Movie Review: 'The House With The Clock In Its Walls'

Florence (Cate Blanchett), Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) and Jonathan (Jack Black) race the clock.

The House With The Clock in Its Walls Is a Tween Thriller Without The Thrills.

Orphans, evil clocks, and warlocks, oh my! John Bellair’s supernatural thriller The House With a Clock in Its Walls, first published in 1973, hit cinemas on September 21st also titled The House With a Clock in Its Walls!! (#original)

This film opens with 10-year-old Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro, Daddy’s Home 2) moving to his eccentric Uncle Jonathan’s house in New Zebedee, Michigan after a car-crash kills his parents. The year is 1955 and geeky Lewis moves into Jonathan’s wacky three-story monstrosity: a cross between The Winchester Mystery House and Disney World’s The Haunted Mansion with a pinch of Halloween Town’s whimsy.

Inside the house, hundreds of clocks fill the up walls, tables, and every square inch of space ticking and tocking endlessly and creating mechanical heartbeats in every room. 

Welcome, foolish mortals...

Enchanted stain glass windows, sometimes predicting death, line the winding staircases. While outside dozens of candle-lit Jack o'Lanterns crowd the front yard and walkway. Then there’s an entire floor of the house filled with an army of creepy ass human-sized dolls, automatons and puppets. The House With a Clock in Its Walls gets a thumbs up from this girl  😉 for set design.

By day Lewis is the token orphan at his new school: a dorky misfit who’s always picked last in gym class. He has an affinity for superheroes and wearing adventure goggles everywhere he goes. By night Lewis explores the shadowy nooks and crannies of the house and sees his Uncle prowling the halls (sometimes with an axe in hand).

The plot in The House With a Clock in Its Walls has A LOT going for it. Let's crack into it. Lewis’s typical, boring world nosedives into the supernatural when Uncle Jonathan reveals he’s a warlock (boy witch, to Lewis) and the next door neighbor, Florence Zimmermann (Cate Blanchett) is a witch.

But WAIT. There’s more. The former owners of the house, Isaac Izard and his wife Selena, did dark magic on the reg and created a clock with the power to destroy the world. A clock that’s buried somewhere in the walls of the house and ticking down the minutes until D-Day. #GoodTimes  

Lewis and Uncle J.

In case that supernatural drama isn’t enough Lewis also has schoolyard drama when his one and only friend, the popular and athletic Tarby Corrigan, (Sunny Suljic) ditches him (naturally) without a second thought. Lewis’s plan to get him back is simple... magic. The house is loaded with it. Especially some huge black books full of Necromancy spells…. 

 You KNOW where this is going...

The House With a Clock In Its Walls should be an AWESOME movie. It should be a great way to kick off the start of Autumn and the Halloween season. Unfortunately, The House With a Clock In Its Walls sacrifices the creepiness and wit of the book - a fantastic blend of the paranormal and humorous misadventures, for cheap and bawdy humor. 

Eric Kripke, the creator of Supernatural is the man behind Clock’s screenplay. Can we get a WTF in the house!? Kripke KNOWS horror. How he butchered the occult comedy-thriller novel so severely is mind-boggling. Sure, horror elements are tucked into the narrative, especially in the first half of The House With a Clock In Its Walls. But they’ve been dulled, dampened, and dumbed down. Again, WHAT????

Clock’s plot and visual storytelling are beaten to a pulp to be a children’s horror film. Whenever things get “too scary” gross-out gags take over— like an enchanted topiary lion constantly pooping out dirt and puking pumpkins spraying their guts everywhere in a scene that goes on far too long. Because, haha? Kripke is not willing to commit to horror or even a decent eerie thriller. It needs to have sillies. Blegh.

😑

On top of that Owen Vaccaro’s Lewis brings nothing new to the orphaned boy meets fantasy world genre. He knows his lines and he’s constantly emoting but there’s no spark in his performance. He simply doesn’t fit the role. I don’t like to talk down child actors but as far as Lewis from the book is, Vaccaro’s Lewis is borderline unrecognizable. In Bellair’s book, Lewis is described as being overweight, sensitive and uncertain. The House With a Clock in Its Walls film cuts that entirely and instead makes Lewis scrappy, skinny and brimming with confidence. It would’ve been a welcome change to see an orphan boy who doesn’t fit that mold become the hero of his own story and save the day.  

Midnight + Cemetary + Dark Spells = ruh-roh!!!

Aside from that, the other casting is terrific. Boisterous and comedic Jonathan, identical to his character in the novel (personality wise, that is) , is superbly played by Jack Black who, although not a wildly hairy ginger, infuses the character with his trademark over the top and slapstick humor and devil may care ‘tude.

A natural at playing powerful women Cate Blanchett is perfection as Florence - motherly but also courageous and sharp-tongued. The banter between Black and Blanchett is as sharp and cheeky as it is Bellair’s novel. Their wacky and dysfunctional friendship is the best thing about The House With a Clock in Its Walls. The battles of words and the endless insults they sling at one another make the first half of movie a riot.

Oddball Orphan™ traditional garb: bowtie and kindasorta sweater vest

As a whole The House With a Clock in Its Walls sacrifices a solid storyline and plot twists for cheap laughs and over the top visuals. The worst of it is how it ends with an overinflated video game styled boss fight. It’s a scene that’s an ugly, messy, blend of CGI effects, subpar acting and one-dimensional villains MWAHAHA-ING in the background. It’s a cliche ending to an already weak and predictable second half of the movie.

The House With a Clock in Its Walls is not the worst movie out there--the first half is entertaining and engaging and easy viewing. However that promising beginning soon tanks. As a whole Clock doesn’t do its hour and forty-four-minute runtime any justice. To be real, watching The House With a Clock in Its Walls is time you won’t get back. Make of that what you will.

All photos from IMDB

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