Monster House

Thu, July 27, 2006 - 10:37 PM

Tonight I went to see an animated movie called Monster House. This is not really a kids movie and not really and adults movie ... it's kind of in between. I think children would enjoy it, and I know adults will like it --- I sure did.

I'm going to begin with a rant. Who had the "brilliant" idea of showing 7 commercials and 6 previews before a movie starts? Who is the idiot who thinks that charging $9 for a movie "entitles" us to be honored with all of these advertisements? It's absolutely infuriating that we get charged good money to see a movie, then get plastered with ads on top of it. Okay, I'm done with my rant now.

Monster house begins with a young boy who is spying on his old neighbor in order to find out why he acts so strange. You see, the old guy is scaring children who venture onto his property and stealing their toys. He's a very mean old man, cranky as all get out.

The plot goes a little slowly for the first half of the show, as the plot gets built up and the characters are introduced. Don't fall asleep and please don't unbuckle your seat belts as when the it does pick up - the pace really moves.

You see, the old man has a secret and the boy and his friend (and later a young girl as well) are tasked with finding it out. This secret becomes very important when the old man "dies" and the house itself becomes very hostile, eating a dog, the babysitters boyfriend and two police officers.

But it gets worse. You see, tomorrow is Halloween, and hundreds of children will venture onto the porch of this child-eating house looking for candy. In the words of the boy, "it'll be a bloodbath!"

The three must stop the carnage, and they come up with a wild scheme involving sough syrup and a vacuum cleaner, a scheme that goes wrong and results in the policemen being the main course for dinner.

The action picks up as they venture into the house itself, find the secret and get chased all over town, and finally defeat the monster. These last scenes are wonderfully done and I found the monster very believable, and if I was a child it would have scared the daylights out of me.

For the life of me, I do not understand why this movie was released in July. It should have been released in October, just before Halloween.

I would definitely recommend the movie to anyone. It will be a little frightening to the younger folks in the audience, but not horribly so.

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Comments

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Cassie Townsend (Fri, July 28, 2006 - 10:21 AM)

Yay! Mike and I saw a screening of this a few weeks back on the Sony lot in one of those really nice and tiny beautiful theaters. We were the oldest "kids" there, as we were the only ones who didn't have little ones with us. :) There were a lot of children of all different ages at the screening. There were a couple jump moments, yes, but not a single tear in the theater. Not one kid had to be taken out, and not one child screamed.

I think it was perfect for kids of all ages. It's the perfect lead-in to scarey movies. I wish I had something like this when I was younger. My lead in to scarey movies was Amityville Horror when I was 3 - not so good.

Additionally, it was a great movie for adults because there's some humor in it that went right over the little kiddie's heads, but hit Mike and I in the laugh zone ("OH... so it's a GIRL house...").

Yes, the house was a believable enemy. Yes, I loved how the story unfolded for the audience. I also loved how most things looked so REAL. Like, when the basketball was on the lawn. How beautiful! My favorite character was the little blonde girl during the opening credits. Second up for me was the new cop as he was hilarious. Mike's was the tubby best friend.

All in all, I think it would be worth my money to see again. Too bad Eris isn't here for the summer, 'cause we would take her to that. And yes, it should have been released closer to Halloween, but perhaps the studio was not wanting to scare the children away from Trick or Treating...?

Melis (Fri, July 28, 2006 - 11:47 AM)

not to mention the insane prices at the concession stand... ok I'm done too :)

Richard Lowe Jr (Fri, July 28, 2006 - 12:50 PM)

Cassie, if you do want to see it again, I'd love to catch the 3d version. I believe they are showing it at the theater in Universal City walk. So if you and Mike want to meet me there some night, it might be fun!

Chiisuchina Mizuno (Fri, July 28, 2006 - 3:47 PM)

All the really good movies tend to be released in the summer, when people are looking for things to do. Conversely, all the really bad movies tend to be released right after Christmas, when there's damn near *nothing* to do. I wouldn't mind seeing this soon, though, as July is my birth month, and Halloween is my favorite holiday....

I'm glad it's a good movie. I was a little saddened by your review of "My Super Ex-Girlfriend", but at the same time, I wasn't expecting that one to be all that fantastic. *thumbs up to you*

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