Monster House
Directed by Gil Kenan
Written by Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, and Pamela Pettler
Monster House is another film in which Robert Zemeckis (as executive producer here) employs the new technology pioneered by the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That technology is 3D motion capture techniques that record the physical performances of the actors before animating them into the film.
While the technique worked wonders to create Gollum, the most believable computer-generated character in film history, it doesn’t seem to make much sense for an entirely animated film like Monster House.
Polar Express had similar problems. The animation in the film was amazing in that it perfectly captured the look of the novel it was adapted to the screen from, but the eyes and facial expressions of the characters looked soullessly dead. This effect was off-putting indeed, but didn’t ruin the film.
In Monster House, director Gil Kenan uses the technique but then lets his animators create cartoony-looking characters with exaggerated features—they have big heads, skinny bodies, large ears, you get the idea. The fact that Kenan wants a heightened, unrealistic looking cartoon proves that he didn’t’ really need to use motion capture. It comes off as laziness in the part of the filmmakers.
The film concerns the house across the street from the main character D.J. He believes that something is wrong with the house and its cranky owner, Mr. Nebbercracker (voiced by the irreplaceable Steve Buscemi). After an unfortunate, and disturbing (for a kids movie anyways), incident that puts Nebbercracker in the hospital, D.J. and his two pals Chowder and Jenny investigate the house because they believe it’s alive and eating the neighborhood’s children.
Monster House harkens back to the haunted house and slasher movies of the 80’s. I was reminded of Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror in many scenes throughout the film.
This is a dark story as well, much darker than kids will be ready for when going to see an animated movie. A sense of danger and dread lurking behind the safety of a typical children’s movie is always welcome, and Monster House goes that route early on, as we are led to believe this house is eating kids. The credits reveal that Kenan lets the audience off too easy in the end as all the characters that are eaten turn out to be alive.
Monster House has too many scenes with great dialogue followed by nonsensical dialogue (a babysitter tells the boys she’s watching, “whatever disease you guys have I’m sure it’s got letters and that they make pills for it.” Followed later by Jenny saying to the boys, “normally I don’t spend time with guys like you.” Do girls her age spend time with boys at all?)
HDFEST grading scale
-Monster House-
Story C
Acting B
Visuals B
Originality C
Enjoyability C+
Overall Grade C
DVD Extras B
|
