dummy containing cold medicine stolen from Chowder's father's pharmacy. Before the dummy reaches the house, Landers and Lister return, thwart their plan and arrest them after Landers finds the stolen cold medicine inside the dummy. The house then eats the two officers and their police car in which D.J., Chowder and Jenny have been locked in.

When the house falls asleep, the trio begins exploring. In the basement, they find a collection of toys accumulated from Nebbercracker's lawn as well as a door that opens to a shrine containing the body of Nebbercracker's late wife Constance the Giantess encased in cement. The house realizes they are inside and attacks them to which D.J., Chowder, and Jenny force the house to vomit them outside by grabbing its uvula. Nebbercracker then arrives alive and reveals that Constance's spirit is within the house and that he did not eat her but instead had given her some of the happiest times in her life. As a young man he met Constance, then an unwilling member of a circus freak show and fell in love with her despite her obesity. One Halloween, as children tormented her due to her size, Constance tried chasing them away but lost her footing and fell to her death in the unfinished basement. Nebbercracker had finished building the house knowing it was what she would have wanted but aware that Constance's spirit made the house come alive, he pretended to hate children in order to protect them.

D.J. tells Nebbercracker it's time to let Constance go, but the house overhears this. Enraged, it breaks free from its foundation and chases the group to a construction site. Nebbercracker attempts to distract the house so he can blow it up with dynamite, but the house notices it and attacks him. Chowder fights it off with an excavator while D.J. is given the dynamite by Nebbercracker. While Chowder distracts the house, D.J. and Jenny climb to the top of a crane and D.J. throws the dynamite into the house's chimney, causing it to explode and release Constance's ghost. D.J. apologizes to Nebbercracker for the loss of his home and wife, but Nebbercracker thanks the trio for freeing him and his wife from being trapped for 45 years. Later that night, children in their Halloween costumes are lined up at the site of the house where Nebbercracker, D.J., Chowder and Jenny help return the toys to their owners. As Jenny's mother picks her up and D.J.'s parents return, Chowder and D.J. go trick-or-treating which they previously felt they were too old for.

As the credits roll, those who were eaten by the house emerge from the basement.

Voice cast

 * Mitchel Musso as D.J. Walters
 * Sam Lerner as Chowder
 * Spencer Locke as Jenny Bennett
 * Steve Buscemi as Horace Nebbercracker
 * Maggie Gyllenhaal as Zee
 * Kevin James as Police Officer Landers
 * Nick Cannon as Police Officer Lister
 * Jason Lee as Bones
 * Jon Heder as Reginald "Skull" Skulinski
 * Catherine O'Hara as Mrs. Walters
 * Fred Willard as Mr. Walters
 * Kathleen Turner as Constance Nebbercracker
 * Ryan Newman as Eliza

Production
The film was shot using performance capture in which the actors performed the characters' movement while linked to sensors, a process pioneered by Robert Zemeckis. A stereoscopic 3-D version of the film was created and had a limited special release in digital 3-D stereo along with the "flat" version. It was also released in approximately 200 theaters equipped with the new RealD Cinema digital 3-D stereoscopic projection. The process was not based on film, but was purely digital. Since the original source material was "built" in virtual 3-D, it created a very rich stereoscopic environment. For the film's release, the studio nicknamed it Imageworks 3D.

Box office
Monster House opened the same day as Clerks II, Lady in the Water and My Super Ex-Girlfriend and grossed $22,217,226 in its opening weekend, ranking number two at the box office. The film ended its theatrical run on October 22, 2006, having grossed $73,661,010 domestically and $66,513,996 overseas for a worldwide total of $140,175,006 against a budget of $75 million.

Critical response
Review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 74% approval rating, based on 158 reviews with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Monster House offers adults and children alike into a household full of smart, monstrous fun." On Metacritic the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Ian Freer of Empire gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, stating "A kind of Goonies for the Noughties, Monster House is a visually dazzling thrill ride that scales greater heights through its winning characters and poignantly etched emotions. A scary, sharp, funny movie, this is the best kids’ flick of the year so far." Jane Boursaw of Common Sense Media also gave it 4 stars out of 5, saying "This is one of those movies where all the planets align: a top-notch crew (director Gil Kenan; executive producers Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis), memorable voices that fit the characters perfectly; and a great story, ingenious backstory, and twisty-turny ending." Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel also gave the film four stars out of five, saying "This Monster House is a real fun house. It's a 3-D animated kids' film built on classic gothic horror lines, a jokey, spooky Goonies for the new millennium." Scott Bowles of USA Today gave the film a positive review, saying that "The movie treats children with respect. Monster's pre-teens are sarcastic, think they're smarter than their parents and are going crazy over the opposite sex. Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle wrote, "It's engineered to scare your pants off, split your sides and squeeze your tear ducts into submission." Michael Medved called it "ingenious" and "slick, clever [and] funny" while also cautioning parents about letting small children see it due to its scary and intense nature, adding that a "PG-13 rating would have been more appropriate than its PG rating." A. O. Scott of The New York Times commented, "One of the spooky archetypes of childhood imagination—the dark, mysterious house across the street—is literally brought to life in “Monster House,” a marvelously creepy animated feature directed by Gil Kenan."

However, the film was not without its detractors. Frank Lovece of Film Journal International praised director Gil Kenan as "a talent to watch" but berated the "internal logic [that] keeps changing.... D.J.'s parents are away, and the house doesn't turn monstrous in front of his teenage babysitter, Zee. But it does turn monstrous in front of her boyfriend, Bones. It doesn't turn monstrous in front of the town's two cops until, in another scene, it does." In a dismissive review, Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote "Alert Harry Potter fans will notice the script shamelessly lifts the prime personality traits of J. K. Rowling's three most important young characters for its lead trio: Tall, dark-haired, serious-minded DJ is Harry, semi-dufus Chowder is Ron and their new cohort, smarty-pants prep school redhead Jenny (Spencer Locke), is Hermione.... [I]t is a theme-park ride, with shocks and jolts provided with reliable regularity. Across 90 minutes, however, the experience is desensitizing and dispiriting and far too insistent."

Awards and nominations
In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Animation Films list.

Video game
A video game based on the film was released by THQ on July 18, 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS.