The House with a Clock in Its Walls
(Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment)
By Lucas Allen
With Halloween around the corner, there’s no better time to start getting into the spooky spirit for the young and old. For the little ones, there’s the new family film “The House with a Clock in Its Walls,” which offers plenty of thrills and laughs that all ages can enjoy.
It’s directed by Eli Roth, who’s primarily known as a horror director for the grown-ups, like the “Hostel” movies, which makes this one quite a surprise. It’s also based on the first of a 12-book series by John Bellairs.
A young orphan named Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro), in Michigan in 1955, moves to a big house owned by his Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) after the death of his parents. He’s introduced to his uncle’s next-door neighbor. Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett), who’s very good at repairing stuff around the house. At first, he’s a little creeped out by the house’s haunted ambience, which includes some mysterious ticking sounds coming from within the walls at night. But when he discovers that his uncle is a warlock and Florence is a witch, he wants to learn how to master such powers they possess.
Once he gets the hang of it, he uses his newfound abilities to impress his new best friend and middle school class president Tarby Corrigan (Sunny Suljic). But that triggers a doomsday event when an evil warlock named Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan) rises from the grave to enact his plan. He invented a giant clock that’s hidden in the walls of the house that triggers the Earth to revert to its beginnings.
Now it’s up to Lewis, Jonathan, and Florence to combine their talents together to save the world from imminent doom. This movie can be seen as a throwback to kid books and movies of the 1980s and ’90s, where they’re not afraid to get a little scary. While certainly not too scary, it knows how to be creepy when it needs to be without being too traumatizing for the younger ones.
The production values makes it great to look at with every detail spent on the house’s interior to perfection. The house itself looks so amazing, it makes both “The Addams Family” and “The Munsters” jealous. The action is exciting enough to engage the family crowd, with savage pumpkins, creepy dummies, and the giant clock designed to end the world. The CGI is perfectly serviceable especially in the climax though kids may not yet determine the difference between good CGI and bad CGI.
However, there are some slow moments that drag this film a bit much. At 105 minutes, it could’ve used a little shaving. Black is once again in top comedic form in a similar movie to the likes of “Goosebumps” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” except this could be his best one yet. His timing and precision goes well with the film’s outlandish moments. Blanchett is pretty much the straight-man character, while maintaining some good comedic chemistry with Black on a number of scenes. Vaccaro does a fine job, while MacLachlan is good as usual when he’s playing dark characters.
Roth may have found a second career as a kids movie director showcasing much more quality than Robert Rodriguez’s kids movies, and “The House with a Clock in its Walls” is his perfect starting point. It’s good family horror entertainment to watch every Halloween after going trick-or-treating. Plus for some more horror fun, don’t forget to check out the IMAX version, which includes an IMAX 3D presentation of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG (for thematic elements including sorcery, some action, scary images, rude humor and language)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 3.25 Stars (Out of Four)
