"The House with a Clock in Its Walls" may be director Eli Roth's inaugural excursion into the family-film arena, but for the filmmaker behind such hyper-violent fare as 2006's "Hostel," 2007's "Hostel: Part II," 2015's "The Green Inferno," and 2018's "Death Wish," one can sense the fun he's having in twisting mass-market entertainment to satiate his rebellious sensibilities. Gateway horror full of punchy repartee and an empathetic soul, the film nevertheless involves necromancy, blood rituals, guts-spewing jack-o'-lanterns, and a room filled with creepy mannequins. In an era when movies made with children in mind play it too safe, this one harkens back to a time and tone similar to 1984's "Gremlins," 1985's "Return to Oz," and, perhaps most surprising of all, Bob Balaban's 1989 pitch-black suburban satire "Parents." Signs of what feels like studio-mandated pandering creep in from time to time, and it is for this reason it ultimately cannot match the success of these aforementioned pictures. Still, Roth and screenwriter Eric Kripke's (2005's "Boogeyman") blending of the spooky and sweet is infectious.
The year is 1955 when 10-year-old Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) arrives in the Norman Rockwellian town of New Zebedee, Michigan, heartbroken and in need of a new family. Following the untimely deaths of his parents, Lewis is welcomed in by his mom's estranged brother, Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black), a quirky parlor magician (and maybe a little more) whose gated mansion is filled with clocks. None of these timekeeping devices, however, can drown out the one Jonathan and neighbor/best friend Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) desperately wish to find, a ticking monstrosity hidden in the walls by the house's previous owners, deceased warlock Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan) and wife Selena (Reneé Elise Goldsberry). Desperate to fit in at school and impress cool kid Tarby (Sunny Suljic), Lewis turns to performing an unthinkable ritual in the local cemetery-a fateful decision which places himself, Uncle Jonathan, Mrs. Zimmerman, and perhaps the whole of humankind in existential danger.
See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review
