With the recent growing trend of original Netflix produced animation, it's no surprise that a stop-motion anthology feature would be due for praise. As of this month, The House has garnished a lot of critical acclaim and viewer attention due to its dark subject matter and creepy looking style. Made in the London based Nexus Studios and directed by four people per segment, although in this case three, the film tells three individual stories surrounding the exact same house spanning different time periods and characters. While definitely a creepy scenario, it's best to analyze the feature based on the house's inner anxieties.
To summarize all the stories one by one, the first narrative details a poor family who have a brand new house built over their old home, only for the parents to become diluted with the objects and the two children to escape. The second revolves around a later period where the house is for sale in a city by an anthropomorphic mouse, and everything and everyone ends up taking over the interior in the worst way possible. The third and final segment features the same house in a post flooded future, and its current owners of anthropomorphic cats struggle to rebuild the place to its former glory. As the overall movie is centered around this mysterious elaborately designed house, the major themes of interior anxiety, personal attachment, paranoia, present day turmoil, claustrophobia and fear of powerlessness stem through each of the segment's central figures coasting through the house's scary existence. Depending on what each protagonist ends up doing throughout their life, the anthology is established by very specific genres to give a literal three act structure.
While the first segment feels very horror-esque in its execution, as well as some of the second, the latter installments offer a more lighthearted approach to the discomforting tone set up. Each story is consistent in the surrealistic landscape the house sets up, albeit with different parallels that offer numerous takes on the downfall of individualism and sanity. It helps too that the film never holds your hand throughout each chapter, allowing the viewer to fill the pieces in themselves from each transition to the next nightmare. Very much like the frightened children in the first segment and the paranoid rat in the second, you're often left wandering the halls of the house in its unpredictable nature more often than not, especially with certain creepy crawlies and floods coming in and out. Aided by Gustavo Santaolalla's soothingly haunting score, the pacing in each story showcases the rise and fall of their protagonists in varying degrees. Perhaps the only exception would be the third installment, as it instead offers a more breathtaking option to live free of past burdens.
Among the poetic storytelling and fascinating characters, the major selling point to grind people within the film's universe is the gothic cloth animation. Vast attention to detail lies in the layout and design for the production set pieces and character models with tiny eyes and mouths. For instance, the first segment makes exquisite use of the extravagant amenities, such as delicious food of massive quantities and illuminating electricity of a dreamlike aroma. Both the effects animation and lighting play major roles in defining the mood for a given scenario, with the first sequence emphasizing harsh shadows conflicting with the children's fears and the third offering a more laid back open spaced palette common to the vast ocean. Lastly, the cast of every segment did a wonderful job with the material they were given, especially with the third segment offering a lot of genuine chemistry between the likes of Susan Wokoma, Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Kaye. Needless to say, this feature fits right at home with the art direction more than any other department.
Thanks to a tremendous amount of love and passion put into the writing and world-building, The House marks itself as a spectacular entry in Netflix's latest batch of animated gems. With three individual stories that want the audience to wander its halls and landscape, there's a lot to recommend about this feature, regardless if you're in the mood for some fairly thought provoking horror or just a fan of stop motion. After all, this movie hopes you will notice how things have changed over time, and how they have not, much like the house it was named after.
To summarize all the stories one by one, the first narrative details a poor family who have a brand new house built over their old home, only for the parents to become diluted with the objects and the two children to escape. The second revolves around a later period where the house is for sale in a city by an anthropomorphic mouse, and everything and everyone ends up taking over the interior in the worst way possible. The third and final segment features the same house in a post flooded future, and its current owners of anthropomorphic cats struggle to rebuild the place to its former glory. As the overall movie is centered around this mysterious elaborately designed house, the major themes of interior anxiety, personal attachment, paranoia, present day turmoil, claustrophobia and fear of powerlessness stem through each of the segment's central figures coasting through the house's scary existence. Depending on what each protagonist ends up doing throughout their life, the anthology is established by very specific genres to give a literal three act structure.
While the first segment feels very horror-esque in its execution, as well as some of the second, the latter installments offer a more lighthearted approach to the discomforting tone set up. Each story is consistent in the surrealistic landscape the house sets up, albeit with different parallels that offer numerous takes on the downfall of individualism and sanity. It helps too that the film never holds your hand throughout each chapter, allowing the viewer to fill the pieces in themselves from each transition to the next nightmare. Very much like the frightened children in the first segment and the paranoid rat in the second, you're often left wandering the halls of the house in its unpredictable nature more often than not, especially with certain creepy crawlies and floods coming in and out. Aided by Gustavo Santaolalla's soothingly haunting score, the pacing in each story showcases the rise and fall of their protagonists in varying degrees. Perhaps the only exception would be the third installment, as it instead offers a more breathtaking option to live free of past burdens.
Among the poetic storytelling and fascinating characters, the major selling point to grind people within the film's universe is the gothic cloth animation. Vast attention to detail lies in the layout and design for the production set pieces and character models with tiny eyes and mouths. For instance, the first segment makes exquisite use of the extravagant amenities, such as delicious food of massive quantities and illuminating electricity of a dreamlike aroma. Both the effects animation and lighting play major roles in defining the mood for a given scenario, with the first sequence emphasizing harsh shadows conflicting with the children's fears and the third offering a more laid back open spaced palette common to the vast ocean. Lastly, the cast of every segment did a wonderful job with the material they were given, especially with the third segment offering a lot of genuine chemistry between the likes of Susan Wokoma, Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Kaye. Needless to say, this feature fits right at home with the art direction more than any other department.
Thanks to a tremendous amount of love and passion put into the writing and world-building, The House marks itself as a spectacular entry in Netflix's latest batch of animated gems. With three individual stories that want the audience to wander its halls and landscape, there's a lot to recommend about this feature, regardless if you're in the mood for some fairly thought provoking horror or just a fan of stop motion. After all, this movie hopes you will notice how things have changed over time, and how they have not, much like the house it was named after.