by Robert Scocchi
| Published
The other day I found myself pleasantly surprised to find it the house On Netflix. Originally, I was looking for some animation programs for my kids to enjoy over the weekend. When I saw the title card for the houseI immediately knew that its content would draw on the surreal and horrific aspects of domesticated life, and the TV-MA rating confirmed my assumptions that I should not show it. the house For my 3 and 6 year old any time soon.
I watched as parental caution was cast aside the house For my own enjoyment, and I will tell everyone I know who has it Netflix Account to check out this special anthology of dark anime until they get tired of hearing me talk about it.
the house Divided into three 30-minute segments on very different timelines set within the designs of the same mysterious house constructed in the late 1800s. like the house Taking me from the engaging past, to the buzzing present, to the not-so-distant future that suggests the end times are fast approaching, I was transfixed by every frame of this amazing Netflix animation.
The first story: He was heard inside, weaving a lie
First batch of the house On Netflix, the story begins with a poor family gifted a new home built by a mysterious architect named Mr. Van Schoonbeek (Barney Billing). The family consists of sisters Mabel (Mia goth) and Isobel (uncredited), and their parents Raymond (Matthew Goode) and Penny (Claudie Blakely), move into their new, fully furnished and staffed home. While Raymond, a drunkard, and Penny, a seamstress, are enchanted by the elegant meals made from scratch and the exquisite design of the house, Mabel has a bad feeling about the new living situation.
Communicating primarily with Mr. Thomas (Mark Heap), Mr. Van Schoonbeek's employee and primary point of contact, Mabel becomes increasingly suspicious as the creepy contractors work through the night, constantly changing the floor plan, and lurking in the shadows as they slowly transform the house into a home. An unrecognizable and inescapable maze. Despite Mr. Thomas' reassurances, Mabel fears that the house will eventually swallow her and her family whole.
Story 2: Then the unearned truth is lost
Moving forward into the modern era, the house that bears the name of the Netflix special is now surrounded by a sprawling cityscape occupied by anthropomorphic mice. At first, I rolled my eyes at the obvious pun that modern life is a rat race, but in this context it works surprisingly well. This second piece focuses on the unnamed rat developer (voiced by Jarvis Cocker), and shows how desperate he is to finish his renovations and put the house back on the market so he can cash in on his business loan.
The house starts out in poor condition, but only until the developer's efforts to fight a persistent insect infestation and fix the myriad of structural and electrical issues through his shoddy and incomplete contracting take center stage. After firing his entire staff, the developer works on his own to make sure the next open house goes off without a hitch. As he finds himself deep in debt, he slowly begins to unravel.
Although the developer did not successfully sell the house, two interested buyers decided to move in and invite their families to live in the residence against the developer's will.
Story 3: Listen again and look for the sun
With the stories of past and present out of the way, the house It pushes viewers into the third and final act.
Although we're still looking at the same house that started this Netflix special, it may be a very different home given how much the world around it has changed and its influence on its architecture. In a town now occupied by anthropomorphic cats, which I can only assume were brought in to take care of the mice during the second story, we meet Rosa (Susan Wokoma), the down-on-his-luck landlord. To restore her childhood home, which now functions as a dilapidated apartment building.
In this timeline in the Netflix special, the house is surrounded by a seemingly endless body of water that made me wonder when Kevin Costner He was about to set sail to save the day Water world. One of Rosa's tenants, Jane (Helena Bonham Carter), brings her soulmate, Cosmos (Paul Kaye), into the house to help with the renovations because he's supposedly a competent contractor. Instead, he ripped up the floorboards in order to build rafts so everyone could set sail toward a new life before the entire city was flooded to the point of being uninhabitable.
Stream The House on Netflix
the house This is one of the most exciting animated specials I've seen in a long time. For a special film animated entirely by stop-motion sequences, each character moves fluidly with an earnestness and sense of curiosity that some live-action content might struggle to replicate. If I had to summarize the house In a word, I would say it is “deliberate”. Each clip presents a moral conundrum rooted in the supernatural, effectively revealing the humanity of each made-of-cloth character as they are consumed (figuratively and metaphorically) by the house in which they live.
You can stream the house on Netflix, but you may want your kids to watch this series.
