The House With The Clock In Its Walls

It’s interesting to think, that a genre once so fertile in the eighties and nineties – the mainstream family fantasy that wasn’t necessarily a sequel or franchise – has now, all but disappeared. The likes of The Addams Family, The Borrowers and Mousehunt, ended with Nanny McPhee, and has since been foreshadowed by animation, or live-action remakes of known quantities.Now, extreme horror director Eli Roth (Hostel), is looking to revive it, with a film that is now a Hollywood rarity: a family horror-fantasy, squarely aimed at the pre-teen, ‘tween-age’ audience. Based on the 1973 novel of the same, rather perplexing name by John Bellairs (more of a bestseller in the US than the UK, it tells the rather well-worn story of Lewis (Owen Vaccaro – endlessly irritating and over-acting horribly throughout), an orphaned outsider who goes to stay in a mysterious, ancient mansion containing a lifetime of secrets, under the stewardship of a wizard, his uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) and his eccentric next door neighbour, Mrs. Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett – wonderful, and poised-in-purple, but given so little to do).The film itself is a decidedly mixed Halloween-themed bag of too few tricks and not enough treats either, but what I admire about its ambition at least, is Roth’s desire to recapture that aforementioned lost genre: a mainstream effects-laden family fantasy.Tellingly, it’s distributed by Spielberg’s company, Amblin (watch out for the nice touch of its E.T.-inspired logo in its original eighties form. That inimitable Amblin spirit of funny-and-scary-but-not-too-frightening essence of Goonies meets Gremlins, is exactly what this film admirably strives to recalibrate. Many critics have cited Harry Potter, but I think it far more closely resembles the undeterminable strangeness and ambiguity of Lemony Snicket, Dark Shadows, Monster House or Goosebumps – in which Black also stars.Really, it only partly succeeds. It’s fun, but as with so many films trying to balance laughs and scares – it’s not funny nor scary enough. It’s purely personal, but I’ve never found Jack Black remotely funny. Johnny Depp or James Franco would’ve been far better – but would’ve needed far sharper dialogue. The script should zing and sparkle, but it’s nowhere near as polished as it should be. There’s something so airlessly hollow about the whole atmosphere; the pacing should float - it often feels plodding and all so inconsequential.There’s plenty of effects magic which could’ve been pushed further, but there are some great moments, including a brilliantly ghoulish Kyle MacLauchlan, and a fantastically staged attack, reminding us: never to trust pumpkins…

Rating: * * *