The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Fun is in the house

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 12, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Fun is in the house

Monster House (English)

Director: Gil Kenan

Cast: Steve Buscemi, Mitchell Musso, Spencer Locke, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sam Lerner

In a year of largely gimmicky, fairly shallow animation features, Monster House comes at just the right time, restoring one's faith in the genre and doing it with such deliciously creepy oomph.

Created with the latest motion-capture animation, the film sets three real pre-adolescents against that mother of all horror movie archetypes, the creepy house.

With every figure of authority either missing, already eaten by the house or refusing to believe them, the threesome must take on the monster house and destroy it before it eats all the children who come to it trick-or-treating.

What is most noticeable is its dedication to the adrenaline rush; at a rather short 89 minutes, the film packs in punch after punch that is guaranteed to keep even the most hyperactive 10-year-old glued to his seat.

Once the main plot sets in, it is one long breathless ride, but not without droll moments that are as funny to adults as they are to children.

When Jenny (Spencer Locke), the girl in the trio, surmises that the chandelier must be the house's uvula, Chowder (Sam Lerner) (who you're sure to relate to some kid from your own life) retorts: "So it's a GIRL house."

Although directed by Gil Kenan, the film bears the unmistakable stamps of Executive Producers Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, converting the sleepy suburbs into a place of great excitement and creating a childhood that is full of awe and fear, but never becomes too scary to handle. But Kenan holds his own too with a combination of long flowing scenes that truly delight the senses and fascinating camera angles that get the pulse racing. The film is far too frightening for young children, but anyone over the age of nine should enjoy this film.

R.M.

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