Product Description

Even for a 12-year old, D.J. Walters has a particularly overactive imagination. He is convinced that his haggard and crabby neighbor Horace Nebbercracker, who terrorizes all the neighborhood kids, is responsible for Mrs. Nebbercracker's mysterious disappearance. Any toy that touches Nebbercracker's property, promptly disappears, swallowed up by the cavernous house in which Horace lives. D.J. has seen it with his own eyes! But no one believes him, not even his best friend, Chowder. What everyone does not know is D.J. is not imagining things. Everything he's seen is absolutely true and it's about to get much worse than anything D.J could have imagined.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8500 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2006-10-24
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
The spooky shadows and eerie creaking of a rickety old house are brought to life via lush CGI in Monster House. A young boy named DJ has suspicions about the house across the street and the cranky old man (voiced by Steve Buscemi, Fargo) who lives there. When the old man has a heart attack and is carried away by an ambulance, DJ thinks the danger is over. Unfortunately, as he, his friend Chowder, and a candy-selling prep-school girl named Jenny discover, the house itself has plans--plans that include eating all the kids who'll be trick-or-treating that Halloween night. Monster House begins with some deliciously creepy scenes that will send chills down children's spines (and may be too intense for younger viewers); animated movies rarely make such effective use of what isn't being shown. The animation is vivid and detailed (though CGI still has a ways to go in capturing the full range of human facial expressions). But like most horror movies, the anticipation of horror is much more exciting than the horror itself; as the secrets of Monster House are revealed, the movie's thrills unravel. The noisy explosions at the end aren't half as much fun as the slow twitches of a few blades of grass in the movie's elegant beginning. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

The House is Alive With the Sound of Screaming
I just saw this film today (after missing out on a sold out sneak preview last weekend) and the increased level of expectation was met with one of the most rewarding moviegoing experiences I've had in the last five years. Monster House gives us one doozy of a spooky antagonist, a decrepit domicile of living malice that gobbles errant toys and passerby with equal ingenuity and viciousness.

The house is plain old MEAN, and for really small children perhaps a little too scary to take in a gigantic room filled with strangers and darkness. But for those of us who are too grown up for a nighlight this is perfect, creepy entertainment.

The same motion capture technology used to create The Polar Express (a film which I have still yet to see) is a very interesting and appropriate choice for this film, where the only truly fantastic element is the demented house that will not suffer trespassers. It works so well because the eerie realism that depicts the characters is so starkly contrasted with the insanity that ultimately drives the Monster House to be, well, so monstrous.

Now I fully expected to be entertained by the antics of the house, but I didn't expect there to be much of a story. Again I was pleasantly surprised by what I think is a script that I believe is just as worthy of an Oscar nomination as the script for The Incredibles was. There is, beneath the floorboards of this film, more heart than horror. A tale of love, retribution, acceptance, forgiveness, and ultimately letting go.

Monster House is, beyond a doubt, one of the coolest Horror movies for kids ever made. A Halloween tradition in the making that dares to answer that age old question: Can a house be haunted?

The answer is a resounding yes with a disquieting post script.

Whatever is haunted may also be hungry!

good tricks for kids and a treat for their parents
Monster House uses the same motion-capture technology as Zemeckis' Polar Express but takes it to the next level. This time around, the whole context of the movie will appeal to a wider audience so this is a great opportunity to display the possibilities that this all digital technology offers.

Beyond the technical achievement, Monsterhouse is an excellent surprise for its family-oriented audience. Unlike Dreamworks and their Shrek-ish, below-the-belt, cynically adult-oriented features, this movie aims at both the kids and grown-ups in a way that tends to unite them around its subject, rather than addressing the two categories separately and alternatively.

To kids, this will be their first experience of an actual horror flick: the house IS seriously haunted and this is definitly no Casper-like curse. Lives are at stake here and the line between good and evil is not so strictly defined.
Some aspects of the plot have a very macabre touch, still a bittersweet feeling comes in balance towards the end.
A real implication is required from the kids, especially because a few thrills awaits them once the house has awaken.

On the parents' side, besides the fact that for those like me who grew up with the Amblin productions of the eighties (The Goonies, The Gremlins and co), you are in for a great back-to-the-future nostalgic trip. Not only because the action takes place in the 80's (various hints lead to believe it)but because the whole atmosphere, the characters, the humour will either make you wish you could still be 5 to 10 years old to fully dive into this nightmarish story, or simply will make you forget you've grown older and make you actually feel like you're a kid again.

So thank you Mr Zemeckis and Mr Spielberg for producing this little gem, which, though it draws its inspiration from a classic tradition of haunted mansion archetypes, never fails to find its own identity and energy.

In a nutshell: great style and screenplay, technically impressive and very concerned about offering a satisfying show to the audience.

This Old House
As studio execs continue to milk the cash cow that is the CG animated feature, MONSTER HOUSE is refreshing on two fronts; firstly, we see a departure from cutesy animals/toys in peril, and secondly, it's good!

I would imagine that fellow kids-at-heart who grew up in the eighties with INDIANA JONES and THE GOONIES will feel right at home with D.J., Chowder, and Penny; all characters we've met and identified with before in other movies. The focus is on story and character interaction, and thankfully there's a complete lack of "Gee! Look what we can do with computer graphics!" We're not subjected to nauseating shaky-cam and rapid cuts of other recent kid flicks - this movie looks beautiful, and the animators allow you to appreciate it. Not surprisingly, the most interesting characters are Nebbercracker and The House. There's a good story here, ultimately with unexpected warmth and heart.

Is it aimed at the right age group? That's debatable. More sensitive kids may find it too scary. It's loud at times, there's a few in-your-face frights, and the tension builds quickly. Beyond the genre setting, there are a number of more mature themes present which parents should be aware of, notably alcohol usage and sexual themes when the babysitter and her boyfriend are on-screen. I could knock off a star for these points given the target audience, but they didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the movie.

I highly recommend MONSTER HOUSE to animation lovers, big kids at heart, and little kids with a big kid to hide behind.