Monster House

Monster House (2006)

Directed by: Gil Kenan
Written by: Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, Pamela Pettler
Voices of: Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke, Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Lee, Jon Heder, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard

I don't ordinarily watch animated pics, leastways not the little kiddie ones. I have, on occasion, gone on anime binges, but that's an entirely different thing right there. But hey, this is like a horror movie for little kiddies. I think they should make more of them. In fact, I think they should start adapting regular horror movies into animations. They made an animated version of The Passion for God's sake, why not, like, Hostel?

Anyway, this is about a house that's alive. It's a live and it's angry and when it's owner leaves it starts eating people. Turns out that the wife of the owner died while the house was being built and her nutso spirit became part of it. Or something. So it's up to a band of kids to destroy it before Halloween.

The movie was okay, like I said, it was a good idea and I think they should really keep making stuff like it. However, I had the following problems.

#1: The animation was done with computers. I believe in traditional animation, preferably stop motion, but regular animation is also acceptable. Stop motion not only looks cool, but it takes forever, so even if the movie's no good, you have to admire the people involved.

The animation also didn't look very nice. The people were all lumpy and gross looking. Sure, they did one or two things you couldn't do with live action people (although with everyone so frigging CG-happy they could have just animated those parts anyway) but it would have looked a lot better.

#2: There were some pretty big name celebrities involved. Why? They cost more and you aren't even going to see them. I didn't recognize any of them (my friends got Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard, but I didn't know Steve Buscemi was in it until a day or so after I saw it). Not only are their voices not particularly distinctive, but they're also putting professional voice actors out of business.

#3: The house was totally bogus. I mean, come on. The part where it uproots it self and chases people down the street was a little bit over kill. It couldn't just be a subtle mellowed out haunted house movie (I know, I know, kids wouldn't appreciate the subtlety, but I think they would. It would make them more interesting people, and they would thank you for it when they got older. Or, better yet, don't let children watch television at all! It will build character!).

The characters in this were okay, and there were one or two moderately funny lines, but it had that dinky thing going on. You know, where everything ends up just fine and dandy. That bugged me. Why can't they make children's movies with real value? They do, actually, but not always.

Anyway, it was only mildly irksome. I have no idea if kids would enjoy it or not.

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