Monster House, an animation that's part horror, part comedy, is a thrilling roller-coaster ride that has you laughing one moment and sends chills down your spine the next.
Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, the movie is about a haunted house that wouldn't be out of place alongside the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.
It eats everything - from a tricycle and a basketball to a dog that crosses its path. It roars in anger and plays with its victims using its 'tongue' (a red carpet).
Halloween is approaching, and all the children in the neighbourhood are expected to go to the evil house to trick and treat. Teenager DJ (Mitchel Musso) and his two sidekicks, Chowder (Sam Lerner) and Jenny (Spencer Locke), decide to save the neighbourhood by striking the house at its heart - the furnace in its basement - with their water pistols.
The children's escape from the house after being swallowed is hair-raising. But as the film nears its conclusion, the story gets darker, in the style of the fairytales of Tim Burton or Roald Dahl. Its 'happy ending' reminds us that we ourselves create the monsters in our lives.
