The haunted house, a landmark of horror. The greatest locale for any scary story from cinematic classics to streaming successes, it's amazing how the same location can generate a plethora of ideas. We all know films and series like The Haunting, Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror and The Haunting of Hill House, but there is one animated film that takes this idea to the terrifying extreme.

Monster House is a 2006 film directed by Gil Kenan and written by Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab and Pamela Pettler. It follows three kids, D.J, Jenny, and Chowder, as they investigate the creepy house across the street that seems to be eating people. Kenan and the team of writers came to find huge success in their own right and by this early work it's clear to see why. This film is the strongest entry in ImageMovers Studios' animated repertoire and sits nicely with The Frighteners and Death Becomes Her as an original, tightly written yet accessible horror movie. While it's by no means perfect, it's got a very classic "Kids on bikes" kind of feel with a sardonic sense of humor and a heart of gold in the middle, but the crowning achievement of this film is Constance (Kathleen Turner), the Monster House herself.

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This isn't a traditional haunted house movie, where those that linger in the house after death is what makes the place dangerous; this is more of a possession of the building itself. From the edge of the front yard to the rows of trees surrounding it, inside and out, this house is alive, sentient and angry. When looking at very early concept designs for this movie, when it was planned to be live-action, you can see this idea taken in more of a biological direction, the house having human organs, an eyeball and a fleshy tongue, a little similar to the end of Slither, which came out the same year.

The Anatomy of 'Monster House'

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Image via Columbia Pictures

What we see in the film is a tongue made of a long, ornate carpet, lit up windows for eyes, splintered wood for teeth, bare trees for arms and full paranormal control of the whole area. The house can turn itself from a rickety, yet unassuming old building into a living being before the eyes of the audience as the wood cracks into a snarling grimace and the windows begin to glow. It can easily lure people in by taking away the warning signs littering the lawn, and offer them beloved possessions it once took away before grabbing them by the frog-tongue of a carpet. Constance has very animal-like qualities, but there is clearly something with both human intelligence, and a deep sense of vengeance and fury inside it.

This movie deserves more credit than it's given on the monster design alone. Not only was the design change from anatomy to architecture a great way to make this film less terrifying for a younger audience - they likely wouldn't respond well to a David Cronenberg-style haunted house in their spooky animated adventure - making the possessed house operate like a human body paves the way for creative ideas that the crew took full advantage of, from how Constance operates to how she is defeated. The nitty-gritty of this design is so novel that it should be witnessed for yourself but, in more ways than one, it's what's on the inside that counts.

What Does the Haunted House Mean?

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No matter what is exactly inside a haunted house, it always maintains a similar and quite fascinating symbolism. The idea of a deep, resonating trauma that is able to scar a place that should be safe and welcoming, that it turns it into a death trap. The dark backstory that ties every film in this subgenre together, the one that people sardonically point out when a new family decides to move in. Maybe a family was horrifically murdered, or the foundations lie on top of an ancient burial ground, or there is someone still living inside the walls. Whatever it is, the home absorbs that misery, almost keeping a memory of what happened there and refusing to let go.

This is by no means a new revelation in film analysis, this is a cold take, we all know what the haunted house represents at this point. The way Monster House uses this metaphor though, is incredibly fascinating; the house isn't the lingering trauma of one event, the house is the vengeful spirit of one person. Constance is the most fascinating character in the movie, and you only properly see her in photographs and one flashback scene. A giantess in a traveling freak show, she had been ridiculed and abused for a long time before meeting her husband, the scary old man red herring, Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi), who ended up being the silver lining of her life, and her of his. While the two were deeply in love, Constance still harbored a lot of anger and remained very insecure and defensive over herself and her home.

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Threatening some egg-throwing kids lead to her death, and she was plastered deep into the foundation of the house, her spirit branding onto it. The house, in a way, gives her the power that was stripped from her in life, and she uses that power with a vengeance. Constance isn't just an entirely malicious force, she is incredibly protective of her husband, and only advances her volatility when D.J. accidentally gives him a near-fatal heart attack. She is both furious over yet another young delinquent bringing disaster to her home, the same thing she blames her death on, and doesn't have Nebbercracker to stand between her and doing whatever she wants. She embraces the monster that the house turned her into, and it's hard to blame her for it.

Monster House is one of those movies that people in their 20s watched when they were young and were either traumatized by or didn't know what to make of it. The animation does have some weird quirks because of the new motion capture technology, though it's not nearly as bad as the other ImageMovers animated films, and the characters can have some really unlikeable moments, but there is a lot of imagination here that is worth giving it another look. It's a masterful combination of the two great horror movie subgenres that can be accessible to all ages and all levels of horror tolerance. You'd be hard-pressed to find a scaredy-cat who will make it through a splatterpunk slasher, but haunted houses and creature features are the ones that can be a lot of fun and a great access point into horror.

This film, through the incredible architecture of the titular building, brings us all the best of both worlds.