Thursday, October 10, 2013

Monster House (2006)

There goes the neighborhood
"Get off my yard!"

We open with this little girl riding her trike, she gets stuck on the yard of Horace, a cranky old man who takes anything that lands on his yard.  He ends up taking the little girl's trike, the kid across the street, DJ, has been keeping tabs on him, and takes another picture of him.  DJ's parents are leaving for the weekend, before they leave they manage to run over DJ's friend, Chowder, but he's fine.  Chowder comes over to hang with DJ and play with his new basketball, Chowder starts talking about Halloween, which is tomorrow.  DJ tells him that he's not going to go trick or treating, because he's growing up, Chowder ignores him, and starts playing basketball, unfortunately the ball ends up in Horace's yard. 

Chowder convinces DJ to go in Horace's yard to get the ball, he does and Horace comes out and catches DJ, picking him up and yelling at him.  Unfortunately mid yell Horace dies, after he gets stretchered away DJ's babysitter, Elizabeth, arrives, she seems like a nice blonde girl dressed in preppy clothing, that is until she hears that his parents are already gone.  Elizabeth then transforms into Zee, a punk girl with a black bob type cut, she then bans DJ from using the phone or watching TV and sends him to his room.  She reminds me a bit of Vicky from Fairy OddParents.  Up in his room, DJ takes a nap, he wakes up later that night, around midnight, and starts getting calls from the house across the street, weird since no ones there.  Zee and her boyfriend, Bones, come in and starts harassing DJ, he tells them that Horace died and they don't believe him.


"Meet me at the Danger Zone"

They eventually leave and DJ calls Chowder and tells him to meet him at the Danger Zone right now.  DJ sneaks downstairs and hears Zee ask Bones if he thinks Horace is really dead, Bones tells her a story of how he lost his kite when he was a kid over there.  Zee eventually kicks Bones out because he gets to grabby, once outside Bones sees his kite across the street and goes towards it, he then gets sucked into the house.  DJ takes this opportunity to sneak out and heads to the Danger Zone, which is a construction site, where he meets up with Chowder who is messing with the machines, which is real safe.  DJ asks Chowder to help him and he does, they then sneak over to the house, Chowder doesn't believe him, and walks up to the front door. 

The upstairs windows lights come on like two eye balls and the door turns into a razor toothed mouth and tries to eat Chowder, but he manages to get away and they run to DJ's house.  The next morning the door bell rings and Zee answers the door, hear we meet Jenny, who is seeing Halloween candy for her Prep school, she is also quite cunning and gets Zee to buy some candy.  Upstairs, DJ and Chowder have been watching the house all night, Zee heads up to give then some of the candy and they tell her about the house, she doesn't believe them and leaves.  Chowder goes back to watching the house through the telescope when he sees Jenny head to Horace's house, they both then race across the street to get her to leave the property.  They are too late and the house starts dragging her in to eat her, they manages to save her and head back inside DJ's house. 

Upstairs, DJ and Chowder try their hardest to flirt with Jenny, but they aren't that good at it, she leaves to call her mom, and Chowder and DJ start arguing over her.  When she returns they go back to watching the house and see a dog approach the property only to then be eaten by the house.  Jenny decides it is time to call the police, they go outside to wait for the police, when the police, Officer Landers, an experienced cop, and Officer Lester, a rookie on his first week, arrive, they don't believe them and leave.  Chowder, DJ, and Jenny then head to a diner where they go to meet an expert, Skull, a video game obsessed geek, once there Jenny tries to go talk to him, but they stop her.  Turns out Skull is in his 'game zone' and can't be disturbed, he once went 4 days without leaving a game on one quarter, a gallon of chocolate milk, and an adult diaper, that's lovely. 

"Why don't we use a dummy?"

Jenny doesn't care and approaches him anyways, they ask him how to kill a monster house, and he tells them that they need to hit it in the heart, houses don't have hearts so they are confused.  They leave Skull and head back to DJ's house to start planning how they are going to stop the house and realize the fireplace has been burning since Horace died.  They figure that the furnace is the heart of the house and they devise a plan to take down the furnace, by putting out it's fire.  Chowder suggests using a dummy as a decoy to get in the house, DJ takes it a step further and tells Chowder to steal some cold medicine from his fathers shop.  The cold medicine will be stuffed into the dummy so when the house eats the dummy the cough medicine will put the house to sleep.  Their plan almost works, but the police show up and tells them they have broken a number of laws and arrests them. 

Before Landers and Lester leave with them Lester hears a noise in the house and goes to investigate with Landers on his heels.  Unfortunately Landers and Lester both get eaten, the house then comes after the police car, which is where Jenny, DJ, and Chowder are.  The house eats the car and Jenny, DJ, and Chowder are now inside the house, they start exploring and come across the basement which is full of all the toys Horace took away from the kids.  They find a sign for Constance, the giantess and also Horace's wife, underneath the sign is a huge cage, inside the cage is Constance's body.  Her body is covered in cement, DJ ends up breaking the cement mold revealing Constance's bones.  The 3 of them then end up back in the main room, where the throat of the house is, DJ and Chowder both end up falling down it, but Chowder manages to grab ahold of the edge.

"No, that's the uvula"

Jenny gets the idea to pull on the chandelier, which is the uvula of the house, causing the house to puke them up on the yard.  Now that they are outside of the house DJ and Chowder get into a fight, DJ is walking away, and gets him  by an ambulance, that contains Horace.  Horace is actually still alive and starts heading back to his house, DJ stops him and tells him he knows about Constance.  Turns out Constance was a member of the circus, as the fat lady, and Horace fell in love with her, he took her away from the circus, and built her a house.  While building the house Constance gets enraged by the trick or treater and tries to go after them, Hotace tries to stop her and she falls down a hole.  On her way down she pulls a lever which is the cement encasing her in the cement, so this whole time Horace has actually been protecting all these kids.

DJ tells Horace they can help him destroy the house, Horace accepts, which angers the house, and the house comes even more to life and starts chasing them.  Horace stops because he can't run any more and the rest take off to the Danger Zone, Horace catches up and throws a brick at the house to get it's attention.  Horace pulls out a stick of dynamite, and it enrages the house, the house throws Horace, DJ goes to check on Horace, and Horace gives him the dynamite and tells him to use it.  While that was happening Chowder starts up one of the construction machines and starts attacking the house, Jenny and DJ then head for a crane so they can put the dynamite in the chimney.  Chowder now has to lead the house over to the crane, before that happens he and the house hit a slide and the house falls apart.

"I can't do this"

Chowder thinks that he took it down, but the house then puts itself back together, Chowder then gets back in the machine to lead it to the crane.  Jenny and DJ start climbing the crane, while they're doing that the house eats the machine, luckily Chowder manages to escape.   Jenny and DJ get to the top of the crane, and DJ starts having doubts, Jenny kisses him and tells him he can, he then begins climbing out to the hook.  Once DJ is on the hook, Jenny lights the dynamite and tosses it to him, DJ then puts it down the house's chimney, which cause the house to blow up.  Once they're all down and back together DJ starts to hear something, they go to investigate and see Horace dancing with Constance's spirit.  Constance's spirit slowly drifts away and DJ heads over to tell Horace that he is sorry about his house and Constance, Horace tells him it's been 45 years and they are both finally free.

We then head back to Horace's house, which is now just a big hole in the yard, and they are passing out the toys that were taken away, including the trike to the little girl from the beginning.  Jenny's mom arrives and picks her up, Chowder and DJ head off, along with Chowder's basketball, at DJ's house his parents have returned home.  Chowder and DJ play ball but Chowder manages to get the ball stuck in the hoop, Chowder then agrees that they are too old, but DJ says that maybe they aren't and they head off to trick or treat.  In the post credits we see all the people that were eaten by the house start to come out of the rubble, Bones, Landers, Lester, and the dog.  What's funny is Skull has started to talk up Zee, and Bones comes to get her, and the reason this is funny is that during the whole movie she has been wearing a Skull & Bone's shirt.  Get it?

The End.
 
This movie was really good, I highly enjoyed it, and the animation was incredible.  The way they made the house seem like it had emotion and the way it expressed it was phenomenal!  Tell me what you think of the movie in the comments, on Twitter (@SilentToHughes) or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SilentToHughes).
 
Hope you all have a great night!

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