With Halloween just around the corner, I’ve been watching a lot of Halloween and horror movie, so when Monster House came on, I was excited to find a Halloween flick that  I hadn’t seen yet. Now, in the spirit of Halloween, here is my opinion on Monster House.

Gil Kenan’s Monster House offers an inventive horror story for children

A zany, creepy, hilarious adventure, Gil Kenan’s Monster House provides a smart synthesis of comedy, horror and seamless animation, resulting in perhaps the first successful animated horror film for children.

In this animated roller coaster ride, a teenage DJ (Mitchel Musso) notices strange happenings in the creepy house next door. When the house’s cantankerous, elderly caretaker has a heart attack, DJ, his scatterbrained friend Chowder (Sam Lerner) and a cunning girl scout named Jenny (Spencer Locke) seize the opportunity to investigate. However, the house next door turns out to be a living, breathing monster and in order to unravel its mysteries, the trio must brave the kid-eating, monstrous house.

With its merely mediocre plot and characters, the movie’s true success stems from its beautiful animation. Reminiscent of Robert Zemeckis’s Polar Express, Monster House was created with modern motion-capture animation that adds warmth, authenticity and personality to the characters. This ingenious process combines computer-generated characters and real-time human acting to produce a creative, realistic atmosphere. In addition, the character designs are slightly distorted, almost grotesque, which results in a creepiness that is similar to Tim Burton’s animation style and is perfect for this horror-comedy. Also, this innovative animation style creates clean, natural movements that add an incredible sense of fluidity and realism to the film.

On the other hand, the film’s weakest link is the characters who may even seem like an unflattering rip-off of the classic Harry Potter Golden Trio members. Screenplay writers Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab and Pamela Pettler also resort to hackneyed stereotypes in order to create their subpar characters. For example, Jenny is the stereotypical pretty, rich, manipulative prep-school girl while Chowder serves as the stereotypical idiotic side-kick. The adults especially fall into these overused stereotypes, which prevents viewers from connecting to or caring about the characters.

Monster House exhibits a fun and hilariously creepy journey that captures the interest of adults and children alike. What the movie lacks in plot and characters, it makes up for, to some degree, with beautiful animation and bizarre humor.

My conclusion: 6/10