Monster House

Here’s looking at you
Monster House * * * * * Dir: Gil KenanCast: Mitchel Musso, Steve Buscemi (voices)
vijay pawarmailto:pawarbunty_kores@yahoo.coWhat’s it about? It’s Halloween time. 12-year-old DJ’s (Musso) parents go off for a dental convention leaving him in the care of babysitter from hell, Zee (Maggie Gyllenhaal). His only friend is a chubby goofball named Chowder (Sam Lerner). His only pastime is keeping a tab on Old Man Nebbercracker (Buscemi) through his trusty telescope.
Nebbercracker hates kids and any other species that dares to step on his beloved lawn. Now, Old Man Nebbercracker is something of a mystery himself, never leaving the house except to scare off persistent kids. Nebbercracker used to have a wife. Rumour is, he fattened her and ate her up. The old man suffers a heart attack and is taken away in an ambulance.
This is when Nebbercracker’s house comes alive, gobbling anything that ventures onto the lawn. DJ and Chowder are witness to the house’s devourings — a dog and Zee’s boyfriend, Bones. A snobby devil-may-care Westbrook Prep student, Jenny (Spencer Locke) walks up to the house and is promptly saved by DJ and Chowder. DJ decides to take on the house with the help of Chowder and Jenny, armed only with water pistols filled with cough syrup. He thinks it’ll be enough to put the house to sleep.
But the deeper they go, the clearer the truth becomes. Nebbercracker’s dead wife, Constance (Kathleen Turner) is the house. And it’s going to take more than cough syrup to save the neighbourhood.
What’s goodIt was quite something growing up in sleepy suburbs in the 1980s. So what if we never went trick-or-treatin’? It sure was fun back then. The couch wasn’t the be-all and end-all of our existence. We found time to go play games with friends. Venture into empty houses that were supposedly haunted. And who can forget that first crush? That first kiss? It’s quite easy to imagine yourself as DJ. We had pretty much everything kids in the US had, so what if it came to us a year or two later.
That’s what works for Monster House: the familiarity of it all. We’ve all been down that road. Let our imaginations run wild. We’ve had people mock our alien theories, our haunted house stories that seemed good enough only to recant around campfires and so on.
This film uses 3-D motion capture techniques, lending it a feel of the real. Some stars who have lent their voices to characters will be immediately recognised. The dialogues are simple, believable and very, very funny.
What’s bad?Not much, really. The devoured characters coming out of the house during the end credits is a tad too unbelievable. Reports indicate that the film had to incorporate that scene to get a U rating.
What’s that? I’m sure someone other than DJ would see a house come alive. Surely someone would see the house go on a rampage, tearing down everything in its path.
Even when the house is blown up, there’s not so much as an eyebrow raised. However small a town, this wouldn’t go unnoticed. Surely someone at the hospital would notice Nebbercracker come back to his house. It doesn’t happen.
What to do?Remember the 1980s? If you do, you’ll feel right at home, watching this Robert Zemeckis/Steven Spielberg production. Directed by first-timer Gil Kenan, Monster House is a film you should watch with your kids (or the neighbourhood kids, if you please) for the pure joy of revisiting your childhood.
Who doesn’t miss those wonder years? I know I do. Here’s something no other animated feature made this year offers. No talking animals. No hyperactive cars. Just a horror story that kids and adults will love.