Many neighborhoods have at least one creepy looking house that scares children as well as a grumpy neighbor or two. Sometimes children make up stories about those houses or neighbors. The animated movie Monster House showed how three children dealt with a scary house.

Children knew to avoid Mr. Nebbercracker and his spooky looking house. He would get very angry if any kids even stepped on his yard. D.J. lived across the street and watched the house a lot. One day, Nebbercracker was taken away in an ambulance. D.J. and his friend Chowder were attacked by the house that night. The next day Jenny was selling candy in the neighborhood and escaped Nebbercracker’s house with D.J. and Chowder’s help. The three decided to try to figure out what was going on with the house and they developed a plan to save the neighborhood from the house.

Monster House was a scary movie that was also family friendly. The movie really didn’t include any violence like tends to happen in many scary movies. There was a little bit of mystery connected to what was going on with the house. The mystery wasn’t that strong and there wasn’t a lot of suspense in the movie. That didn’t bother me because I was expecting that since the movie was mainly aimed at children. I did think there was enough mystery and suspense to keep things interesting and keep me guessing. The house did look very creepy, so it was believable that the children in the area would be scared of it. Some of what happened might be scary or too intense for some children.

I thought that Monster House had an interesting plot. Many people have seen houses that looked really creepy. Children can have active imaginations, so it was believable that D.J. thought the house was alive. I liked the explanation the movie provided for what was going on with the house. It was different from what I thought it might be. I did think the explanation worked for the movie. The plot wasn’t complicated, so people shouldn’t have any trouble following what was going on.

Monster House was one of several animated movies released in 2006. It was made with computer animation like pretty much all the new animated movies are anymore. It was done a little differently than most other computer animated movies. It was made with motion capture. That required the cast to be covered in many sensors while they performed so that their movements would be transferred to a computer. That did allow for very realistic looking movements and interactions between the characters. The animation was well done though I didn’t think it was as good as what Pixar did in Cars.

D.J., Chowder, and Jenny were the main characters in Monster House. D.J. had suspected that something was wrong with Nebbercracker’s house for a while even though others didn’t believe him. Chowder didn’t like the house either though he didn’t believe exactly what was going on at first. D.J. and Chowder had been friends for a long time when the movie started. Mitchell Musso and Sam Lerner provided the voices for the characters. There wasn’t a lot of development for D.J. and Chowder even though they were the most developed characters in the movie. That isn’t unusual for animated movies.

Jenny first showed up later than D.J. and Chowder, so she wasn’t as developed as they were. The three actually met for the first time when D.J. and Chowder helped Jenny escape the house. She wasn’t from the neighborhood, so she didn’t know that it really wasn’t a good idea for her to try to sell candy at that house. She was very intelligent and came with several ideas for dealing with the situation. Spender Locke did fine with her voice. D.J.’s parents were barely in the movie since they left to go to some sort of convention right after it started. Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara did the voices for those characters. Elizabeth was the babysitter hired to watch D.J. while his parents were gone. She insisted on being called Zee. She really didn’t seem to care too much about him. She had her boyfriend Bones over and even encouraged him to scare D.J.

Nebbercracker was an older man that most people in the neighborhood tended to avoid. He had a reputation for being very grumpy and the children were afraid of him. He wasn’t well liked by anyone. The house wasn’t a typical house and was actually another character. It was able to do many things that houses just can’t do though it did work for the movie. The house was more of a villain than Nebbercracker was. Jon Heder provided the voice for a minor character that gave some advice to the kids for dealing with the house.

Voice Talent

Steve Busecemi - Mr. Nebbercracker
Nick Cannon - Officer Lister
Maggie Gyllenhaal - Zee
Jon Heder - Skull
Kevin James - Officer Landers
Jason Lee - Bones
Sam Lerner - Chowder
Spencer Locke - Jenny
Mitchell Musso - D.J.
Catherine O’Hara - Mom
Fred Willard - Dad

Gil Kenan - Director

DVD Information

I rented Monster House on DVD. It contained both the widescreen and full screen versions of the movie. There were seven featurettes on the making of the movie. None of them lasted very long. Each one explored something different in the making of the movie. I did think they were interesting. There was a commentary with the director that I didn’t listen to. There was a photo gallery of the art of the movie and some DVD-ROM features that I didn’t have time to check.

Monster House was an entertaining animated movie that I really enjoyed. It was a family friendly movie that was also creepy. Certain things that happened could be too scary for younger children, so parents should check it out first. The movie is worth watching.

Animated Movie Reviews
Aladdin ~ Barnyard ~ Beauty and the Beast ~ Brother Bear ~ A Bug's Life ~ Cars ~ Chicken Little ~ The Emperor's New Groove ~ Finding Nemo ~ Flushed Away ~ Happy Feet ~ Home on the Range ~ Hoodwinked ~ Ice Age ~ Ice Age: The Meltdown ~ The Incredibles ~ Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ~ Lilo & Stitch ~ Looney Tunes: Back in Action ~ Madagascar ~ Monsters, Inc. ~ Over the Hedge ~ The Polar Express ~ Robots ~ Shark Tale ~ Shrek ~ Shrek 2 ~ Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas ~ Sleeping Beauty ~ Tim Burton's Corpse Bride ~ Toy Story ~ Toy Story 2 ~ Treasure Planet ~ Valiant ~ Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit ~ The Wild ~

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8