The House Brings Beautiful Insanity  

The House is a stop motion anthology production made by the London based Nexus Studios. It was released June 14th as a Netflix original and by all metrics, is a beautiful fever dream of a movie. Coraline is the only movie I can compare it to, and if you enjoyed that movie you will love this one as well. The movie consist of three parts that all follow the story of the titular house 

Part one shows the creation of the house and the first people to move into it. The house was built by a mysterious Mr. Van Schoonbeek in the late 1800s after making a deal with a family that lived nearby. Things immediately seem off due to the fact that the extravagant mansion that will be built for them is free of charge, with Van Schoonbeek saying that he wants nothing more than creative satisfaction. When they finally move into the house things go downhill very quickly.

Every element of the production comes together to make an experience that’s hard to find anywhere else. The uncanny but beautiful stop motion style perfectly complements the surreal and dreamlike story. The voice actors for each character come off as warm and inviting which fits the family before they move into the house but feels more unsettling as the story moves. The soundtrack is amazingly dynamic but it never tells you how to feel. 

Part two brings the viewer back to the house in modern day where we follow the main character who is renovating the house for resale. While they are trying to fix the house up they find that there’s an infestation of bugs, they try to kill them all but there’s just too many. Things really get weird when they have an open house where two odd “people” show up and decide to not leave the house.

Most of what I said for part one also applies here but I will say that this part has a fundamentally weaker story. At times it feels like a direct copy of Coraline, and some scenes seem to have no meaning and are just there to be creepy. While I did enjoy this part I do think it’s the weakest. 

The third and final part takes place in the future. It’s never stated how far in the future, although we do know that it takes place after an event that they call “the great flood.” This flood left the whole town submerged in water. The main character from this part is still trying to renovate the house, but for different reasons. She’s trying to renovate the house to turn it into an apartment, which doesn’t seem to be going well because there’s no one around to live there . Only two people live in the apartment and they don’t have money to pay rent and they seem to conflict with her dream to make the house into a fancy apartment. Things change however, when a mysterious man shows up out of the mist.

My personal favorite part is the third. The visuals of the exterior of the house alone are enough for me to call this thing a masterpiece. Despite it being a site of an awful disaster that seemingly left many people homeless, it’s very peaceful looking. The skies have a pink hue to it and the water is calm and waveless. Not only are the visuals good, but I would say that the story is very well done as well. Part three drops the darker tone of the first two parts in favor of a more emotionally driven one, which works very well.

While each part varies in quality at some points, I think the combination of them leads to a very enjoyable viewing experience. If you have Netflix, I would highly recommend this one.