The House (2022)
…………………………………………………
The House Movie Review
The House is a 2022 British stop-motion animated anthology film directed by a team of directors and released on Netflix. It is an uneven, but artistic production.
………………………………………………….
“Love your past, but travel on“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy. This is an interesting stop-motion anthology movie that deals with this very mysterious house throughout different time periods and all that connects the three segments is the said house.
The segments vary in quality and engagement as is to be expected from all anthology movies. While I loved the first story for its amazing horror overtones and a very creepy atmosphere, the other two disappointed me. The first segment remains the best one due to the fantastic exploration of the house itself and immaculate attention to detail.
The second one is interesting for the insects and the crazy hallucinatory sequences, but the dentist subplot did not make sense and the protagonist felt underdeveloped. It seemed as if they wanted to develop him much more, but they could not due to the restraining length of the segments.
The third one was my least favorite. This is where the movie suddenly jettisoned the horror genre in favor of drama and it simply did not work for me. I did get the flooding storyline and the environmental themes, but this was the most muted and subdued way to end this movie.
The House is gorgeously animated. That is by far its biggest strength. Not only is the attention to detail incredible, but the house that was imagined here looked both very cozy, but also cold and scary depending on the circumstance.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The first story dealt with the coldness of the house and lost innocence beautifully being the deepest segment, but others were much less effective thematically speaking. The sound is great as is the editing, but the voice acting is only serviceable and the dialogue could have been stronger for this type of more sophisticated storytelling.
