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Can you hear the ticking?
Young Lewis Barnavelt, protagonist of Eli Roth’s The House with a Clock in Its Walls, certainly can.
Based on the 1973 novel of the same name, The House with a Clock in Its Walls is a wonderful adventure into dark fantasy, a story that toes the line between childrens’ PG fare and serious Gothic storytelling. It’s a story for the children of the Beetlejuice generation – or rather, their children – filled with lavish Gothic weirdness, strange forbidden spells, and a rather friendly sentient armchair.
The story of The House follows young Lewis (Owen Vaccaro), a recently orphaned boy sent to live with his uncle in a strange, old mansion in Michigan. A little bit of curiosity (and being indomitable, as Lewis likes to say) leads the boy to discover that his uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) is, in fact, a warlock, and is frantically searching for the clock hiding in the walls of his home…a clock set to destroy life as they know it.
Aside from the heavily detailed, fascinating set, the cast makes this movie, delivering characters that the audience hooks on to immediately, never letting go as they race against the (literal) clock to defeat the evil lurking in the Barnavelt house.
Jack Black plays well to the younger, more family-friendly crowd as Lewis’ uncle – a feat also evidenced in last winter’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – and his Jonathan Barnavelt is a wonderful balance of encouraging caretaker, weird relative, and scarily talented warlock. It seems like there’s nothing he can’t do, and no silly joke he can’t make work.
He matches up perfectly with Cate Blanchett’s Florence Zimmerman, the kooky, sarcastic, purple-wearing witch who lives next door. Blanchett brings the humorous muscles she flexed in Thor: Ragnarok to the screen, making her the standout of the film in more ways than one. She’s the bizarre mother figure that Lewis needs, reminding him and the audience that “weird is like the nuts in [her] cookies…the nuts make things interesting.”
A wonderfully Twin Peaks-ian Kyle MacLachlan appears as the film’s villain, and his appearance in the third act takes the film from pleasantly magical to darkly Gothic, something more reminiscent of director Eli Roth’s R-rated work. The climax is nothing short of brave and absolutely indomitable, echoing many an adventure story before it, with the best kind of Halloween-y twist.
(Those with younger children may want to heed this warning: the last third of the film can be quite intense for younger viewers, with enough jump scares and creepy dolls to spook some adults into believing in magic. View with caution – or at least with hands over little eyes.)
But, if you lack small children, and enjoy period pieces and a good bit of magic, then The House with a Clock in Its Walls might just be for you…if you can hear the ticking too.
The House with a Clock In Its Walls is in theaters now.
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