Monster House (DVD)

Monster House, a movie set during Halloween, came out at the beginning of summer — perfect timing for its intended kiddie audience, but this family flick is equally as enjoyable for childless adults who are still young at heart.

The animated (and thankfully song-free) story follows young DJ (Mitchel Musso), his best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner), and the girl they both have a crush on, Jenny (Spencer Locke), as they gear up to uncover the secret of the "monster house" on their block. Read our theatrical release review here.

While the DVD is thankfully in widescreen (these pictures are too pretty, and too expansive, to be cut back via pan-n-scan), it's a somewhat disappointing disc because the extras don't offer much in the way of good, old-fashioned fun. The additional release material is very heavy on the motion-capture and animation process, the casting, and back stories on the script development.

Most of it is quite technical — I would have liked to have seen some fun featurettes on spooky houses, the casts' memories of Halloween, and some of the deleted scenes that were alluded to but not shown. I did enjoy learning one fluff-tidbit: voice actor Jon Heder's character was actually animated by his twin brother, Dan (the Heder brothers both have backgrounds in the CGI field).

The commentary track is the kind I don't like: Several different people, who are never identified either on the disc or by themselves, on obviously separate tracks all spliced together over the movie. I do, however, admit that it is an informative commentary (even if you never know who's talking, aside from director Gil Kenan and the sole female, producer Heather Smith) which offers up details of everything you could possibly want to know about, from the actors to the animators. Kenan is the most eloquent speaker and his solo track is fine, but it would have been a lot more fun to hear him interacting with at least one of his lead cast.

In short, there is little-to-nothing for kids or the casual film fan in the additional release material; but the movie itself is a real gem and certainly worth the price of purchase.