Posted: 07/26/2006

Monster House

(2006)

by Michael Jones

There is a sweet irony to Monster House. It’s the first kids movie I’ve seen in ages where the term “sassy-mouthed animal” was not a description of any character. Where aside from the title antagonist, the focus lies solely on children instead of adults trying to wedge their own set of humor into a cartoon with drug or celebrity references a ten-year-old wouldn’t pick up (unless your kid is a Dakota Fanning-type who is fully aware of Martin Scorcese’s nebbish personal history when watching Sharktale). Despite its use of cutting-edge motion-capture technology, Monster House is in many ways a throwback the times in a child’s imagination when a creaky stair is more than the house settling.

Set in a nondescript late-seventies suburb, Monster House streamlines 99% of the sort of over-the-top spook stories you told around the campfire before things like the “Mission: Accomplished” made reality more frightening than a haunted house. The kids, standard awkward twelve year-old DJ (voiced by Michael Musso), his standard oafish sidekick Chowder (Sam Lerner) and a standard Lil’ Miss Know-it-all by the name of Jenny (Spencer Locke), encounter paranormal activity from the house across from DJ’s. Not the sort of creaks-and-ghosts tales which most dilapidated homes are saddled with. It’s more like the front-door-is-a-mouth-and-chomps-everything-in-front-of-it story. They chalk it up to the evil powers of the house’s sole occupant, old man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi), but something else possesses the ravenous house aside from a crotchety old coot.

Despite its formulaic plot, Monster House was refreshing more for what it wasn’t than for what it was. It wasn’t full of action figure-friendly minions whose sole purpose was to push product for McDonald’s. It didn’t contain superstar voices that transferred their notoriety to an animal or inanimate object. Oddly enough, Monster House’s best attribute is that it’s a kids movie for kids about kids. Celebrity cameos, like Jon Heder’s braying ass schtick, occupy minimal screen time, and while a more crass film would promote itself as “starring the voice of Napoleon Dynamite,” this film lets its lesser-known actors take center stage.

First-time director Gil Kenan brings an enthusiasm for new angles and focused storytelling that his executive producers (Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg) were known for before they exploded as mega-directors whose names overshadowed their commitment to spinning fantastic yarns. Zemeckis used the same motion-capture technology for Polar Express but overused grown-up stars like Tom Hanks to such an annoying degree that we’re left with a heartfelt tribute to technology more than an adaptation to a beloved children’s story. If there’s one irksome quality to this film, it’s that it was a movie clearly not for the summer, but for the fall, when the film’s autumn landscape and specific Halloween setting would have been best for…um, Halloween. Its PG-frightening antics would have been perfect for a Friday night fall outing for the family, but perhaps the need to get the film prepared for a lucrative holiday season DVD push probably won out over a more ideal theatre release.

Not everyone will be pleased with Monster House. Adults comfortable with the Shrek-style of storytelling will find the film lacking in kitschy charisma. And ultimately, the film’s refusal to be anything but juvenile is its strongest asset.

Michael Jones is a film critic living in the midwest.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com