The House with a Clock in its Walls: Loses time

The House with a Clock in its Walls (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, and quite generously, despite sorcery, rude humor, occasional profanity and lots of scary stuff
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.21.18

At its best — thanks mostly to wildly imaginative production designer Jon Hutman — this film feels like a giddy visit to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, filtered through the snarky sensibilities of Lemony Snicket.

Having just determined the nature of the malevolent spell ticking down within the walls of
their home, young Lewis (Owen Vaccaro), his Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) and their
friend Florence (Cate Blanchett) ponder their next move.

There’s a kid-level sense of atmospheric dread on par with Poltergeist, which is no surprise; Steven Spielberg produced and co-wrote that 1982 classic, and his Amblin Entertainment had a hand in this new fantasy.

But scripter Eric Kripke has taken serious liberties with the 1973 John Bellairs juvenile mystery on which this adaptation is based, and — more damningly — Kripke’s storyline is a clumsy mess: a series of disconnected sequences in desperate need of better transitions and linking material. The film succeeds mostly due to momentum, as opposed to any sense of stability or plot logic.

On top of which, the result is helmed by Eli Roth, a director/writer/producer best known for savagely gory horror films such as Cabin Fever, Hostel and The Green Inferno. He’s the last person in Hollywood I’d choose to orchestrate a family-friendly fright flick. And while — in fairness — he does tone down his torture-porn sensibilities, glimpses of his vulgar, nastier side nonetheless emerge in this PG-stretching rollercoaster ride.

I’m sure he can’t help it. And such tendencies do this film no favors.

The setting is 1955, in small-town New Zebedee, Michigan. Orphaned 10-year-old Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) has been sent to live with his extremely eccentric Uncle Jonathan (a perfectly cast Jack Black) in a creaky old mansion laden with everything guaranteed to scare the wits out of an impressionable little boy: 

A front garden with an uncomfortably lifelike topiary winged lion. Scores of clocks in every room. A comfortably padded armchair with a tendency to follow one around. A stained-glass window that changes its image. Strange sounds in the night. And — worst of all — a chamber filled with sinister dolls, puppets, marionettes, dummies and other prop figures, many only half-assembled or in need of repair.

On top of which, the house seems possessed by some sort of larger, more malevolent clock, its muffled, almost subliminal ticking emanating from the very walls and foundation.

What kid could ever spend a night in such a place?

Poor Lewis isn’t merely frightened; he also misses his parents terribly, both victims of a tragic accident. He has barricaded himself behind a protective façade of Captain Midnight-style goggles and a fondness for big words; the large suitcase that Uncle Jonathan huffs to his nephew’s upstairs bedroom contains an equal measure of clothes and dictionaries.

The house’s unsettling atmosphere notwithstanding, Lewis’ fears are eased by his uncle’s benevolent — if constantly flustered — nature, and by the frequent presence of adjacent neighbor Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett), who insists that no problem is so great that it can’t be soothed by a plate of chocolate chip cookies. She’s as composed and elegant as Jonathan is disorganized and disheveled.

Lewis is packed off to the local school without so much as a by-your-leave, and — needless to say — the poor kid sticks out. (One of the film’s best sight gags involves his being chosen last for team sports, under the guidance of a cruelly unenlightened phys-ed teacher. A painfully familiar memory for some of us.)

Resident cool kid Tarby Corrigan (Sunny Suljic) takes pity on Lewis, offering protection from playground bully Woody Mingo (Braxton Bjerken). But this is where the film starts to go off the rails, because young Suljic can’t begin to navigate the subsequent extremities of Tarby’s behavior. Even factoring in the fickleness of childhood relationships, this kid’s erratic arc is apt to induce whiplash.

Too bad we can’t spend more time with the obviously intriguing Rose Rita Pottinger (Vanessa Anne Williams), who clearly crushes on Lewis, but whose brief appearance seems designed solely to set up a potential film sequel.

Meanwhile, back at home…

It turns out that Uncle Jonathan is a middling, good-natured warlock who once shared the stage with fellow magician Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan, glimpsed in silent movie-style flashbacks), who previously owned this mansion. World War II broke up their act, and Isaac encountered something awful when he went astray in Germany’s Black Forest. He came home consumed by dark “blood magic” that he practiced with his equally sinister wife, Selena (Renée Elise Goldsberry).

Some diabolical spell went awry, killing both Isaac and Selena, and imbuing the house with a ticking whatzit that seems to be counting down to ... something. Jonathan moved in, and Florence moved next door; both have been trying to find the concealed clock — or whatever — while trying to fathom the purpose behind the malevolent spell book and skeleton key (literally) left behind by Isaac’s final conjurement.

Both are kept in a tall, locked cabinet that Lewis is never, ever supposed to open. (Cue, eventually, the act of inevitable disobedience.)

We’ve no idea how or why Jonathan and the purple-garbed Florence met. We’re told that she’s a much more accomplished witch than he is a warlock, but that her powers have been seriously “compromised” by some equally unspecified previous adventure. (The vagueness is maddening.) Ergo, her spells don’t work. Except when they need to, as dictated by the demands of a given scene. It’s that kind of movie.

Will it surprise you to learn that Bad Stuff begins to coalesce around an impending lunar eclipse?

Black and Blanchett share a merrily sarcastic dynamic, Jonathan and Florence displaying their mutual fondness via a series of quite funny taunts and mocking insults. Even in these baroque surroundings, Blanchett maintains a regal bearing that playfully contrasts with Black’s signature insolence.

Young Vaccaro is persuasive as a meek, overwhelmed little boy seeking stability in this increasingly chaotic environment, and his precocious fixation with a five-dollar vocabulary is endearing. Vaccaro’s occasional attempts at poise are heartbreaking, but — and this is important — he isn’t nearly as successful at selling Lewis’ more dramatic moments.

Kudos to the aforementioned armchair, which has the temperament of an eager puppy, and displays far more personality than some of this story’s two-legged characters.

Everything builds to an increasingly dire and exciting climax that is marred by a gratuitously weird and lurid “sight gag” involving Black: about which, the less said, the better (and which definitely didn’t come from Bellairs’ book).

Given that Universal has dumped this fantasy a few weeks after school started, absent even the October release that would have been more relevant to the storyline, one suspects the studio doesn’t think much of the film’s chances. It’s hard to disagree.