Monster House (2006)
Some films do not just entertain you as a child. They rewire you. Monster House was that film for me, pulled from the same dusty DVD stack that gave me ParaNorman, and watching it again felt like finding an old diary entry I had forgotten I wrote.
The premise is deceptively simple: three kids discover that the house across the street is alive, hungry, and angry. Classic Halloween setup. But what I noticed this time, watching it as an adult, is how much more complicated the story actually is.
Nebbercracker, the grumpy old man who terrorizes every child that steps on his lawn, is not cruel. He is terrified. His wife Constance, a carnival woman who was mocked and humiliated her entire life, died in a tragic accident and became the house itself, her rage and pain absorbed into the walls and floorboards. Nebbercracker has spent decades trying to contain her, to protect the neighbourhood from the monster he loves. And in doing so, he comes across as the villain to every child who has ever lost a ball in that yard.
It is a surprisingly mature idea for a children's film: that someone can be doing the right thing and still cause harm. That grief, left unprocessed, becomes something that devours everything around it.
And then there is Chowder. DJ's round, loud, wonderfully chaotic best friend, voiced by Sam Lerner. I know Sam from the Truth or Dare movie and as Olivia's boyfriend. Once you know it's him, you cannot unhear it, and frankly it made every single one of Chowder's scenes about thirty percent funnier.
Monster House is also, looking back, probably responsible for a significant portion of my taste in horror. The atmosphere is genuinely unsettling, the house itself is a brilliant monster design, and the film never talks down to its audience. It trusts children to handle real fear, real loss, and a ending that is more bittersweet than triumphant.
For that, it will always have a special place in my DVD stack.
Rating: 9/10 for the film. For Nebbercracker's communication skills: we really need to talk.