The year of 2006 might very well be remembered as the year of the computer animated film. With close to a dozen releases throughout the calendar year, there have been more computer generated imagery thrown at the American public than ever before.

Some of these movies have been good (like “Over the Hedge”), and some have been pretty stinky (like “The Wild” or “Everyone’s Hero”... sorry Christopher Reeve). It is a film like “Monster House” that reminds us that these computer generated movies can not only be good in their genre, but also good compared to other films as well.

I have been a fan of horror stories all my life. Sure, I like movies like “Saw,” but I also like more tame or family-friendly spooky films as well, like the “Harry Potter” series. On the literary side, I was never one of these stuffy wine-and-cheese types complain that kids aren’t reading enough while they simultaneously lament the existence of the “Goosebumps” book series.

“Monster House” takes me back to my childhood when I read horror stories from the juv section of my local library. There were ghosts and goblins in these stories, and yes, sometimes people even died. But they weren’t so terrifying that they’d keep me up all night.

“Monster House” taps into that middle-school age horror movie feel. It’s got some scary stuff happening, but it’s all in good fun. The film tells the story of DJ, a kid who lives across the street from the scariest house on the block. One day, when his buddy Chowder loses control of his basketball which rolls onto old man Nebbercracker’s lawn, DJ approaches the house. When Nebbercracker comes out to yell at him, he passes out.

When the ambulance leaves, DJ and Chowder notice that the house seems to have come to life. Later that night, people start disappearing. They’re lured to the house which wakes up and eats them. DJ and Chowder enlist the help of a neighborhood girl to try to kill the house before hundreds of trick-or-treaters come up the walkway and get devoured.

While the film was released in theaters this summer, its DVD release is easily coordinated with the Halloween holiday. It’s a real treat to pick up for family viewing during the spooky holiday season, giving you an alternative to the commercial-laden Halloween specials that plague cable at this time of year. The only real disappointment on the DVD side is that you can’t experience the film in the digital-projected 3-D process that it was released in this summer.

Like many CGI films, some of the best parts of the DVD aren’t even the movie itself. “Monster House” the DVD offers a long list of behind-the-scenes featurettes, which chronicle the technologically sophisticated way the film was made. Instead of being hand-animated like so many other films, “Monster House” used motion capture technology, which involved hundreds of sensors being placed on the actors so their movements could be captured precisely in the computer.

While I’m not sure if this motion-capture technology is that much more effective than the regular old hand-animated work done by Pixar before, it’s pretty fascinating to watch. I imagine that even without a real set, this full-body acting allows the actors to give a better performance than if they were just stuck in some sterile sound booth all day.

Other special features include a video showing the evolution of a character, filmmaker’s commentary, a photo gallery and some extras for DVD-ROM.



Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound. Fullscreen (1.3:1). Mastered in high-definition. French language track. French subtitles. English language subtitles for the hearing impaired.