The House with a Clock in Its Walls (film)

The House with a Clock in Its Walls is a 2018 American family fantasy film directed by Eli Roth, based on the 1973 novel of the same name by John Bellairs. The film stars Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, and Owen Vaccaro, and follows a young boy who is sent to live with his uncle in a creaky old house. He soon learns it was previously inhabited by a nefarious entity.

Universal Pictures released the film in the United States on September 21, 2018. It has been a box office success, grossing over $130 million worldwide and received moderately positive reviews from critics, who largely praised the cast but said it did not fully live up to its potential.

Plot
After his parents are killed in a car crash, ten-year-old Lewis Barnavelt moves to live with his uncle Jonathan. All he has left of his parents is a Magic 8-Ball they had given him. He meets Jonathan's neighbor and best friend, Florence Zimmerman.

During the night, Lewis is puzzled when he hears a ticking sound in the walls. Lewis begins exploring the house and stumbles upon Jonathan smashing a wall with an ax. Frightened, he runs away and stumbles upon multiple household objects coming to life. Jonathan confesses that he is a warlock and Florence is a witch. The house's previous owners were a sinister warlock named Isaac Izard and his equally wicked wife Selena, who had hidden a clock within the walls of the house before they died. Jonathan has been trying to find it and discover its purpose. Despite Jonathan’s discouragement, Lewis begins teaching himself magic.

On his first day at his new school, Lewis meets Tarby Corrigan, who befriends him in order to win an election for class president. When Tarby wins his election he abandons Lewis.

Lewis’s mother visits him in a dream. When he laments that Tarby does not see him as a friend, she suggests that he use a spell from a forbidden book to impress Tarby. So on Halloween night Lewis performs a necromancy spell in a cemetery, accidentally summoning the ghost of Isaac.

Lewis spies Isaac in the house of a neighbor, Mrs. Hanchett. He brings her to the house, but before he can find Jonathan, Isaac emerges. He reveals that Mrs. Hanchett is really Selena, who killed Mrs. Hanchett and took her place. It was also she who took the form of Lewis’ mother to persuade him to summon Isaac. Isaac explains that that his hidden clock will turn time back so that humanity never existed. Florence, Jonathan, and Lewis run from the house.

Using the' Magic 8-Ball to learn the location of the clock under the boiler room, the three return, but Florence is sidelined, and the Izards transform Jonathan into a half baby-half adult. Lewis consults the Magic 8-Ball, which says "Say goodbye." He realizes he has to let go of the pain of losing his parents to harness his true power. He breaks the clock by dropping the ball into its gears; then, using his own magic, he blasts Isaac and Selena. They fall, de-age, and are ultimately erased from existence.

Lewis returns to school with more confidence, and gets revenge on Tarby and his friends by magically bouncing a basketball on their faces. At the end of the day, Jonathan and Florence are shown picking up Lewis, the three of them now like a regular family.

Cast

 * Owen Vaccaro as Lewis Barnavelt, Jonathan's 10-year old nephew.
 * Jack Black as Jonathan Barnavelt, Lewis's uncle and a warlock.
 * Cate Blanchett as Florence Zimmerman, Jonathan's neighbor and friend and a witch.
 * Kyle MacLachlan as Isaac Izard, an evil warlock
 * Renée Elise Goldsberry as Selena Izard, Isaac's wife and a witch.
 * Sunny Suljic as Tarby Corrigan, a classmate of Lewis.
 * Vanessa Anne Williams as Rose Rita Pottinger, a classmate of Lewis.
 * Colleen Camp as Mrs. Hanchett, Jonathan's nosey neighbor.
 * Lorenza Izzo as Mrs. Barnavelt, Lewis' mother.
 * Eli Roth as Comrade Ivan

Production
Principal photography on the film began on October 10, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the challenges for the visual effects team was building massive 10-foot and 14.5-foot gears for the Clock Room sequence. Another challenge was designing the Jack-o’-lantern characters, which included input from Steven Spielberg on the final designs.

Noah Schnapp auditioned for Lewis' role, but ended up losing to Owen Vaccaro.

Release
The House with a Clock in Its Walls was released by Universal Pictures on September 21, 2018. Select IMAX screenings featured a 3D version of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which only ran for the first week of release in North America.

Home media
The House with a Clock In Its Walls was released for digital download on November 27, 2018, followed by a DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray release on December 18, 2018.

Box office
, The House with a Clock in Its Walls has grossed $68.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $62 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $130.5 million, against a production budget of $42 million.

In the United States and Canada, The House with a Clock in Its Walls was released alongside Assassination Nation, Life Itself and Fahrenheit 11/9, and was projected to gross $15–20 million from 3,592 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $7.8 million on its first day, including $840,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $26.9 million, finishing first at the box office and marking the best opening of Roth's career, surpassing Hostel in 2006 ($19.6 million). In its second weekend the film made $12.5 million, finishing third behind newcomers Night School and Smallfoot.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 186 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "An entertaining PG detour for gore maestro Eli Roth, The House with a Clock in Its Walls is a family-friendly blend of humor and horror with an infectious sense of fun." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars.