DVD Review: Monster House

DVD Review: Monster House (Gil Keenan, 2006, USA).

Interesting one this, I've got to say. Saw a trailer for it an age ago maybe Summer 2005, then forgot about it. Then it came out and the reviews were pretty fucking great. Thought I would wait for the DVD to come out before seeing it, and I really wish I saw it in the cinema. Being raised on 80's kids films, The Goonies, ET, Tron all that stuff. As soon as the Amblin logo (Spielberg's other production company, pretty much attached to ever good kid's film of the 80's), I knew this would be something special. It's both special, 80's but sitting on the cutting edge.
A motion-capture film following on from the frankly disturbing The Polar Express, this film deals with TJ (Mitch Musso) a kid who after a particularly tense encounter with the child-hating owner of the house Mr Nebercrakker (Steve Buscemi), which results in Nebbercrakker being collapsing, finds himself being haunted by the Monster House of the title. He along with his best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner) and new girl in the neighbourhood Jenny (Spencer Locke) must try nto uncover the House's secret before it eats all the children in the neighbourhood on Halloween.
This film pratically drips of the 1980's. Not only is it set in the 80's, it has the nature of kids banding together to try and deal with something extraordinary, and quite possibly life-threatening, like many of the kid's films of the 1980's had. This sense of real adventure seems to have been lost in many of the kid's films of the recent past, instead opting for either endless direct-to-video sequels to Disney classics or well High School cocking Musical. God bless Gil Keenan and the writers, whose names escape me at this point, for bringing back this 1980's feel for todays kids, and big kids like myself.
The motion capture aspect of the film is interesting. Gil Keenan explains that if this film was shot as live action, he would not have been able to attain the sylisitic tone that he wanted to set and indeed the finsihed result is interesting, best described as hyper-real I suppose. The characters look real but something is just a little off with them, certain features are exxagerated. I would also argue that by making this an animated film, the more intense scenes have been lessesened in impact and this could surely have had an effect on its success. It is scary in places, for kids anyway, but it never gets truly to intense for most children, I would think. The film looks superb though. Taking a less photo realistic route than The Polar Express was a great idea as I do not think the computer images can quite pull it off yet (Although Rober Zemickis' upcoming adaption of Beowulf should prove very interesting for this effect). It is certainly very impressive animation.
The voice acting and script is also nigh-on perfect. The film has got some pretty big names in it, Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, Maggie Gyllenhall (who incidentally is fucking incredible in real life), Jason Lee and Steve Buscemi to name just a few, but the film is not overhwlemed by them and this is the kids story, every one of whom does a stand up job of pulling off the fine line walked by all kids between childish playing and the prospect of growing up and getting into the opposite sex (as such).
Overall, if this film doesn;t get some recognition at the Oscar's for the best animated feature category, it really would be a crime. Much better than the frankly mediocre Cars, which will no doubt be nominated also, and also just a great film for all ages, this one is a definite purchase for myself. Anyone not into 1980's nostalgia may just want to rent but you should certainly enter this house!

Video: Digital-to-digital transfer, so no real issues. The film looks great but god I can't help but think of what the Blu-Ray version looks like. I imagine I would drool.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Pretty involving, you get some rear speaker action when you would expect it, and the bass is ever present also, soemthing I find lacking in many modern titles. A truly involving track but maybe a little to involving along with the images for smaller children. An audio descriptive track is also avaliable and that is a great thing to see and a very commendable extra.

Extras: Commentary by Gil Keenan which I have not listened to but will update when I have. Some really great featurettes which can be viewed a whole documentary. Facinating seeing all the actors doing the motion capture themselves and you can see that Gil Keenan's ideas really were very definite at the start. Worth the price of the DVD alone to see Kathleen Turner doing motion capture as the house, one of the most bizarre things you will see in a long time.

Great film, best animated one of the year which I've seen and one I can't wait to show my kids (Well obviously I can wait but... you get the picture).

Back hopefully tomorrow, have a good Friday all!