Monster House

I caught this little PG computer animated flick the other day. My daughter lasted about 2 minutes. It was GREAT! It conjured up all sorts of childhood memories, you know, of that creepy house on the corner in disrepair where kids who knock on the door are never heard from again. It becomes a neighborhood ritual to nicky nicky nine door the place (that's ringing the doorbell and running away for all of you not familiar with the regional dialect - I'm not even sure where that's from) and once and awhile, the crochety senior who lives there comes out and screams at you and keeps your ball, kite, plane or whatever other projectile you've managed to crash in the no-man's-land that is their lawn.

It's not often you can identify with the characters in a movie like that, especially an animated one, but the story is so imaginative and familiar you just can't help but be drawn in. The character of the old man that lives in the house was done especially well and creeped me right out. The animation was excellent! The cinematography.. well, man.. Sooner or later one of these computer animated jobbies is gonna take the damned oscar for that. They're gonna have to invent a different category. With a 3D-engine you can do whatever you can imagine, and these animators imagined quite a bit. Spielberg had something to do with this, you can totally tell.

Did I mention the dialog? There's a scene where the kids are up all night watching this house eat poodles through a telescope and the babysitter comes in to ask what the heck they're doing.
"We've been up all night watching the spooky house, we haven't left this room once, not even to go to the bathroom! " The room is a mess and the babysitter picks up a plastic coke bottle with an unknown liquid inside "Don't drink that!" the kid says..

Then she says "Whatever disease you guys have I'm sure there's letters for it and they make pills you can take..." etc..

I'm not sure when this thing is out on video, but it' worth checking out!