Monster House: Halloween Horror--for Kids

Monster House is a 2006 animated film (adult speak for cartoon) by Gil Kenan, produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, with voice talents from Kevin James and Steve Buscemi. DJ Walters (Mitchel Musso, Second Hand Lions, Hannah Montana) discovers that the home of Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) is alive with the spirit of his dead wife, when he witnesses the home taking toys and people that trespass on the lawn. It is Halloween night and the house really, really, really hates the holiday and the children that are sure to come knocking on, or worse--egg the front door. The boy, along with his friends Chowder and Jennifer seek to extinguish the heart of the house, killing it and putting an end to its evil before it can do more harm. What follows is visually stunning and action oriented with frightening images that should give parents pause before letting their younger children watch the film.


There are numerous things to recommend this film to viewers, whether lovers of pulp action, horror, or cartoons. The animation is CGI based on the motion capture style called simply movement capture. Though high tech this is the same style utilized by Max Fleischer, Disney, and Ralph Bakshi in the 70’s of capturing the actual movement of the actors and rendering them in animation. This is not as ground breaking as it was hailed, (along with Polar Express) but it is an interesting footnote in animation history.

What recommended this film to me, as any, is the story. Reminiscent of Stephen King’s early short stories like The Mangler, that gives malignant life to inanimate objects; one wonders if Monster House drew inspiration from another of King’s works, The Wastelands, published in 1991 that features a living, malevolent house. Though, such ideas are not unknown in literature.

What sets this apart for me is the way the story unfolds as the children discover and piece together the truth of the house, finally confirmed by the old man Nebbercracker. Here be spoilers so you are warned…….

Armed with the knowledge that the house is a spirit bound to the structure and super soaker squirt guns they begin their quest. The children become trapped within the house after an attack so they begin to explore the creepy environs. They seek the fiery heart of the creature, by extinguishing it the house can be “killed”.

Through their harrowing investigation they discover that the old man was married to a gargantuan woman, and judging by the pictures, very happy and that the old man was once a demolition expert in the military; further supported by the plot enabling explosives laying about. The local lore has it that Nebbercracker murdered his long missing wife. They discover the lost toys from the neighborhood in the basement, and the remains of Nebbercracker’s wife, Constance, encased in cement. The corpse is confined within a cage that declares Constance the Giantess, a side show freak’s cage, sealed with a heart shaped lock, the key is in DJ’s possession after Nebbercracker dropped it earlier in the movie. The house awakens and the battle resumes, with the house attempting to devour the children. Old man Nebbercracker returns to explain what DJ has all ready puzzled out. He explains that his wife’s death was an accident on Halloween years before when the house was being built. Nebbercracker completed the construction and guarded the neighborhood against his wife’s vengeful spirit, loving her beyond death and despite it. Now, with age and time creeping upon him, he knows that it must end. What ensues is a rampaging house sized monster that does battle with Chowder behind the controls of a earth mover and and DJ doing a Death Star run on the chimney with a packet of dynamite to extinguish the heart.

The story was well crafted, with imagery blending well to tell the story as well as the words spoken. The flash back scene with Mr. Nebbercracker meeting and falling in love with Constance, with her tragic life as a side show attraction was heart felt and sad. Such a device is well employed later in Pixar’s Up! It demonstrates that animation can tell as powerful story as any film that employees live actors. The axiom of “if you have a gun in the first act it better be used in the third” is well demonstrated in the film, each piece a clue to the puzzle and a layer to the story. The kids are kids, with kid fears and kid stupid courage well voiced and fun to watch. The action is cliff hanger style that has Zemeckis’ and Spielberg’s finger prints all over it. Considering their track records this is not a bad thing.

It was an enjoyable film that I may wind up adding to my growing collection. I would strongly recommend parental previews though for smaller children. The house, with its gnashing boards as devouring fangs, its clawing tree limbs as its arms and grasping hands, along with the skeletal remains of Constance create harrowing imagery that might be too much for younger viewers.

Jonah Hex: Weird West Goodness

The new Warner Brothers movie starring Josh Brolin has been panned by purists and critics alike. I DON’T CARE!!!! This movie rawked for me! To me it caught the essence of the Jonah Hex character and setting, creating a steam and iron reality of gun smoke and supernatural weirdness.


Jonah Hex is a hideously scarred gun slinging bounty hunter in the Old West of the DC Universe. A Weird West comic book, think Spaghetti Western with zombies, metal men, and magic!

A soldier that fought on the side of the Confederacy, Hex still wears the colors of his former service. He travels across the West encountering weirdness, blazing death, and Power’s corruption. His guns earn his keep as much as get him into trouble.

The film directed by Jimmy Hayward brings this character to live-action life. Starring the aforementioned Josh Brolin, a very creepy John Malcovich, and, unfortunately, Megan Fox. The action takes place about ten years after the end of the Civil War with Hex making a living by killing as a bounty hunter. His past is as marred as his face with the death of his family and the brush with death that left him with the ability to speak with the dead.

Both his past and the ability to communicate directly with the dead is a departure from the established canon of the comic book. The set up works just fine for me, because the character remains Jonah Hex and the supernatural ability adds the weirdness that is actually lacking from most of the pages of the comic.

Josh Brolin plays Hex perfectly. The hardened bounty hunter, who seeks vengeance against the world itself, caring little for his own well being, he has looked into the Abyss and laughed in the face of the Darkness. Brolin does this without once coming off as a Clint Eastwood wannabe…..a far departure from his Goonies days.

John Malkovich plays the villain Turnbull, a former Confederate who seeks to destroy the United States on it Centennial, while seeking personal vengeance on Hex for the death of his son. Malkivich plays Quentin Turnbull with an understated menace that seems to be his trademark and fits well for the “Southern Gentlemen” style villain his portrays.

Then we have Megan Fox. The character of Tallulah Black/Lilah, a prostitute with a derringer or dagger stashed in her garter is as clichéd as it can get for the genre. She holds out hope that Hex will come to love her and take her away from the life she has created for herself. As presented she is as far from the character in the comic as one could get. At least Hex and Turnbull stay within the established roles that they have always had. Not to mention that Fox is too good looking in the modern sense that she is an anachronism even in such a film as this. I tolerated her till her final words on film and physically cringed with the delivery of that last line.

The film itself had some odd, but interesting editing choices. Hex’s voice over and comic book style cut scenes filled in back story quickly and to the point; a lesson most superhero movies could actually learn from. The surreal battles in Hex’s mind with Turnbull tried to add too much to the weirdness factor and took away from the actual conflict. The rest was a perfect mix of supernatural spookiness, steam punk technology, and western fun. Clocking in at an hour and twenty, I think it was a little short, but I have seen movies that could benefit from brevity, so I cannot condemn the short run time unless I see a directors cut in comparison.

I would say sit back with a bag of popcorn; settle in when the lights go down for the weirdest ride in to Yesteryear ever!

It begins......

Well I am finally launching the blog! So I think I should give readers an idea what to expect. This is to be a place that I can share my love of the old adventure serials, pulp fiction, and the adventure cartoons of my fondest memory. And what ever else comes to mind in that vein. Story reviews, movies, and even self-serving snippets of stories that I write. If I had grown up in another era, I would have been one of the kids with the sling shot in his back pocket, slouch cap, and trailing dog running along a dirt track trying to find glass cola bottles to exchange for nickels so I could go catch the matinee.
I was pretty close, and like many other of my generation the first “pulp” action-adventure that thrilled me in the theater was Star Wars, closely followed by Indiana Jones and Conan. At home, the old Errol Flynn and Bogart movies would come on Sunday afternoons and I was hooked. Captain Blood and Maltese Falcon respectively, in case you were wondering. Saturday morning cartoons didn’t help with Johnny Quest and later, Thundarr the Barbarian.
Somewhere in there I started discovering the mental stimulation of reading. The first real primers I remember were, again Johnny Quest stories for really young readers, and then my father made sure we went to the library in the summer and stacks came home with me. As my tastes matured so did the subject matter and I discovered Robert E. Howard, Raymond Chandler, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The list could go on forever with Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Vern and so many more that I hope to explore later.
Where does this love come from for any of us that are fans of these action adventures? Is it the wish to be the hard boiled PI or rapier wielding Warlord of Mars? To have those hair raising, death defying adventures without actually risking our necks, or legal entanglements? To be that clever, that strong, or that resourceful?
Probably.
I think part of it is the fervent wish that such men and women did exist somewhere out there, doing those things that only they could do; righting the wrongs only because the cosmos or fate had chosen them to do it.
Yeah, that too.
There is also a love of the art form, the turning of phrase, the poetry and cadence. As beautiful as the story telling traditions of Homer’s Illiad or the Saxon Beowulf. The innovation and imagination that brought such adventures to life in the era of the first moving pictures with stop motion special effects to the talkies and the vibrant color of the Wizard of Oz. In the case of the original Star Wars movie, the creation of special effects to bring that galaxy far far away to life as envisioned back in 1977. The lurid covers of the ‘30s pulps so epitomized by Rafael de Soto, J. Allen St. John, George Rozen, and many more; to the color and life brought to the pages of favorite comic books, which has become a literary art form itself with “graphic novels”.
I hope to explore all these and more as I ramble on about these things that I love that I have such a passion about.
So that is the beginning of this particular story. And like the old serials, there will be installments. My goal is to post as the title suggests, on Saturdays. Because that was when that kid in the slouch hat got his nickel and sat in the dark to dream with his eyes wide open.