Monster House

***Monster House*** is a 2006 American computer-animated supernatural horror comedy film directed by Gil Kenan and the second Sony Pictures film, produced by ImageMovers and Amblin Entertainment, and distributed by Columbia Pictures.

In this film, 3 pre-teens (DJ Walters, Chowder and Jenny Bennett) discovered the house was actually a living breathing vicious monster.

## Plotedit | edit source

A little girl named Eliza rides her tricycle around the neighborhood, singing along, but she hits the lawn and as she tries to get out, Horace Nebbercracker snaps and takes the tricycle and removes the wheel to tempt her to go away. A 12 year old boy DJ Walters spies on his elderly neighbor Mr. Nebbercracker who confiscates any item landing in his yard. DJ's parents Mr. and Mrs. Walters leave town for the weekend for a dentist convention and leaving him in the care of Zee. DJ's friend Chowder loses his basketball on Mr. Nebbercracker's lawn. DJ is caught by Mr. Nebbercracker while recovering it. DJ suddenly creates a dirt spot in the grass of Mr. Nebbercracker's lawn and scolds him saying what has he done, DJ apologizes in rough motion, then Mr. Nebbercracker loses his temper and gets really mad saying DJ is dead, DJ tries running away back to Chowder from Mr. Nebbercracker getting off his lawn as he chases him down and is too late since he wasn't running fast enough, he grabs him and yells at him to stay off his lawn, before apparently suffering a heart attack and being taken away by an ambulance to the hospital. That night, DJ receives phone calls from Mr. Nebbercracker's house with no one on the other end. Zee's boyfriend Bones scared DJ from behind while wearing Chowder's Halloween mask & takes it off. After Zee and Bones left downstairs, DJ called Chowder and told him to meet him at the Danger Zone. DJ quietly walked downstairs and went out the back door while Zee and Bones were in the living room. Bones tells Zee about losing his kite the Awesome Kite on Mr. Nebbercracker's lawn when he was younger and that Mr. Nebbercracker supposedly ate his wife. Later, Bones sees his kite in the doorway of Mr. Nebbercracker's house, but he and the kite are med by the haunted house as he is retrieving it. Later DJ went to the Danger Zone so he can meet Chowder there. He found Chowder on the backhoe and tolds him that Mr. Nebbercracker came back from the dead to get revenge. Later they came to Mr. Nebbercracker's lawn and Chowder rang the doorbell. This also awakens the house and it tries to grab him with it's tongue carpet and it fails. It later roars at DJ and Chowder which caused them to run to DJ's house.

The next morning, a Westbrook Prep student named Jenny Bennett is selling Halloween candies. DJ and Chowder see her going to Nebbercracker's house, and they rush out to warn her catching her before she is eaten by the house. Jenny then calls Officer Landers and Officer Lister, but does not believe their story. Later the trio seek advice from Skull who is claimed to be an expert on the supernatural. They learn that the house is a Domus Mactabilis (Deadly Home in Latin) a supernatural being created when a human soul merges with structures. They assume the house is inhabited by Mr. Nebbercracker's soul. The only way to kill the house is to destroy its heart which it's source of life. They conclude that the heart must be the fireplace as DJ realizes that the chimney has been smokieickce Mr. Nebbercracker died. Chowder provides a cold medicine-filled dummy (made from a vacuum cleaner and some other objects) that should cause the house to sleep long enough for them to douse the furnace. Officer Landers and Officer Lister thwart their plan upon arrival and they are arrested when Landers finds the cold medicine that Chowder stole from the pharmacy his father worked at inside the dummy. The cops place the trio in their car while they examine the house. The house eats Officer Landers, Officer Lister and the police car. DJ, Chowder and Jenny escapes the police car, but were trapped in the house.

The house falls asleep and they begin exploring. They fall into the basement and find a collection of toys accumulated from Nebbercracker's lawn, as well as a cage containing the body of Mr. Nebbercracker's wife Constance Nebbercracker encased in cement. The house realizes they are inside and attacks them. DJ, Chowder and Jenny force the house to vomit them outside by grabbing its uvula. Mr. Nebbercracker arrives home alive and revealed that the house is possessed by his wife Constance. As a young man Horace met Constance who was an unwilling member of a circus sideshow and fell in love with her despite her obesity. After helping her escape, she and Horace began building the house. 1 Halloween day as children tormented her, Constance tried hurting them with an axe, but lost her footing and died in the foundations of the house. The cement buried her body. Horace finished the house after Constance's death knowing it was what she would have wanted. Aware that Constance's spirit made the house come alive, Horace tried keeping people away by pretending to hating them.

DJ tells Mr. Nebbercracker it is time to let Constance go, but she overhears. The house breaks free from its foundation and chases the group to a construction site. Nebbercracker attempts to convince Constance that she should die while holding stick of dynamite, but Constance refuses. As she tries to eat him, Chowder fights the house off with an excavator, causing it to fall into a pit. DJ is given the dynamite and he and Jenny climb to the top of a tower crane while Chowder distracts Constance. DJ throws the dynamite into the chimney, destroying the house. The trio see Horace with his wife Constance's ghost for the last time before she fades away. DJ apologizes to him for the loss of his house and wife, but Mr. Nebbercracker thanks DJ and the kids for freeing him and Constance. That night, children in their Halloween costumes are lined up at the site of Mr. Nebbercracker's house where DJ, Chowder and Jenny help him return the toys to their owners. Jenny's mother Ms. Bennett picks her up. Before she left, she gives DJ and Chowder a group hug. DJ and Chowder then go trick-or-treating which they previously thought they were too old for.

As the credits roll, the victims who were eaten by the house emerges from the hole. Bones finds out that Zee is now dating Skull, then Officer Landers and Officer Lister leave to "investigate" some of the trick-or-treating candy & the dog urinates on a nearby jack-o'-lantern enough to put out its flame.

## Castedit | edit source

* Mitchel Musso: DJ Walters
* Sam Lerner: Chowder
* Spencer Locke: Jenny Bennett
* Steve Buscemi: Horace Nebbercracker
* Maggie Gyllenhaal: Zee
* Catherine O'Hara - Elena Walters
* Fred Willard: Mr. Walters
* Jason Lee: Bones
* Jon Heder: Skull
* Kevin James - Officer Landers
* Nick Cannon - Officer Lister
* Kathleen Turner: Constance Nebbercracker
* Ryan Newman - Little Girl (Eliza)
* Woody Schultz and Ian McConnel: Paramedics
* Erik Walker and Matthew Fahey: Bullies

## Triviaedit | edit source

* As of 2018, this is the only motion capture film that featured an entirely original story and not be based on any existing source materials.
* In the German dub, Bones, Skull, and Chowder were renamed as Punk, Freak and Ketchup. The same was done in the Italian dub with the exception of Chowder who is renamed Timballo.
* This was the first animated film to be made using Sony's animation rendering software.
* Homages to various Stephen King's stories around. The idea of a house that comes alive and eats people can be found in the third installment of Stephen King's *Dark Tower* series *The Wastelands* and while in the house's basement, Chowder shines his flashlight on a mechanical monkey much like the one found in Stephen King's short story *The Monkey* collected in *Skeleton Crew*.
* The motto on the police car reads "We Wanna Help".
* Jon Heder broke his leg on the first day on set.
* The film used 3D motion capture techniques to digitally record the physical performances of the actors before "skinning" them with their animated forms.
* Mitchel Musso and Sam Lerner went to see *Napoleon Dynamite* before shooting when they arrived on set they screamed and jumped on Jon Heder who also played Napoleon.
* The actors had to go through motion capture acting in order to animate the characters. The actors had to wear motion capture suits with little dots glued on their faces and a headpiece glued to their head with motion capture dots. After they took off their suits, the glue would cause irritation to their hair and scalp, but luckily they'd get a head massage with shampoo.
* Chowder's dialogue "DJ you piss in bottles?" had to be re-dubbed as "You pee in bottles?" to help maintain a PG rating. You can still see Chowder's lips speaking the original dialogue.
* In the original screenplay, DJ and Chowder were harassed by 2 bullies named Ryan and Cameron who gets eaten after DJ purposely lured them as baits to the house. However the 2 characters were removed from the screenplay because the studio thought that their deaths would be far too dark and the bullies were combined into DJ's cruel nanny Zee, her boyfriend Bones and Horace Nebbercracker all made the film seemed much more cruel.
* In Dan Harmon's original draft of the film, the house was full of human organs.
* A concept art shows Zee standing outside the police car that DJ, Jenny and Chowder were in. One of the trees then picked Zee up and threw her inside the house. This was ultimately dropped.
* In another concept art, Officer Lister is meant to be the straight man and Officer Landers was meant to be the rookie. However in the final version, their dynamic was switched.
* Although never mentioned in dialogues, signs and license plates, the screenplay once said the film took place in the suburbs of Mayville, Wisconsin which is based on the screenwriter Rob Schrab's hometown by the same name.
* There is a backstory involving Skull and Bones being in an amateur heavy metal band. Zee is wearing a top with "Skull 'n' Bones" written on and later puts one of their cassette tapes on called "Live! At the Smell". She is also dating Bones (and later Skull) in the movie.
* This was the second film to be released in REAL D's digital 3D format.
* The tricycle scene at the beginning of the movie is a homage to Stanley Kubrick's film rendition of Stephen King's *The Shining*.
* During the opening leaf sequence, the tower crane is shown in the background which would later be seen in the film.
* When drawing the plan to take out the house, the markers that DJ used were a brand labeled "Sir Sniff-A-Lot".
* In the original screenplay, the house uses it's branchy hands to grab and hold up the police car similar to a person would hold up a burger.
* This is the first Columbia's animated theatrical film to be rated PG by the MPAA.
* This is Jason Lee's second animated film after *The Incredibles*.
* This is Nick Cannon's first animated film.
* To keep the film PG rating, the victims (Bones, the dog, Officer Landers and Officer Lister) that were eaten by the house came out of the hole alive during the end credits.
* This film is quite similar to the 1989 Japanese horror film *Sweet Home* which involves the main characters exploring the home of a woman who dies in her home, her spirit haunts her home and will kill anybody in her home. They also have tie-in games that came out the same years their respective films came out (1989 and 2006).
* This is Jon Heder's first time voice acting in a theatrical film. He'd later voice Chicken Joe in *Surf's Up*.
* Steve Buscemi and Kevin James would later star in the *Hotel Transylvania* films as Wayne and Frankenstein.
* Based upon the fact that we don't see any children attending school along with fashion and arcade games, it can be assumed that the movie's events takes place on Friday, October 30th and Saturday, October 31st.