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A single leaf, painted with diminishing hues of brown, red and orange clings to its branch for a moment before detaching in the wind and becoming another passenger of the fall season’s blustery channels. Removed from its source of life, it’s carried to its resting place with elegance and grace, all the while accompanied by the wavering tonalities of a young girl’s carefree song. Her tricycle carries her bumping along the sidewalk below as she greets the day and embraces the swaths of autumn which have bathed her neighborhood in the vibrant colors that accompany the conclusion of life’s brilliant, but brief, cycle. The leaf passes and lands, coming to a stop on the sidewalk before her and a looming, ominous structure that the little girl is clearly afraid to pass— two symbols to represent the season, calling equal attention to the beauty and innocence inherent within it as well as the death and decay so synonymous with the months leading into winter’s icy grasp.

Something as intoxicating as it is off-putting. Something monstrous.

October 1st carried with it a thousand happy excitements, each racing through my young mind as the crisp autumn air ushered in one of my favorite seasons. Thoughts of fun-sized Snickers bars, cardboard skeletons with articulating limbs and nighttime walks to admire the neighbors’ elaborate decorations raced across my consciousness, but nothing got me as excited for the fall-laced holiday as the prospect of getting to watch my favorite seasonal outings.

We didn’t own very many VHS tapes growing up, so when it came to Halloween specials and movies, I relied heavily on what was airing on TV. The video store was good for some things, of course, although come October you were hard pressed to find one of their maybe two beat up copies of Hocus Pocus (1993) or Ernest Scared Stupid (1991). No, you were better off checking the TV guide and planning your schedule accordingly, every kid knew that.

Whether it be the Rugrats Halloween special or the latest Halloween themed commercial from whatever seasonal Happy Meal toy McDonald’s was featuring that year, it was seeing the season come to life onscreen that put me most in the spooky spirit. Still, it was surprisingly rare that a new classic would be added to the ranks of Linus’ musings about the Great Pumpkin or Garfield’s pirate-themed trick-or-treating adventure. Unlike Christmas, Halloween was not a holiday that had the entertainment industry scrambling to add to its filmic repertoire year after year. So it was, even at a young age, I became acutely aware of the screen’s Halloween offerings, always on the hunt for the next movie, show or special to add to my must-watch favorites come every October.

Perhaps that is why I was so enamored with Monster House (2006) the moment I heard its title and logline. The premise was simple, summarized in its two word moniker, and without seeing a single frame I could immediately imagine the feel of the thing. The trailer seemed to confirm that for which I had most hoped: a modern take on the classic Amblin style, capturing the Spielbergian sense of childlike wonder along with all of the coming-of-age trappings that go with it. A Hilarious, spooky and exciting adventure revolving around the strange, supernatural goings on that only seem possible on Halloween night.

Monster House began lumbering to life almost a decade before its release, when prolific writers Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab pitched it to Robert Zemeckis’ production company, ImageMovers. The idea was simple and encapsulated by its title, revolving around some trick-or-treaters and a murderous house, haunted by the ghost of a mean old man who died of a heart attack on Halloween night.

Speaking about it on the podcast Best Movies Never Made, Rob Schrab describes how the original script was intended to be live action, with the house being brought to life through a combination of practical and digital effects. The animatronic house was intended to mirror the physiology of its spirited counterpart more closely, adopting slimy interiors that presented different rooms as different sections of the body with far more grotesque accuracy than seen in the finished film. Skin as wallpaper, a kitchen dressed as a stomach, a plumbing system comprised of slithering intestines and even a giant brain in the upstairs bedroom, Monster House was always intended to be a throwback to the classic sci-fi monster flicks that came before it just as much as it was an homage to the Amblin way of storytelling popularized in the 1980s.

Still, despite the thought that the house may even be able to be realized by a man in a suit for the film’s explosive climax, the project was shelved under the weight of the lack of technology at the time to appropriately bring its titular threat to life. In the six or seven years that passed while dust gathered atop Monster House’s title page, technology did indeed advance and Zemeckis’ company invested significant funds into motion-capture technology. While the film may not have seemed like a viable option for live action, in an animated realm, anything was possible.

A new creative team was brought on board, with Gil Kenan at the helm as director and Pamela Pettler penning a new take on the original screenplay. While the film would utilize the same motion-capture technology used to create The Polar Express (2004), the creators would adopt a different approach, moving away from attempts at photo-realism and crafting an exaggerated, hyper-reality that more closely evoked the stop-motion worlds of Tim Burton.

The film was shot on a stage consisting mostly of wire frames and under the lens’ of hundreds of cameras, capturing every angle of every movement of the actors. Garbed in tight black suits and fitted with bobbles of various sizes, the star studded cast performed each scene in a vacuum, separated from the autumnal vibrancy presented onscreen by the stark, computerized reality of their Tron-esque soundstage. This even extended to Kathleen Turner’s turn as the monstrous structure, the actress herself performing the chaotic movements of the dislodged home seen during the climax.

From there, the shots were composited, colored and mapped out, a handheld wand allowing for cinematographer Xavier Grobet to give camera movements a human touch that might otherwise be absent from a film built inside of a computer. The picture was put together with craft and care, every creative involved focused on bringing to life a movie that not only embodied the spirit of the Halloween season, but the experience of growing up.

The resulting movie emerged as an extraordinary testament to all of those elements which helped birth it, from concept to creation. Although the picture deviated from Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab’s original vision, it presented a world infatuated by those things which inhabited it: classic monster movies, Amblin coming-of-age stories and all of the wonders of October 31st.

The story follows DJ (Mitchel Musso) and his charmingly juvenile partner Chowder (Sam Lerner) as they attempt to discern what’s really happening in the spooky house across the street, occupied by old man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi). Nebbercracker is a frightening presence on the street, evidenced from the start when he strips a small girl of her tricycle and sends her away in tears. Desperate for maturity, DJ rejects the idea of trick-or-treating in lieu of spying on Nebbercracker’s activities, resulting in a confrontation and subsequent heart-attack that leaves Nebbercracker’s unmoving body left to be carted away to the hospital. It’s then that the house awakens.

The film is populated by quirky peripheral characters, fleshing out the tumultuous landscape of being not quite a kid and not yet a teenager, including a rebellious babysitter voiced by Maggie Gyllenhaal, her rocker boyfriend voiced by Jason Lee and even an pudgy pizza delivery boy, video game legend and scholar of the occult played by Jon Heder. Soon the two are joined by Jenny (Spencer Locke), causing a schism between the boys while simultaneously illustrating the true nature of their no longer prepubescent immaturity, and before long the three are embroiled in a battle to the death with the most dangerous haunted house imaginable.

Director Gil Kenan and cinematographer Xavier Grobet take full advantage of the animated medium, following a leaf as it winds inextricably amongst tree branches and glides purposefully through the air, tracking down chimneys and flying through windows to find the person at the other end of a pair of binoculars peering inside. There’s a sense of urgency to every shot and a purposefulness to each handheld adjustment as the characters bicker and scheme that drives the film forward and imbues the goings on with the sort of life that the film is so keen on imposing on inanimate objects.

As the night wears on and the house begins to claim its victims— even a neighborhood dog proves not to be safe— the trio realizes they are truly on their own. Still, the horrors of entering the living house and traversing the glowing green spiritual presence contained beneath the floorboards in an effort to destroy it reveal not salvation but the beginnings of an explanation. For, buried in the basement is the large concrete outline of Constance, the fabled deceased wife of Nebbercracker, said to have been eaten by the old man long ago. Thickening the plot and offering a face to the sentient location, the myth seeks to find a human core at the center of the monstrous threat.

What makes Constance’s story so fascinating is not the punishing meanness from which it derived, rather the misguided sweetness by which it was carried forth. Returning from the hospital, Nebbercracker reveals that he rescued Constance from a circus life built around confinement and cruelty, only to have her perish during the construction of the infamous house, what was to be the foundation of their happy life together. Ultimately, her mistrust of others doomed her to a sticky end as she fell into still pouring cement when Nebbercracker had to stop her from attacking some neighborhood children attempting to lob more tricks than treats one Halloween night long ago.

Nebbercracker loved his wife and cared for her still, even in death. He watched out for her. And he watched out for the neighborhood children that may have inadvertently crossed her path. His hatred was a mask, his ugly persona a defense mechanism, a sacrifice to ensure the safety of the innocent as well as the endurance of his beloved, whom he was never able to save.

DJ’s desire to shed adolescence in the stead of maturity is answered with a complicated tragedy of love, loss and sacrifice, culminating in a confrontation that sees Constance’s house tear itself from its roots and attack the protagonists in a nearby quarry, requiring all three children to muster up their courage and defend not only the town but the old man they had so recently believed to be the true threat. And, in so doing, the characters not only acknowledge the value of the youth they still have but the weight of the impending development and growth that is already well on its way into their lives.

Monster House concludes not with the sad reality of what has transpired, but the joyous release and catharsis those events have brought about. Constance is not defeated, she is freed. Nebbercracker is not abandoned, he is embraced. What began as a race to maturity, concludes with the leisurely stroll of youth, reminding the young protagonists that to come of age, one has to live. Even the babysitter’s jerk of a boyfriend once had a red kite, something he loved, something that made him happy— it’s when people forget their youth that maturity loses its meaning, growth is stunted and age begets a hollow existence that stamps out imagination and saps the joy from existence.

Halloween is a night of experience, possibility and explosive creative joy. It’s a night that peers into the blackness surrounding the spirited unknown, where secrets lie uncovered and anything is possible. From its hilarious characterizations, gorgeous design and cinematography and darkly exuberant, playful score by Douglas Pipes, Monster House embodies this sentiment and stands firmly alongside the classics of the Halloween screen.

Nothing seems to command any given holiday spirit more than the movies which best inhabit and subsequently define those occasions’ iconography and essence. While I lament the fact that I was not able to grow up watching Monster House alongside my annual viewings of Ernest Scared Stupid and Hocus Pocus, I am grateful for the children that now can. October 1st always felt like a holiday in its own right when I was a kid, the official day where I could start viewing my favorite faux-scary things. And, luckily for my kids, they don’t have to track down a TV guide to map out when and where they’ll be able to watch them.

It’s the day where a threshold is crossed. When the eerie and the macabre become the norm and not something to be hidden in the darkest corners of entertainment’s ever deepening attic. Horror is a wide and sweeping genre, containing countless titles to frighten and entertain during that crisp, cool month where the leaves die, fall and paint a picture in our backyards more beautiful than summer’s lush vegetation or winter’s freshly fallen snow. Precious few films manage to capture that special feeling only possible when you’re a kid heading out on Halloween night to see what the darkness might hold in store and Monster House is undoubtedly one of them.

What began with a leaf, a scary house and a crying little girl whose tricycle had been unceremoniously stripped away by an angry old man, concludes with the same little girl now dressed as a flower and trick-or-treating with confidence at the very same spot where her treasured item was stolen. The house is gone, but the old man is not, handing out those items he had snatched from the neighborhood children like some sort of spooky Santa, mining them from the ruins of his formerly haunted home. Death and decay is certainly synonymous with All Hallow’s Eve, but so is the beauty and innocence that accompanies the swirling awe wrapped up in the eternally fluctuating unknown. There is fear there, truly, but peace as well. Uncertainty. Growth. Redemption. A complex web that intertwines not only the vibrancy of the leaf and the forebodingness of the looming house but the youthful exuberance of the little girl’s flower costume and the gaping chasm where the terrible structure once stood as well.

It’s the kind of chilling exhilaration that intoxicates and off-puts in equal measure. Monstrous, yes, in every sense of the wondrous word.