Review of Monster House (2006) by Catherine S — 29 Oct 2011

"Monster House welcomes kids and adults alike into a household full of smart, monstrous fun." Yeah, newsflash everyone, Monster House is none of those things. While it's a good effort to try to create a darker, animated kids story, it fails by being filled with cookie-cutter, unlikable characters, a lack of scares, and dated visuals.

Mitchel Musso stars as DJ, a kid who lives across the street from the creepy old man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi), who lives in a house that's supposedly haunted. After Nebbercracker is knocked unconscious from a heart-attack, the house comes to life, with a plan to kill DJ and his dim-wit friend Chowder (Sam Lerner), as well as consume all the other kids in the neighborhood. So it's up to DJ, Chowder, and the obvious love interest of the story Jenny (Spencer Locke) to discover the mysterious and dark background of the house before Halloween Night, when the house has ample time to consume every little kid in one go.

The idea of the movie is applaudibly good, and I think if executed properly this could've turned out really good. And the background of the house is creepy, but also legitimately sad as well. The problem Monster House befalls from is its characters. DJ is fine as the main character, and Jenny is bland but passable, but it all falls on Chowder. I don't know whether to call it genius satire of the annoying friend of the main character in horror movies (you know, the one that gets killed off mid-way through the movie, usually in a terrible way.), or just the epitamy of annoying characters in cinema. Jar Jar Binks can't even think to top the annoying motives of Chowder, who is so annoying he can only be beat by Pauly Shore as one of the most obnoxious beings in Hollywood. The adults are stupid, just like every kids' movie nowadays, so I'm not even going to mention them though I will say they're a bag of annoyance as well. The animation has definitely aged over five years, and this hurts the credibility of the film. Really, the only bit that hasn't aged is the house itself, which still looks legitimately scary.

I remember seeing this when it came out, and possibly because I was much younger and hadn't discovered good scary movies, I thought this thing was a masterpiece or scary cinema. But now, being a little older, it just doesn't hold up in either end of the spectrum. It's just an annoying movie that I can't really recommend to anyone. (Real rating: 41%).