Monster House: Creepy Cool

Thanksgiving slouch being over, I think its time for me to get back on the saddle and post some mofo’n blogs.

I begin this Black Monday, with a link to the delightful Monster House teaser courtesy of the sweet apple High Def trailers .

The 3-D animated film was produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, and directed and co-written by newbie Gil Kenan. I was immediately taken by the unique animation style which was atmospheric and spooky, melding perfectly with the film’s mysterious subject matter. The teaser is framed with the movie trailer (also known as the “in a world….”) guy’s voice, who narrarates throughout with a sort of storybook sensibility, dropping phrases like “every town has a legend…” and “every street has a story…” The movie has the tone of an urban legend or ghost story that kids tell one another scare each other. Did you hear the one about the kid who’s parents left for a long weekend? He was stuck with a mean babysitter, and when he snuck across the street he was eaten by this old house!

The teaser felt like it was cut for a horror movie, but one that was told from a kid’s perspective, the animation serving to accentuate the imaginative and exagerrated elements of a child’s mind. That opening shot of the quiet suburban street in autumn, with the orange leaves dancing in the air and the parents pulling out of the driveway in a station wagon felt like some curious fusion of Speilberg and John Carpenter films from the 80’s.

The animation, which was done by Sony Imageworks, has a really different look to it, distinct from Pixar and Dreamworks both. If Tim Burton’s stop motion characters and the toys from Toy Story bred together, these characters would be their children. To me they look like wooden dolls come to life, and I like that their design is not too realistic (like the kids in the cringe inducing Polar Express), but maintain an artistic style, as animation should.

Interestingly enough, I actually heard a rumor that at one point the script was going to be done as a live action film, but then the producers/studios decided against it. Though I think it would have been captivating in that format, I am equally intrigued by it as an animation piece. I already feel the tittering butterflies in my stomach as I await a new slate of summer movies. Superman Returns. Monster House. It may be a grand summer yet.