Monster House (film)

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Monster House
Promotional Poster For Monster House
Directed by	Gil Kenan
Produced by	Robert Zemeckis Steven Spielberg Jack Rapke Steve Starkey
Written by	Dan Harmon Rob Schrab Pamela Pettler
Starring	Mitchel Musso Sam Lerner Spencer Locke Steve Buscemi Maggie Gyllenhaal Kathleen Turner
Music by	Wesley Pipes
Cinematography	Paul C. Babin
Editing by	Adam P. Scott
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	July 21, 2006
Running time	1 hr. 31 minutes
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Monster House is an Academy Award-nominated 2006 computer animated suspense film released on July 21, 2006. The film's characters are animated primarily utilizing performance capture, making it the second film to use the technology so extensively, following producer Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express.

Contents 1 Release 1.1 Digital 3-D version 1.2 Premiere 2 Plot 3 Characters 4 Production 4.1 Voice cast 4.2 Performance capture 4.3 Music 5 Reception 5.1 Worldwide Ratings 5.2 Box office 6 DVD Release 7 Trivia 8 References 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Release

In a Columbia press release distributed the company's New York City headquarters, at an early-May 2006 screening of the film's first half, the voice cast was listed as including Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Jason Lee, Catherine O'Hara, Kathleen Turner, and Fred Willard.

Director Kenan won the UCLA Spotlight Award for his live-action/animated horror-fantasy short The Lark. On the basis of that film, he was signed by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) upon graduation. Kenan also garnered a 2001/02 British Academy Fellowship and the 2001/02 Lew Wasserman Fellowship in Film Production. Following Monster House, Kenan began developing The City of Ember, adapted by screenwriter Caroline Thompson from the Jeanne DuPrau book, for Walden Media and Playtone.

The movie has no relation to the Discovery Channel series also called Monster House.

This film was rated PG ("Parental Guidance Suggested") by the MPAA for scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some brief crude humor and language.

Taglines:

• There Goes The Neighborhood.
• Get ready to cross over to the other side... of the street.
• Welcome to the Fun House!
• Three Kids. One House. It's Alive.

[edit] Digital 3-D version

As with The Polar Express, a stereoscopic 3-D version of the film has been created and is expected to have a limited special release in digital 3-D stereo along with the "flat" version. While The Polar Express was produced for the 3-D IMAX 70mm giant film format, Monster House will be released in approximately 200 theaters equipped for new REAL D Cinema digital 3-D stereoscopic projection. The process is not based on film, but is purely digital. Since the original source material was "built" in virtual 3-D, it creates a very rich stereoscopic environment, and with many months of lead time, it might surpass the 3-D effect of even The Polar Express. For the film's release, the studio nicknamed it Imageworks 3D.

For more info on the 3D technology used for SONY Imageworks Monster House, visit: www.reald.com

[edit] Premiere

Monster House premiered in North America at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 15, 2006. Before the theatrical release, it could also be watched on Blu-Ray Disc on a running PlayStation 3 prototype at the E³ 2006.

[edit] Plot

The story of Monster House revolves around a preteen boy, Douglas J. "DJ" Walters (Mitchel Musso), who is sure that there is something strange going on in the house across the street. This house in question is well known by the children throughout the neighborhood as a house to avoid at all costs. It is owned by a crotchety mean old man by the name of Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi), who is infamous for seizing anything that lands on his property.

The film starts with a young girl riding her tricycle through the leaves, singing to herself. She accidentally rides onto Mr. Nebbercracker's lawn, and her tricycle gets stuck. Mr. Nebbercracker comes out, shouting for her to get off his lawn and for some reason asking if she'd rather get eaten alive, and the girl pedals harder, but her tricycle won't move. She gets scared and jumps off, but wants to go back for her tricycle. Mr. Nebbercracker picks up her bike and rips the front wheel cleanly off. She starts crying and runs away. DJ has watched the whole thing through his telescope and runs outside to tell his parents (Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard), but they're leaving town for the weekend to attend a dental convention. Charlie "Chowder" (Sam Lerner), a chubby teenage boy who is DJ's best friend, has been saving up all his money to buy a basketball, and he decides to break in his new basketball with DJ. Chowder is obsessed with Halloween. While playing with the ball it lands in Mr. Nebbercracker's lawn. When DJ tries to recover the ball for Chowder, thinking that Mr. Nebbercracker might be asleep; Mr. Nebbercracker suddenly appears and grabs DJ, lifting him off the ground, screaming. Soon, though, Mr. Nebbercracker goes pale and collapses on DJ. Mr. Nebbercracker seems to die on the spot, causing DJ to feel responsible for his apparent death. While Nebbercracker is being carried away by the paramedics, he drops a gold key on his lawn, which DJ scoops up.

Right afterwards, DJ's apathetic Punk babysitter Elizabeth (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who refuses to be referred to as anything but "Zee", arrives. Despite DJ's insistence that he can take care of himself, DJ is sent to his room after Zee demonstrates her power over him. Later, in the middle of the night, DJ's phone rings, and he answers, getting nothing in reply but deep, throaty breathing. He hangs up, and the phone rings again inhumanly quickly. Getting only creaking on the other end, DJ dials *69 to return the call. He can hear the phone ringing in Nebbercracker's house. Immediately afterwards, Zee's boyfriend, Bones (Jason Lee), comes over to the house, freaks DJ out by scaring him, and rips apart one of his toys. He and Zee laugh at DJ. DJ contacts Chowder, and they agree to meet at a construction lot. He overhears Zee and Bones talking about Nebbercracker. Bones mentions a kite that Nebbercracker took from him when he was ten years old, that he once saw Nebbercracker speaking to his house "and kissing it", and of a legend around town that Nebbercracker fattened up his wife and ate her. He then pounces on Zee. Zee then kicks Bones out, saying that he has no respect for women. When he leaves, he goes over to Mr. Nebbercracker's house and rants at it while stepping on the lawn and ripping the grass off it. Suddenly, a kite appears at the door. Recognising it as his long-lost kite, he attempts to retrieve it, only to be swallowed up by the house.

DJ and Chowder meet at the construction site. Chowder seems to be fascinated by what DJ is saying, but is distracted by a nearby backhoe, which has its keys left inside. He tries to turn it on but freaks out by his lack of control. DJ and Chowder go to the house that night and Chowder crawls across the lawn. He runs into a bottle that Bones had thrown earlier that possibly prompted the house to eat Bones. The lawn swallows the bottle quickly. Chowder goes up to the house, imitates Mr. Nebbercracker, and tries to ring its doorbell and run, but the house comes to life and attempts to eat Chowder. They run across the road and spend the rest of the night in DJ's room watching the house until 8:30 in the morning. The house shows no detectable movement all night. Zee comes up after buying some Halloween chocolates from a girl named Jenny (Spencer Locke). Zee is disgusted when DJ informs her they "haven't left the room all night. Not even to go to the bathroom. Don't drink that," indicating a bottle that Zee picked up.

Across the road, a girl named Jenny is going to Mr. Nebbercracker's house to sell chocolates. The boys plead her to run away, but to no avail. The house sends her and her wagon of chocolate soaring into the air, using its sidewalk to do so. DJ and Chowder manage to catch Jenny before she is eaten by the house. Zee comes across the road with a phone and asks for Chowder, mentioning that his dad wanted him to call. Chowder takes the phone, frustrated. Zee asks after Bones, but hears that he has been eaten. Zee doesn't believe this; she drives off, searching for her boyfriend. DJ is left alone with Jenny. The two go up into DJ's room, where Chowder, on the phone and trying to impress Jenny, pretends to tell his father (who has already hung up) to kiss his hairy butt. Jenny looks out the window and sees a small dog sniffing on the lawn. The dog is about to mark its territory when the house quickly snatches the dog up in its entrance carpet and devours it. Jenny, shocked, decides to send for the police. The police officers Landers and Lester (Kevin James and Nick Cannon respectively) do not believe their story, mainly because the house, knowing that it would be unwise to devour anything in front of the police, does not react when DJ hops around on its lawn in an attempt to prove their story to the police. The three children realize that, as Halloween is that night, hundreds of children are going to march up to the front door, and likely be eaten alive.

The children then go to the house of a video-game addict nicknamed Skull (Jon Heder). From him, they learn that the house is actually a monster known as "domus mactibilis" (deadly home in Latin), which is created when a human soul merges with a man-made structure, such as a house. From this, they then come to a conclusion, the house is Nebbercracker back from the dead. They find out that the only way to 'kill' the house is to destroy its heart. The three draw out a plan to destroy the house, after deciding that the furnace is the heart, as evidenced by the fact that smoke has been coming out of the chimney ever since Mr. Nebbercracker died. Chowder goes to his father's pharmacy and steals several bottles of the medicine and they quickly make a dummy.

The plan works perfectly: the vacuum is inches away from the house's waiting carpet/tongue when the cops arrive. They run over the cord powering the vacuum and the house pulls in its tongue and closes the door. The two cops they asked earlier for help step out, and discover the cold medicine in the dummy. (Officer Landers tastes it, then takes a swig.) Landers decides that the three are going to jail. After locking them in the car, Lester hears a sound from inside the house and the two go to check it out. A tree disarms Lester and then swings him into the house's waiting mouth. Seconds later, it also devours Landers. The kids watch, horrified, and the house soon also eats the police car and dummy, though the kids survive.

The group is trapped in the house and notice that the house is asleep and that it probably assumed that it had successfully gotten rid of the kids. DJ finds three things: several boxes of explosives, a pair of binoculars set up to rotate and face his house (and he realizes that the two were watching each other) and several photos on the wall. The photos depict a very large woman, and the three conclude that Mr. Nebbercracker did have a wife and did indeed eat her. Chowder, on the other hand, sees a bunch of glowing spheres hanging from the ceiling and screams to shoot it. The kids fire their water guns at it, but the house only opens its mouth and spits out water. Jenny figures that it must be the uvula. The trio descends into the basement and see all the things Mr. Nebbercracker has taken. They see a locked circus-style cage. DJ, remembering the key Mr. Nebbercracker dropped, opens the cage. They see the body of Mrs. Nebbercracker (who apparently was once known as Constance the Giantess), covered in cement. They realize that Mr. Nebbercracker couldn't have eaten his wife, as her entire body is buried in concrete. A shrine is built around her, confusing the children. DJ walks closer to it but trips. He lands right on it, and the cement begins to collapse. All that is left of her is a skeleton, and the house wakes up. It looks around and spots the kids. A vent swallows Jenny, and giant Slinkies attack Chowder. DJ runs up the stairs, but they attack him. He manages to get out, but almost falls into the house's waiting 'jaws'. Chowder falls in and hangs onto a board for dear life. DJ reaches down to help him, but the tongue grabs him by the ankle and throws him in. He hangs onto Chowder's leg, and Jenny remembers the uvula. She runs up the stairs and jumps onto it. When the uvula hits the ceiling, the house promptly vomits them onto the lawn.

Just as DJ, feeling defeated and worthless, decides to go home, an ambulance comes to a screeching halt and knocks him down. DJ gets up and Mr. Nebbercracker, who is obviously not dead as believed, comes out of the vehicle, his arm in a sling. He asks what day it is, and turns to the house, calling it "Honey". DJ goes up to Mr. Nebbercracker and says that he knows about Constance. Mr. Nebbercracker turns to the children, and starts telling a story.

Mr. Nebbercracker reveals how he met a morbidly obese lady named Constance (Kathleen Turner), an unwilling member of a freak show at a circus and fell in love with her. He went to her trailer in the night and he hitched it up to his truck and drove her away. They moved to a new land to have a new house built just for the two of them. The children that came by would taunt and throw things at Constance, who grew to hate children. Fending off eggs and other projectiles one day from the kids, Constance staggered to the edge of the foundation and accidentally fell to her death in the cellar many feet below, where she was swallowed up by cement. A saddened Mr. Nebbercracker finished the house, because he knew Constance would have wanted that. It seems that after Constance's death, her spirit possessed the house she wanted to see finished, and now it attacks any child who approaches. To protect the children from the wrath of his house, Mr. Nebbercracker pretended to be a child-hating old man to keep them away from the house — especially during Halloween.

According to Mr. Nebbercracker, it is time for the house to be destroyed. The house overhears, and becomes very angry. It rips two trees out of the ground, the tops becoming attached to the house, giving it two arms/legs. The house roars at them and they run in fear to the construction lot where Chowder and DJ met earlier. Mr. Nebbercracker remains in his position, exhausted. Just as they seem doomed, a brick is thrown at the roof of the house. It is Mr. Nebbercracker, and the house turns to attack. It then realizes that it doesn't want to eat him, the part of it that is Constance still loves Nebbercracker. He pats the stoop and takes out a stick of dynamite. Lighting a match on her step, he prays that it's the right thing to do, but the house is angered and snatches him up. It seems to be the end of Mr. Nebbercracker when the backhoe drives into the house. Chowder remembered the keys were left inside and has much better control this time. He leads the house to the edge of the hole where the foundation was to be put in. Mr. Nebbercracker, too exhausted to continue, hands DJ the dynamite and a handful of matches. Meanwhile, the house tumbles into the gravel pit as well as Chowder, and eventually shatters to pieces. Chowder believes he's won, but ultimately, the house reforms, now nothing more than a mass of wood with legs and a chimney, and attacks them at the construction site. DJ has to climb up a crane and throw a stick of dynamite into the house's chimney. DJ is scared and doesn't think he can achieve the task, but Jenny kisses him as an act of encouragement. He lowers himself down onto the hook and tells Jenny to light the dynamite and hand it to him. The hook suddenly lurches and DJ is sent falling, but the cable tightens and he begins swinging like a pendulum. Jenny lights the dynamite and throws it to him. Meanwhile, Chowder is running from the house like a maniac. The house snaps its 'jaws' at him, and manages to pick him up by his cape. Frantically, he unties it and continues running. DJ swings overhead and throws the dynamite down the house's chimney. He swings by and grabs Chowder and they both jump into a trench where the explosion roars over them. Jenny avoids it because the crane is too high. After they reunite, (ignoring Chowder's motion to help him out of the trench) DJ hears someone laughing quietly. They see the wispy form of Constance dancing with Mr. Nebbercracker, until she fades away to nothing. Mr. Nebbercracker collapses, and starts to weep. DJ apologizes for destroying his "house-wife". Mr. Nebbercracker exclaims that they've been trapped for forty-five long years, and he's freed them.

It is now time for trick or treat, and Chowder, DJ, and Jenny are helping Mr. Nebbercracker to return the children's toys to them. Jenny hugs the boys and leaves, mentioning that the three should hang out sometime very soon. DJ's parents arrive and figures that they are being dirty pirates for Halloween (they're really just filthy). After some basketball, the two race through the neighborhood for some candy.

During the credits, it is shown that everyone that was eaten by the house steps out of the basement unharmed, and that Bones and Zee are not together anymore, since she has decided to go out with Skull. Bones doesn't care, as he has his long-lost kite back. Officers Landers and Lister decide to spend the rest of the night "inspecting" candy to shake off their little "experience" of being eaten.

[edit] Characters

• Douglas J. "DJ" Walters: A preteen boy who is known for spying on Nebbercracker through a telescope, so much that Chowder claims no one sits next to them at lunch. He is preteen yet sometimes acts, and is treated, like a younger boy and is often though crazy as he is one of the few who knows the house is alive after he uses *69 on the house after he supposable manslaughters Nebbercracker. He slightly resembles director Gil Kenan in terms of dark, greasy black hair and is voiced by Mitchel Musso in the English version.

• Charles "Chowder": DJ's chubby best friend. He has a habit of acting slightly strange and immature throughout the film and is somewhat of an idiot. He buys a new basketball at the beginning of the film and gets it back from Nebbercracker at the end. DJ is better than him at the sport. His father works at a pharmacy and his mother has a presonal trainer whom she goes to the movies with the night DJ and Chowder are first attacked by the house. He is voiced by Sam Lerner in the English dub.

• Jenny Bennet: An intelligent girl who attends an all-girls school named Westbook Prep and is the only girl to know of the house's possessed nature. Both DJ and Chowder have crushes on her but it is slightly obvious she prefers DJ. She sells chocolate and obtaines $10 from Zee during her first appearance to save DJ's house from being egged and to raise money to secure a successful future. She is voiced by Spencer Locke.

• Mr. Nebbercracker: An old man who lives across the street from DJ. He is known for stealing anything that lands on his lawn e.g. Chowder's ball, Eliza's (the little girl voiced by Ryan Newman (actress)|Ryan Newman) tricycle and Bones' kite, just to make sure that the house does not eat them. He is thought dead after interogating DJ but he later shows up with just a broken arm. He is voiced by Steve Buscemi.

• Elizabeth "Zee": DJ's babysitter appears to be a charming girl who likes listening to songs by Olivia Newton-John but is actually a Punk who wears black and is really into heavy metal. At the beginning, her boyfriend is Bones but she later goes out with Skull (possibly to make Bones jealous). She is voiced by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

• DJ's Parents: DJ's parents are both apparantly dentists. His mother still treats him like a child and is scared when DJ's voice breaks for a moment but his father is less concerned. He also used to spy with binoculars at two beautiful Jensen twins. They are voiced by Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard.

• Bones: Zee's boyfriend at the beginning of the film whom she claims is in a band. He takes great pleasure in torturing DJ. When he was 10, he had a beloved kite that was stolen by Nebbercracker which the house later uses as bait to lure him in so she can eat him after tearing grass out of her lawn. He is voiced by Jason Lee.

• Reginald "Skull" Skulinski: A videogame-crazed comic geek who is known for playing on an arcade game called "Thou Are Dead" for 4 days on one quarter, a gallon of chocolate milk and an "adult diaper". He provides DJ, Chowder and Jenny with information on how a house can become possessed. He starts going out with Elizabeth in a scene during the credits. He is voiced by Jon Heder.

• Officers Lander and Lister: Landers is an experienced cop who is quite humerous and thinks of the kids case as just "a couple of teetertoters hoped up on too many Pixie Sticks, while Lister is a rookie on his first week. He first tries to think of the house killing a dog as a situation but he and Landers are later eaten by the house. Landers is voiced by Kevin James and Lister is voiced by Nick Cannon.

• Constance the Giantess: A rather fat woman who used to be a novelty act in a circus who was freed by the love-struck Nebbercracker. While they were building a house, Constance was continously hit by kids throwing eggs on Halloween and tried to attack them with an axe but fell backwards and fell to the cellar while cement poured onto her. As a result, when the house was finished, the house was possessed by the child-hating soul of Constance. She was voiced by Kathleen Turner.

[edit] Production

[edit] Voice cast

Character	English voice actor	Japanese voice actor
D.J.	Mitchel Musso	Minami Takayama
Chowder	Sam Lerner	Shun Miyazato
Jenny	Spencer Locke	Satomi Ishihara
Nebbercracker	Steve Buscemi	Shigeru Izumiya
D.J.'s Mother	Catherine O'Hara	Yūko Sasaki
D.J.'s Father	Fred Willard	Masahiko Tanaka
Elizabeth (aka Zee)	Maggie Gyllenhaal	Romi Paku
Bones	Jason Lee	Takuya Kirimoto
Reginald "Skull" Skulinski	Jon Heder	Junichi Endō
Officer Landers	Kevin James	Tesshō Genda
Officer Lister	Nick Cannon	Wataru Takagi
Constance the Giantess	Kathleen Turner	Masako Isobe
Little Girl	Ryan Newman	N/A

[edit] Performance capture

All of the film's character animation is at least partially derived from a complex motion capture process dubbed performance capture. This process was pioneered by Robert Zemeckis on his film The Polar Express, also produced by Sony Pictures Imageworks.^[1] To avoid criticism from audiences and avoid the same fate as Polar Express, the animation and facial looks have been "toned down" from ultra-photorealistic looks so the audience is not "creeped out"^{[citation needed]} (Uncanny Valley).

[edit] Music

The trailer prominently features the main theme to Beetlejuice, however, this film is not connected in any way with that film (other than Catherine O'Hara's appearances in both films). "Halloween" by Siouxsie and the Banshees plays over the credits. Velvet Revolver had announced that they were contributing a song entitled "The House is Alive" to the movie, but is not included. The song is rumored to appear on their upcoming album Libertad. Fountains of Wayne wrote a song entitle "Monster House" for the movie which also was not used, but it may appear in their next album or the movie soundtrack album.

The score utilizes a large orchestra, as well as piano, percussions, electronic sampled sounds, and the electronic instrument known as the theremin. The score hearkens back to "Old Hollywood" with its rich, dense orchestral score, and the theremin adds a touch of Hitchcock's "Spellbound."

Featured Songs (In Order of Appearance):

• "Getting Some Head" - Lil Wayne
• "Tommy The Cat" - Primus
• "Translation - Eminem
• "Stinkfist" - Tool
• "YYZ" - Rush
• "The Stroke" - Bill Squier
• "Smoking in the Boys Room" - Mötley Crüe
• "Halloween" - Siouxsie & The Banshees

[edit] Reception

Overall, the film received positive reviews, with the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate site giving it a "Fresh" 77%. Although the animation was criticized. Michael Medved called Monster House "ingenious" and "slick, clever [and] funny" while also cautioning parents about letting small children see it due to its scary and intense nature, adding that a "PG-13 rating" would have been more appropriate than its "PG rating."^[2] Dissenting critics included as Frank Lovece of Film Journal International, who praised director Gil Kenan as "a talent to watch" but berated the "internal logic [that] keeps changing.... DJ's parents are away, and the house doesn't turn monstrous in front of his teenage babysitter, Zee. But it does turn monstrous in front of her boyfriend, Bones. It doesn't turn monstrous in front of the town's two cops until, in another scene, it does."^[3] But it should be noted that, according to the director's commentary, the house does not know its full powers at the beginning of the story, but rather learns what it can do as the story progresses. Thus the first time the police stop and look at the house, it has not yet learned that it can use the trees to pick them up and thus plays innocent to stop them from taking the complaint seriously and stopping the house. When it does become monstrous in front of them, it knows it can eat them without interference, and thus it has no qualms about showing itself.

Locus Online reviewers Howard Waldrop and Lawrence Person assert that the movie bears a suspicious resemblance to Joe R. Lansdale and Doug Potter's Something Lumber This Way Comes^[4], although the story to the movie was copyrighted ten years prior to the release, and four years before the book came out^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Worldwide Ratings

• Philippines - G
• United Kingdom - PG 'Contains scary scenes and mild language/lyrics'

[edit] Box office

The film ranked 2nd on its opening weekened with $22,217,226. It grossed $73,661,010 domestically, and its worldwide gross is $136,635,894.

[edit] DVD Release

The movie was released on DVD on Tuesday, October 24, 2006.

[edit] Trivia

• This is one of two films that premiered on July 21, 2006 that feature Jason Lee, the second being Clerks II.
• This was not only the first theatrical animated film produced by Amblin Entertainment since Amblimation's Balto, but it was also the first computer-animated feature film produced by Amblin Entertainment.
• In order for this movie to get a PG rating, the victims that were eaten by the house had to come back to life.
• The girl on the tricycle in the opening sequence is singing the theme to Steven Spielberg's '80s television series Amazing Stories.
• Thou Art Dead, the game that Skull is an expert on, resembles Altered Beast and Castlevania.
• The movie features actual animated cuts, bruises and gashes on the characters, making it more effective and terrifying.
• This is the 2nd CG Movie appearance of Pixar actors Steve Buscemi (of Monsters, Inc.), & Jason Lee (of The Incredibles).
• The character "Zee" is shown wearing a T-shirt with "Skull and Bones", apparently the name of a band, written on it and she has a boyfriend named "bones" and later dumped him to be with another character named "skull".

[edit] References

• Columbia Pictures press release titled "Monster House: July 21, 2006" (offline)

[edit] See also

• List of animated feature-length films
• List of computer-animated films

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Monster House at the Internet Movie Database
• Monster House at Rotten Tomatoes
• Monster House at Box Office Mojo
• Monster House review at Hollywood Gothique
• Mansized review of Monster House

Sony Pictures Imageworks
Sony Pictures Animation feature films: Open Season (2006) • Surf's Up (2007)  Sony Pictures Imageworks shorts: The ChubbChubbs! (2002) • Early Bloomer (2002) • Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run (2006)