Media Journal #2 – Fear: Childhood Nightmare Fuel: Monster House

Monster House (2006) directed by Gil Kenan and produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, is an animated horror movie that haunted me as a child. It is a film about a group of tweens investigating a creepy old neighbor’s house, only to find out that it is alive. Together they must destroy the house before it terrorizes the neighborhood children on Halloween. Revisiting the film as an adult, I admire how ridiculous the premise sounds. What should not work does, however, due to the way the story is executed through clever uses of camera movement, sound, and character design. Encompassing all of these important factors is the use of motion capture that brings the CGI animation to life in such a way that it enters the uncanny valley.

In the opening scene of the film, sound proves to be an effective tool to affect the mood of the audience. An insert shot of a girl’s tricycle wheels racing through fallen autumn leaves is what cues a cheery and whimsical score to come in. The camera then pans up to follow the girl as she sings and rides her tricycle down the block. At this moment, the audience is made to feel at ease. The danger that lies within the film is not near yet, it will not show up later in the film. All of a sudden the music stops when the girl gets her tricycle stuck on Old Man Nebbercracker’s front lawn. An air of silence warns the audience that something is not quite right. The little girl feels this too as she begins to hesitate while singing. She then stops completely as she realizes that she cannot get herself out of the rut she is in. A spooky score begins and the creak of wooden floorboards is heard as the camera follows a leaf falling onto Nebbercracker’s front porch. The audience now knows that something frightening is going to come out from within the run-down house. Next, the camera zooms in on the doorknob as it turns with a metallic sound. Nebbercracker’s deep exhaling and grumbling can be heard as he slams the front door open. Rearing his ugly head from the shadows, he yells at the little girl to get off his lawn. While this is happening, the music swells with a loud horn and drum section. The threat had now been revealed to the audience and they are made to feel frightened with the little girl as she sees her beloved tricycle be ripped apart by the old man. Timing for the music and the use of sound effects in these key moments within the scene elevate it to just the right level of intensity. It plays along with the audience’s expectations of what a kids’ movie is supposed to be and subsequently subverts them. As a result, they are now aware that anything can happen. 

“Stay Away From My House” is a scene in which the motion capture technology works to the film’s advantage in terms of traumatizing audience members. The film’s protagonist, DJ, and his friend Chowder look on in horror as Chowder’s basketball rolls across the street and onto Nebbercracker’s front lawn. DJ gathers up the courage to retrieve it, but as he reaches down to pick it up, Nebbercracker bursts through the front door. He chases DJ around, eventually catches up to him, lifts him off the ground, and screams in his face. As the music intensifies, Nebbercracker’s heart beats faster and faster until it dramatically pauses, ceasing Nebbercracker’s wrath. Letting out a few groans, his eyes widen and his mouth drops open. His facial muscles begin to contort, finally resting in an angry scowl, with eyebrows furled, nose scrunched, and mouth snarled. The camera pans down as Nebbercracker’s pale and ghastly face falls onto the ground, overtaking the entirety of the frame, staring on with dead and fearful eyes. Then, the camera zooms out to show a traumatized D.J. trapped under his creepy neighbor’s lifeless body. Overall, the realness of Nebbercracker’s facial expressions in this scene perfectly conveys the horror and tragedy of the situation. Audience members are forced to experience this gruesome moment with D.J. as the camera gives some claustrophobic point of view close-ups of Nebbercracker’s ugly face. They empathize with DJ as he witnesses his neighbor suffer a heart attack. As a child, I would have been scared out of my mind, believing that D.J’s trespassing had inadvertently killed Nebbercracker. 

The scene that begins the climax of the film is one that utilizes lean-out and insert shots to heighten the drama of the moment and emphasize the new threat that the house imposes on the main characters. Returning home from the hospital, Nebbercracker finds D.J. and his friends on his front lawn. Ready to scold them once more, D.J. confesses that they’ve been in his house and now know what happened to his wife. Knowing that he needs to defend himself, he explains the full story. His wife’s death was caused by an accident and how her soul inhabited the house itself. As he attempts to go back inside the monster house, D.J. stops him, telling him to let his wife go. In a close-up shot, D.J. extends his hand in a sign of friendship and Nebbercracker takes it. The camera leans out to a point of view shot that looks inside out from one of the house’s second-floor windows. From there the camera cuts to some extreme close up shots of the roots of the nearby trees being ripped out of the ground from either side of the house. A quick pan up shows that the trees have become the monster house’s arms and the roots, its hands. In my ten-year-old mind, I would have been filled with dread as I anxiously anticipated for what would happen next. The camera then cuts to a wide shot of the house in its full and terrifying monster form with Nebbercracker and D.J. cowering underneath it. Lifting off the ground, the house nears the screen and chases after them. At this moment, my heart would have raced as I hoped that the “good guys” would successfully escape the house’s advance and destroy it once and for all. Even though I had seen the house come to life in earlier scenes, I had not expected it to displace itself from its place on the ground. The lead up to this moment is what makes this the best scare in the entirety of the film in my opinion. 

In conclusion, Monster House proves itself to more than a children’s Halloween movie. It is inventive and unique in that it takes the cliches of a haunted house and the creepy neighbor across the street of typical horror films and turns them on their heads. Using the motion capture technology of the day to its advantage, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and were able to craft truly disturbing images. As an adult re-watching certain clips from the film, I am no longer frightened by it. However, I can see it continuing to terrify children today.