Monster House (film)

Monster House
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gil Kenan
Screenplay by	Dan Harmon Rob Schrab Pamela Pettler
Story by	Dan Harmon Rob Schrab
Produced by	Jack Rapke Steve Starkey
Starring	Steve Buscemi Nick Cannon Maggie Gyllenhaal Kevin James Jason Lee Catherine O'Hara Kathleen Turner Fred Willard
Cinematography	Paul C. Babin
Edited by	Fabienne Rawley
Music by	Douglas Pipes
Production companies	Relativity Media ImageMovers Amblin Entertainment
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	July 21, 2006 (2006-07-21)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$75 million
Box office	$140,175,006

Monster House is a 2006 computer animated motion capture horror/comedy film produced by ImageMovers and Amblin Entertainment, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Executive produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, this is the first time since Back to the Future Part III that they have worked together. It is also the first time that Zemeckis and Spielberg both served as executive producers of a film. 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.

Plot

12-year-old DJ Walters spies on his elderly neighbor, Mr. Nebbercracker, who confiscates any item landing in his yard. DJ's parents leave town for the weekend for a dentists' convention, leaving him in the care of Elizabeth "Zee". Charles "Chowder", DJ's best friend, loses his basketball on Nebbercracker's lawn. DJ is caught by Nebbercracker while recovering it, who rages at him before apparently suffering a heart attack and being taken away by an ambulance. That night, DJ receives phone calls from Nebbercracker's house with no one on the other end. DJ eavesdrops on Zee's boyfriend Bones, who tells Zee about losing his kite on Nebbercracker's lawn when he was younger, and that Nebbercracker supposedly ate his wife. Later, Bones sees his kite in the doorway of Mr. Nebbercracker's house, but he and the kite are consumed by the house as he is retrieving it.

The next morning, Jenny Bennett is selling Halloween chocolates. DJ and Chowder see her going to Nebbercracker's house, and they rush out to warn her, catching her before she is eaten by the house. Jenny calls the police, but officers Landers and Lester do not believe their story.

The trio seek advice from Reginald "Skull" Skulinski, who is claimed to be an expert on the supernatural. They learn that the house is a "domus mactabilis" (Latin for "deadly home"); a being created when a human soul merges with a structure. They assume the house is inhabited by Nebbercracker's soul. The only way to kill the house is to destroy its heart; its source of life. They conclude that the heart must be the fireplace, as DJ realizes that the chimney has been smoking since Nebbercracker died. Chowder provides a cold medicine-filled dummy that should cause the house to sleep long enough for them to douse the furnace. Officers Landers and Lester thwart their plan, and they are arrested when Landers finds the cold medicine, stolen from Chowder's father's pharmacy, inside the dummy. The cops place the trio in their car while they examine the house. The house eats Landers, Lester and the car. DJ, Chowder and Jenny escape the car but are trapped in the house.

The house falls asleep and they begin exploring. They fall into the basement and find a collection of toys accumulated from Nebbercracker's lawn, as well as a cage containing the body of Constance the Giantess, Nebbercracker's wife, encased in cement. The house realizes they are inside and attacks them. DJ, Chowder and Jenny force the house to vomit them outside by grabbing its uvula. Nebbercracker arrives home alive, revealing that the house is possessed by Constance. As a young man Nebbercracker met Constance, who was an unwilling member of a circus sideshow, and fell in love with her despite her obesity. After helping her escape, she and Nebbercracker began building the house. One Halloween, as children tormented her, Constance tried hurting them with an axe, but lost her footing and died in the foundations of the house; the cement buried her body. Nebbercracker finished the house after Constance's death, knowing it was what she would have wanted. Aware that Constance's spirit made the house come alive, Nebbercracker tried keeping people away by pretending to hate children.

DJ tells Nebbercracker it is time to let Constance go, but she overhears. The house breaks free from its foundation and chases the group to a construction site. Nebbercracker attempts to convince Constance that she should die while holding a stick of dynamite, but Constance refuses. As she tries to eat him, Chowder fights the house off with a back hoe, causing it to fall into a pit. DJ is given the dynamite, and he and Jenny climb to the top of a crane while Chowder distracts Constance. DJ throws the dynamite into the chimney, destroying the house. The trio see Nebbercracker with Constance's spirit for the last time before she fades away. DJ apologizes to Nebbercracker for the loss of his house and wife, but Nebbercracker thanks DJ and the kids for freeing him and Constance. That night, children in their Halloween costumes are lined up at the site of Nebbercracker's house, where DJ, Chowder and Jenny help him return the toys to their owners. Jenny's parents pick her up and DJ and Chowder go trick-or-treating, which they previously thought they were too old for. Those who were eaten by the house emerge from the basement.

Cast

• Mitchel Musso as D.J. Walters, a 12 year old boy, who is known for spying on Nebbercracker through a telescope. He acts, and is treated, like a younger boy and is often thought crazy.
• Sam Lerner as Charles "Chowder", a 12 year old boy, who is DJ's best friend. He has a habit of acting slightly strange and immature.
• Spencer Locke as Jenny Bennett, an intelligent 11 year old girl who attends an all-girls school named Westbook Prep. DJ and Chowder have crushes on her, although she only returns DJ's affections.
• Steve Buscemi as Horace Nebbercracker, a former US Army "demolition squad" expert who lives across the street from DJ. He is known for stealing anything that lands on his lawn. It is later revealed that he was Constance's husband.
• Maggie Gyllenhaal as Elizabeth "Zee", DJ's rude and indifferent babysitter.
• Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard as Mr. and Mrs. Walters, DJ's overprotective parents who baby him.
• Jason Lee as Bones, Zee's boyfriend. He takes great pleasure in torturing DJ and Chowder.
• Jon Heder as Reginald "Skull" Skulinski, a videogame-crazed comic geek who once played an arcade game for 4 days on one quarter, a gallon of chocolate milk and an adult diaper.
• Kevin James and Nick Cannon as Officers Landers and Lester. Landers is an experienced cop with an easygoing, joking manner while Lester is a rookie on his first week.
• Kathleen Turner as Constance, an enormous woman who featured in a circus' freak show in the 1950s. Nebbercracker, having fallen in love with her, freed and married her. Children ridiculed Constance because of her size, driving her to the point of insanity.

Production

Performance capture

The film was made in performance capture, which the actors did all the movement by themselves, wearing wet suits, with sensors glued to their bodies. The movement was then transferred into a computer, and animation took place around their bodies. All of the props were made out of a wire material to also be animated. The background was completely animated in CGI.

This process was pioneered by Robert Zemeckis on his film The Polar Express, also produced by Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Track listing:

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Opening/Titles"	1:01
2.	"Eliza's Song"	0:48
3.	"Awesome Kite/Bones Tossed Out/Construction"	3:42
4.	"Through the Telescope"	0:39
5.	"Parents Drive Off"	1:19
6.	"Go to Your Room"	0:41
7.	"Jenny walks up/Jenny's Close Call"	1:40
8.	"Elegy"	1:36
9.	"Ding Dong/House Comes Alive!"	2:38
10.	"Cops Emerge"	1:32
11.	"The Chimney"	0:38
12.	"The Plan / Dummy Feed"	3:13
13.	"Cop Car Gets Eaten"	0:54
14.	"Trapped/Constance's Tomb/Escape"	7:37
15.	"Cops Get Eaten"	1:15
16.	"The Flashback"	3:34
17.	"Chowder to the Rescue"	1:18
18.	"Nebbercracker Returns"	2:05
19.	"House Chase"	3:36
20.	"The Battle"	5:13
21.	"45 Years / Tricycle"	1:32
22.	"We're Back!"	0:49
23.	"End Titles"	1:03
24.	"The Dance"	0:42
Total length:		49:05

Digital 3-D version

As with The Polar Express, a stereoscopic 3-D version of the film was created and had 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 was released in approximately 200 theaters equipped for new REAL D Cinema digital 3-D stereoscopic projection. The process was not based on film, but was purely digital. Since the original source material was "built" in virtual 3-D, it created a very rich stereoscopic environment. For the film's release, the studio nicknamed it Imageworks 3D.

Reception

The film grossed $73,661,010 in the United States and Canada, and its worldwide gross is $140,175,006.

The Rotten Tomatoes film-critics aggregate site gave the film 74% positive reviews. Michael Medved called it "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." Dissenting critics included 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." Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "Alert "Harry Potter" fans will notice the script shamelessly lifts the prime personality traits of J.K. Rowling's three most important young characters for its lead trio: Tall, dark-haired, serious-minded DJ is Harry, semi-dufus Chowder is Ron and their new cohort, smarty-pants prep school redhead Jenny (Spencer Locke), is Hermione.... [I]t is a theme-park ride, with shocks and jolts provided with reliable regularity. Across 90 minutes, however, the experience is desensitizing and dispiriting and far too insistent."

The American Film Institute nominated Monster House for its Top 10 Animated Films list.

Award	Category	Result
Academy Award	Best Animated Feature	Nominated
Annie Award	Best Animated Feature	Nominated
Saturn Award	Best Animated Film	Nominated

References

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

External links

• Official website
• Monster House at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Monster House at Box Office Mojo
• Monster House at Rotten Tomatoes