Monster House (2006)

The teenage DJ is observing his neighbor Nebbercracker on the other side of their street in the suburb that destroys tricycles of children that trespass his lawn. When DJ’s parents travel on the eve of Halloween and the abusive nanny Zee stays with him, he calls his clumsy best friend Chowder to play basketball. But when the ball falls in Nebbercracker’s lawn, the old man has a siege, and sooner they find that the house is a monster. Later the boys rescue the smart Jenny from the house and the trio unsuccessfully tries to convince the babysitter, her boyfriend Bones and two police officers that the haunted house is a monster, but nobody believes on them. The teenagers ask their video-game addicted acquaintance Skull how to destroy the house, and they disclose its secret on the Halloween night. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil”

• Director: Gil Kenan
• Release Date: 21 July 2006 (USA)
• Run Time: 91 min
• Country: USA
• Genre: Animation , Family , Fantasy , Mystery
• MPAA: Rated PG for scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language.

Tagline: There Goes The Neighborhood.

Trivia: There are several references to both Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis’ films in ‘Monster House’: The toy monkey from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Trees that come alive is derived from Poltergeist (1982). The floating leaf at the beginning of the film is a nod to the falling feather from Forrest Gump (1994). And the basketball brand-named Wilson is a reference to the volleyball of the same name from Cast Away (2000).

Goofs: Continuity: When the dog which is ‘eaten’ by the house first appears, it squats to pee in the manner of a female dog. At the end of the movie, when it appears again, it hikes its leg up and pees as a male dog. The dog is referenced in the credits as “Kevin”.