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£16 in premium fund, thanks Ciao :-). You can also read my reviews at http://lou-reviews.blogspot.co m/
Member since:25.11.2008
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Monster House has to be one of the strangest films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a computer animated film produced by Spielberg, although I was very surprised when I realised he was one of the producers because it was nowhere near up to his standard.
Synopsis *******
DJ lives directly across from a house which has a very nasty occupant; Mr Nebbercracker hates children and will confiscate any toy that should accidently stray onto his lawn. The atmosphere from the house is so bad, even plants and trees won’t grow there. Rumour has it that Mr Nebbercracker was once married, but he killed his wife, but surely that’s just neighbourhood gossip?
One day when DJ is visited by his friend Chowder, the basketball they’re playing with bounces over the road to the house. After a couple of minutes there’s no sign of Mr Nebbercracker, so DJ takes the chance to retrieve it, but before he can get there Mr Nebbercracker appears and runs toward DJ. Catching up with him he starts to shake the boy, the exertion must be too much for Mr Nebbercracker and he collapses. The ambulance arrives but
as it drives away Chowder remarks that the lack of a siren is never a good sign, and DJ is distraught that he might be a murderer (he blames himself for going onto the property). Later that night DJ receives a phone call, when he presses redial he hears the phone ringing in the house, but how can that be, Mr Nebbercracker is gone.
The next day the boys meet Jenny, who’s selling trick or treat candy, she starts up the path to the house before the boys can stop her, suddenly the house begins to take a new shape and it looks like Jenny will be consumed by the house, luckily the boys rescue her in time. But what’s in the house? The children are determined to find out.
Cast ****
Voices only of course
Steve Buscemi - Nebbercracker Mitchel Musso - DJ Sam Lerner - Chowder Maggie Gyllenhaal -Zee Spencer Locke - Jenny
I’ve never heard of any of these people before, so as far as I’m concerned the film has a no-star cast.
My Thoughts **********
Like I said at the beginning, this is the weirdest film I’ve watched in a long time.
The animation was not great; it was what I’d describe as harsh animation rather than soft, a bit like the difference between the Japanese cartoons and Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry is soft but the sharp angles of the drawings in Japanese cartoons make then very harsh, in the same way the animation here is harsh unlike, for example, Toy Story which would be soft.
The characters were quite realistic in my opinion, DJ was determined to try and act grown up because he thought he was heading to puberty, whereas Chowder was his irritating friend who still acted very childishly, despite being the same age. Then there was Jenny who was a typical girl who managed to organise the boys. After watching my children playing out, I’d say that dynamic was very real indeed. The only one I didn’t find realistic was Elizabeth (or Zee), she was the stereotypical nasty babysitter, and in all my time I’ve never met a babysitter like that.
The film obviously isn’t going to be scary for adults, and I don’t think it’d faze the majority of children, I would say that under 8’s might find it a little scary in places. The most my kids said about it was; at times my daughter said ‘oh freaky’, but they actually laughed more than anything else (there were a few comic moments).
As for the storyline, well it’s a bit strange to say the least, it’s hard to say why without giving the whole game away, but I will say that it makes very little sense at all, and I could think of a million (well maybe not quite that many) other ways that the story could have played out, which would have made far more sense. Plus there was the problem of clichéd characters, the nasty babysitter and her boyfriend, the dumb cops and the resident geek, not that my kids were bothered about that, but when you’ve seen it hundreds of times already it gets a bit wearing.
DVD Extras ******** 7 Featurettes: Imaginary Heroes, Beginners Luck, Lots of Dots, Black Box Theatre, Making it Real, Did you hear that? The best of Friends. Multi Angle Evolution – Eliza v Nebbercracker Filmmaker commentary The Art of Monster House – Photo Gallery The adventure continues online with DVD ROM – Link to exciting games, downloads and activities.
Can’t really say anything about these, because we had a quick look, but none looked particularly interesting.
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CGI animation from executive producers from Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) and ... more
Steven Spielberg in which three teens discover that their neighbour's house is really a living breathing scary monster! Even for a 12-year old D.J. Walters has a p...
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![Monster House [DVD] [2006]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78207555.jpg "Monster House [DVD] [2006]")
Jul 30th, 2009
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