In a welcome departure from intellectually bankrupt torture porn gorefests, Eli Roth returns with a children’s Halloween movie filled with gothic imagery, memorable characters and lots of magic. While it almost goes out of its way to avoid treading new ground, The House with a Clock in its Walls’ positive attributes work well enough to keep the adventure afloat and its cogs ticking.
To the film’s detriment, Roth is simply not the caliber filmmaker he believes he is and visibly wishes he was. At no point does the film’s directing rise above “passable” or feel like it would not be better realized in the hands of Steven Spielberg or Guillermo del Toro or even Tim Burton, whose brands and styles Roth is clearly inspired by. He lacks any distinctive technique or skill to make the movie recognizably his own and seems to rely on the talents of his cast to steer its direction for him. He is either unwilling or unable to bring anything new to any of the handful of genres he tackles and often seems more interested in recycling tropes from a dozen similar, better movies from which he draws his inspiration.
The only moments in the film where Roth seemed to be even awake enough to put visible effort on screen are the scenes that echo back to his roots in genre horror films, in which he utilizes the gothic imagery and atmosphere to lean hard into his PG rating and frighten his audience. The scare meter never rises above “amusingly creepy,” but some of what is on screen is sure to disturb younger viewers who may not fully understand what they are seeing.
This is not to say that the movie is bad, simply unremarkable. The story bears little originality and its main character, Louis, is a blank slate onto whom no emotions can be projected due to how flat and uninteresting his character design is. The only time the movie made me feel anything was as Louis loudly proclaims his third act, mystery-solving spell to find the titular clock. That had me nearly cringe myself inside out.
The moments when Jack Black and Cate Blanchett share the screen are when the film is at its best. Both are great actors in their own ways, but their combination in the film as a sort of magical spin on the Odd Couple really becomes a match made in heaven. Black’s character, Jonathan, is a juvenile beginner warlock with magical powers and little skill. Blanchett’s Florence is a motherly former witch with all of the skill but none of the power. The two pretend to hate each other, but it is blatantly obvious from their dynamite onscreen chemistry that there is a lot of love underneath the ribbing and name calling.
An actress of Blanchett’s esteemed two-time Oscar-winning magnitude gives the impression that a primarily visual-gag comedy actor like Black would be well beneath her and unworthy of her time, but Black impressively holds his own to keep the laughs coming and the relationship between the two characters balanced, and the two work together better than almost any other pairing this year. All I want is for them to be cast alongside each other in every movie for the rest of their careers.
The House with a Clock in its Walls is a serviceable Halloween-time children’s flick with its eyes set on being more than what is produced on screen. Save for a few eye-rolling gross-out humor gags, most of the jokes feel directed at the parents dragged to see it by their kids instead of the other way around. It is far from a bad time at the cinema, but is destined to be devoured by the Oscar-caliber dramas and professional-grade horror movies right around the corner. There are worse ways to spend an hour and 44 minutes, but grown ups looking for a quality fantasy epic to tide them over until the October movie season will notice their interest and enjoyment stop short. Never go again.
Rating: 5/10
