In most people's childhood, there's "that house" or "that neighbor". You know, the creepy one that supposedly cooks children or is haunted or ate the Johnson's dog. You get the picture. One or two children's' wild imaginations spawn an entire mythos about some poor old dude that lives in a broken-down house on the hill. The next thing you know, he's a child-eating lunatic.
Well, that's sort of the premise here. Only the twist is that the house truly is evil and haunted and does consume those that dare to step foot on its lawn.
CJ lives across the street from this house and one day witnesses the house doing it's evil thing. He tries to tell his parents (Catherine O' Hara and Fred Willard), but they are too busy leaving for a mini-trip. The babysitter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is more interested in getting her rocker boyfriend (Jason Lee) over to the house for some alone time, so she shushes CJ up to his room. He turns to Chowder, his best friend, and they decide to investigate the strange happenings together.
Soon, Chowder's basketball ends up on old man Nebbercracker's lawn and the boys must brave the vengeance of the house to retrieve it. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) angrily bursts from the house and as he is ranting at the boys for being on his property, he has a heart attack and dies! Soon, his house is crank-calling CJ and it is up to the boys to figure things out. They are soon joined by Jenny, whom they both have a huge crush on, and together the group of three determines to crack just what is happening, be it a haunted house or possession by Nebbercracker's ghost.
I won't spoil the surprise by revealing anything more, but the ride is pretty wild and as I said before, rather dark. Jon Heder makes a small but funny appearance as the local videogame god and the cast is chock full of great actors. Kevin James and Nick Cannon are the responding officers when the kids call in the fuzz. They are hilarious! Kathleen Turner rounds out the cast as the voice of the house. Everyone does a stellar job of making you absolutely believe them in their roles. Well cast, indeed.
There are plenty of featurettes to watch based on the cast, the animation process, etc. And, while I am not one to normally languish over features, these were very fascinating. For instance, I had no idea that the entire movie was mo-capped (motion capture), so the actors weren't just voicing their roles. They were truly acting and being filmed, then animated over. This makes perfect sense as most of the actors look startlingly like their real-live counterparts. Good stuff indeed.
This is a great story with a very nice ending, despite all of the malevolent undertones. There are a few jokes directed at adults, but nothing too bad, and unless your child is very skittish, the scary parts shouldn't be too much for them to handle. Highly recommended.
