(15 votes, average: 3.47 out of 5)
Loading …Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents Monster House movie review a 2006 film starring Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner and directed by Gil Kenan Three kids DJ (Mitchel Musso), Chowder (Sam Lerner), and Jenny (Spencer Locke) discover that the house across the street from DJ’s is alive. It eats anything that goes on its property. They try to convince the babysitter (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the police, and some weirdo named Skull (Jon Heder). They try to unravel the mystery of the house and they have to go inside to find that the house is voiced by Kathleen Turner. Oh my god, it’s Kathleen Turner! Run for the hills! Anyway, this movie is PG-rated, great for kids, and got two-thumbs up from Ebert & Roeper. 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
Comment by Terri “3kids-at-home”
# January 2, 2007,
My husband rented this DVD tonight, and as my 7, 8, and 11 year old sat glued to the TV screen, they got scared of the old grumpy man that lives in the “Monster House”. He is cranky, and takes toys away from any child who gets in his yard. My son, who watches Jurassic Park with no problem, got scared watching this movie, and held my hand throughout the whole movie! The graphics aren’t very good, with todays technology, you would think the people’s hair would move, like in computerized cartoons, like “Barbie and the Nutcracker”, but it doesn’t. The hair on the characters are like wax, and doesn’t budge, even when the blonde little girl is zooming down the sidewalk on her trike. It reminded me of the old claymation movies with stiff hair. Anyway, if you can get past that, then it was a good kids movie. I would not recommend this movie to the lighthearted, or skiddish type of kid. It is scarey for small children. The end is happy in which the three main characters destroy the house, therefore, saving the neighborhood. I won’t get into details, but this is a must see for Halloween. Kids around six might enjoy this all the way up to adulthood. Other children might get too scared, or have nightmares.
Comment by tvtv3 “tvtv3″
# January 2, 2007,
There are lots of horror movies about haunted houses and some propose the idea of a house (or hotel) actually being alive. However, I believe that MONSTER HOUSE is the first movie ever to give the notion of a living, breathing, house that actually tries to eat people and when provoked literally rises from the ground and starts chasing its victims down. It’s a great idea and works especially well through animation. What makes it even better is that the tale is seen from the point of view of three children and scary things are always more frightening to children.
In MONSTER HOUSE, a neighborhood boy, DJ (Mitchel Musso) becomes distraught after he believes he caused the death of the old crank across the street, Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi). Mr. Nebbercracker was constantly taking kids toys and yelling at people to stay out of his yard. When DJ starts getting phone calls from Mr. Nebbercracker’s house, he believes that Nebbercracker is haunting him. DJ’s best friend, Chowder (Sam Lerner) thinks DJ is overreacting, but after an incident next door when the house tries to eat DJ and Chowder, the friends realize that things are much worse than they imagined. Throw in a cookie-selling red-head, Jenny (Spencer Locke) that both the boys fall for into the mix and together the three children realize that on the eve of Halloween that there’s going to be major problems unless they figure someway to get into the house without getting eaten and destroy it’s heart.
MONSTER HOUSE has some great voice talent from Maggie Gyllenhaal as a slacker babysitter to Kevin James and Nick Cannon as two police officers to Jon Heder as a videogaming pizza delivery flunky to Kathleen Turner as the house itself, Constance. The animation in the film is really well done; it’s extremely vivid and clear, yet not so life-like that one would assume that it is real. Unlike many other children and family animated films, MONSTER HOUSE avoids any allusion to popular culture, fart jokes, and toilet humor. Instead, the film relies upon the strength of its script which is all that it need do (though there are one or two inside winks, for example the little girl on the bicycle is humming the theme to Steven Spielberg’s AMAZING STORIES, a show that Robert Zemeckis directed an episode or two of which helped launch his career).
MONSTER HOUSE is a wonderful original animated family film. Some sequences might be frightening for really young children, but everyone from 7-100 should be able to enjoy this fine picture. I’m curious as to why it was released in the summer and not during the fall, because MONSTER HOUSE would have made for great counter-programming during the late September–October autumn season.
Comment by Jordan “Jordan”
# January 2, 2007,
Spielberg does it again with another great movie, this one being a digital animation with a lot of humor. I have seen some other Spielberg movies (Jurassic Park for example) and most of them were action, but Spielberg pulls it off with a great kid (adults with enjoy too) movie about a Monster House in a neighborhood and a group of friends that live in that neighborhood try to save the neighborhood from it around Halloween.
Mr. Nebbercracker lives in the Monster House, a mean-old cook who yells at everyone if they run on his lawn or anyone who comes near the house really. Then he is taken to the hospital, D.J, the boy that lives right acrossed the street from him alone with the mean baby-sitter while this is happening.
D.J’s best friend is Chowder, a chubby and funny kid. They watch the creepy house and then suspect it is a monster. Then they see a girl by the name of Jenny selling cookies and walking up the the front door of thr Monster House.
D.J and Chowder save her from being eaten by it and that is when the adventure takes off; they try to save the neighborhood from the Monster House!
A Fun and laugh-out film, this movie deserves the attention of critics. This movie is a wonderful family film and lets its charm off on the audience watching it and when they exit the theatre (this happening to me) people saying, “I really liked it.” This is totally worth the watch, not being a rent from Blockbuster or your local library. This movie has amazing graphics, it being high standered. It’s like your actually watching a real film with real people in it! This is highly recommended!
Hope you enjoy!
Jordan
Overall grade* A-