Monster House

2006 • 90 minutes

About this movie

Three teens discover that their neighbor's house is really a living, breathing, scary monster, and decide that they must do battle with this mysterious house that threatens anyone who crosses its path. © 2006 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. and GH One LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Ratings and reviews

The concept of this movie is awe-inspiring and truly original; the spirit of a deceased wife possess her husband's house and turning the house into a living breathing monster as her husband fills up his soul with dark grief and vicious anger, and the heroes who will put an end to this catastrophe are a trio of kids who have reached puberty. The people responsible for making this simplistic yet delightful diversion is Steve Starkey (the producer), Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab (the writers), and (Gil Kenan) the director. The craftsmanship for the film is astonishing; it has uneasy instantaneous suspense, it's thorough with amazing concept writing for details, and it's effective with razor-sharp execution. Not to mention that the dramatic sequences (including the climax) are truly thrilling. The camera moves like it's filmed in live-action, even though it's actually not a live-action movie. This movie also plays like a serious movie with human themes like death and puberty. As a mystery movie, the filmmakers are smart enough to keep the story moving until the mystery was solved in the end without dumbing it down to know what was really happening right away. This is a wonderfully paced film with excellent timing for each and every element. The tone especially is very well utilized for the whole movie with raucous sounds during the scary and frantic sequences, quiet yet spooky sounds to create a haunting and creepy atmosphere, and heartful tenderness during the emotional elements. The characters are engaging with strong and realistic characterizations and excellent performances. DJ (Mitch Musso), who reports the exact executions of what he saw, and he will never rest until he ends this neighborhood problem once and for all. Chowder (Sam Lerner) is DJ's friend, and he is really funny with some of his one-liners and he get's easily frightened, but he is a helpful supporting character, Jenny (Spencer Locke) is DJ's love-interest and true friend of him with great intelligence. What's really fun about this trio of youngsters is that they are adventurous, valiant, and smart as they use their heads to figure things out and solve tricky problems, like what's causing the house to be alive and eventually, how to destroy the monstrous house. Bones (Jason Lee) is very amusing as the babysitter's boyfriend. Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) is a stereotypical grumpy elder who is living in nothing but grief-stricken darkness. The main antagonist is Constance (Mr. Nebbercracker's wife). At first, she started out as a woman who despises misbehaving kids causing mischief to her and her property, but then when died, her soul posses Nebbercracker's house, and both Constance and Mr. Nebbercracker bares a grudge against any child or anyone in general or even anything. The animation is absolutely unique and fitting for this movie to add creepiness to the film. The animators used the same technique for "The Polar Express:" motion capture animation, but here, this is very different from the animation used in The Polar Express; the animation is a mixture of realistic motion capture for the actors to perform and bizarre stop-motion animation with quirky details. The animation design of Constance as a house is innovative, with a terrifying appearance and has a creative variety of weapons to do some damage. The score is composed by Douglas Pipes, his score is a really special score; it's a Frankenstein-like hybrid that is across between the musical sounds of Alan Silvestri, Jerry Goldsmith, And Danny Elfman. As for the the composition and emotion of the score, it is a big and effective score at best. This animated film is inappropriate for smaller kids, it's appropriate for kids age 10 and up. In conclusion: with intelligent craftsmanship, engaging characters, and wonderful animation, Monster House is a creative and delightfully raucous family treat that revels in it's own retro-ness of old-fashioned simplicity and the genre of horror and mystery. The way I see it, Monster House is the best animated feature of 2006! Highly Recommended

I saw this movie in theaters when it came out and I was in its target age range. It was a blast. Now, as an adult, I still love this move a lot. It's funny, it's silly, it's surprisingly scary. And the house is a monster. What more could you ask for. 6/5

MY 8 YEAR OLD SON LOVES THIS MOVIE A LOT. I HAD THIS MOVIE ON DVD BUT IT GOT STOLEN YEARS AGO . I FINALLY FOUND IT ON HERE AND ENDED UP BUYING IT FOR MY SON TO WATCH ON HIS LAPTOP OR TABLET OR HIS PHONE EITHER WAY HE'S GOING TO LOVE THIS, AS I'M ALWAYS HAPPY TO SEE HIM HAPPY. LOVE YOU BABY BOY... A HUNDRED STARS FOR MAKING THIS MOVIE AND MAKING MY BABY HAPPY TOO......