The house with a clock in its walls

A well produced fantastic story, with space for fantasy, comedy and terror

The House with a Clock in its Walls (2018)

The fantasy always amuses distinct generations, and with this movie it is not different. The House with a Clock in its Walls, is direct by Eli Roth, that gave the right amount of fantasy, comedy with a hint of terror. Its screenplay is based in a namesake novel by John Bellairs – the first of a 12 books series.

Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) is a ten years old child who has lost his parents in a car accident. The boy is sent to live with his uncle, Jonathan Barnavelt (Jack Black) in New Zebedee, Michigan. When Lewis arrives, he sees the place that he is going to stay: a dark old mansion. In the same night, he meets his uncle neighbour and best friend: Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett).

Since the first night, Lewis listens to a high sound of a clock. He gets up and see that his uncle is searching for the sound in the walls. In the next morning, he tries to talk with Jonathan about it but he changed the subject. This was his first day at the new school, which he met Tarby Corrigan (Sunny Suljic), that befriended just because of his campaing for class president.

In the second night, Lewis decides to go after his uncle. He follows him until a room where Jonathan begins to hit a wall with an axe, and the boy runs away, afraid. Lewis goes to his room and gets his things, and as he walks through the house, the house starts to communicate with him. A picture on the wall says to him not to leave, an armor tries to stop him and finally, an armchair stand in his way.

In this night, Lewis learned that Jonathan is a warlock and Florence is a witch. Moreover, the house is not only magic, but it also has a curse made by its previous owner, a warlock that was friend of Jonathan and became evil. And that is what Jonathan is searching for, the clock is the curse, and it has to be found as soon as possible. Lewis was enchanted by this whole new world, and asked for his uncle to train him as a warlock. Jonathan agrees.

After the election, Tarby starts to ignore Lewis. He has had a dream with his mother telling him to prove that he was interesting for the boy with a magic book that his uncle has forbidden. Lewis says to Tarby that he would prove that he knows magic and, after going to Jonathan house’s, they arranged to go to the cemitery resurrect a person, once that is what the forbidden book was about.

At night, the two boys have met in the cemitery. A bone hand from the cover of the book, pointed to a tomb, and Lewis begun the ritual. The cover of the tomb started to move, and Tarby runned screaming. After a few moments, Lewis runned off as well. They have resurrect Jonathan old and evil friend, Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan). The house begins to act strange, with the paint in the wall showing dead bodies, for example. Jonathan learns that Issac resurrects, but Lewis do not tells that it was him. Jonathan starts to think in ways of protecting himself and Lewis, and try to finally find the misterious clock. The story follows with the resolution of this climax.

The intense contrast between the colorful scenes, with magic and humour, and the dark photograph of the terror moments brings a dinamic and playful screenplay. The characters follow this balance with action, creating a rhythm with the fun moments, in its majority by Jonathan and Florence, and terror, finalized by Isaac and his wife. The movie follows the pattern of magic in Harry Potter style. Although it has some commonplace, it shows what it came for. It is available on Netflix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_with_a_Clock_in_Its_Walls_(film)

Do you like languages? Check out the Portuguese Version of this text, translated by the own author.