Longwinded title, lighthearted fun.

It may be impossible to quantify but it’s a fair bet that Amblin Entertainment have had a major part to play in almost everyone’s adolescence. Well, at least for those that remember waiting in a cinema line (back when cinemas actually had lines) to catch E.T., pestering their parents to rent Back to the Future from the local Blockbusters for the millionth time, or being downright terrified that they’d be blindsided by a velociraptor on their way home from a Jurassic Park viewing.

To say Amblin have had a significant impact on popular culture and our collective perceptions of what cinematic family entertainment looks like would be something of an understatement. The production house that Steven Spielberg built not only boasts some of the most influential films in cinema history among its back catalogue, it helped launch the directing career of its founder into the stratosphere.

While they’re still very much alive and kicking to this day, with the recent trend for 80s and 90s nostalgia gathering pace, now seems like the perfect moment for a full-blown Amblin renaissance. Although they’ve had many recent hits, there’s certainly been a movement away from the kind of big, brash family entertainment that made their name, as the production company follows Spielberg’s whims into more serious, grownup territory.

With its overtly fantastical tone and simple, childlike joys, The House with a Clock in its Walls feels like the perfect platform for an Amblin classic but, with notorious horror director Eli Roth behind the camera, there remain huge question marks hanging over the film.

After the death of his parents, freshly orphaned Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) is sent to live with his eccentric uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in the small town of New Zebedee, Michigan. Wanting nothing more than to settle down and make friends like any normal kid, Lewis soon discovers that things will be anything but normal with his new life, as the mysteries of his uncle’s rickety old house and the relentless ticking within its walls opens up a world of magic and danger. Thrust into a fantastical world of spells and sorcery, Lewis must join forced with Jonathan and neighbour Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) to locate the source of the ticking and ward off the doomsday magic within before it’s too late.

Love him or loath him, it’s hard to deny Eli Roth his place in horror lore. With a penchant for low budgets and high gore, it’s fair to say Roth’s no-holds-barred approach to horror filmmaking has been rubbing more than a few up the wrong way since his debut, Cabin Fever, back in 2002. Following that with what many would consider the birth of the “torture porn” sub-genre, Hostel, Roth has subsequently built his brand on an uncompromising style that revels in the deep, dark recesses of cinema, far removed from the mainstream.

Which makes it more than a little odd that Amblin chose Roth (and vice versa) to helm a steadfastly family-friendly effort such as The House with a Clock in its Walls. Weirder still, however, is that, not only does the odd couple partnership work, it’s one of the better efforts from either side in recent times.

On Roth’s end of the bargain, the switch from the overtly adult world of torture porn to a far lighter fantasy format with more in common with Harry Potter, Hugo, and Tim Burton than the world of Hostel, seems to have done the director a world of good. It’s an unconventional move for the filmmaker, no doubt, but it’s one that’s given his career a shot in the arm just as things were going south. 

Not one to compromise his style completely, Roth has instead taken a number of the horror elements that made his name and infused them with a family-friendly approach that, while certainly soft around the edges, feels like a breath of fresh air for a director whose craft had long since gone stale.

While it’s certainly not the most strikingly directed film in the world, with visual effects that never quite pop the way they should for a story this fantastical, there’s still enough there to take home for audiences of all ages. Roth’s direction never quite reaches the level of the Spielbergs or the Tim Burtons of this world, however, the filmmaker’s achievements here, especially considering his past, should not be overlooked.

Creepy, rickety, and constantly on the move; the eponymous house is the perfect platform for some well-constructed visual trickery, with anthropomorphic furniture and animated stained-glass windows bringing the location to life perfectly. On the whole, however, the film feels like little more than a haunted house theme park ride, allowing for an adequate level of gothic eeriness, and jokey horror to enhance the tone, but never willing to push things much further than that.

No one in their right mind is asking Eli Roth to push things to the extent he has in the past, in fact the milder certification limit put on him has largely enhanced his storytelling abilities, yet there are certainly moments you wish he’d gone that extra yard or two. There’s undoubtedly promise there but, while the cute visuals and admirable imagination are fine enough, the execution is often a couple of notches below the story’s potential.

Like any good family movie, the tone of The House with a Clock in its Walls is as broad as they come and, while its debt to the likes of Harry Potter is clear (although the source material predates Potter by a good few decades), the film never concerns itself with going as deep or as nuanced as the granddaddy of cinematic sorcery. Big, loud, and chock-full of slapstick; the action may not be at the top end of what the genre can offer, but there’s certainly fun there to be had, especially for the younger members of the audience. 

Counter to this, the film’s story has a surprising, and very welcome, emotional depth to it, certainly far more than many other films of this ilk would attempt. Offering up easily consumable meditations on loss, grief, war, trauma, and regret; The House with a Clock in its Walls has just the right level of emotive edge to its big, brash action without ever weighing down the narrative with anything too dense.

Certainly, the pieces of tragic character development we’re drip fed on each protagonist makes for a surprisingly satisfying viewing experience, especially as the action descends into farce and the possessed pumpkins start to attack. Even the film’s moustache-twiddling villain is allowed the kind of motivation and purpose that often alludes such a film. 

In full pantomime villain mode, Kyle McLaughlin actually comes out of The House with a Clock in its Walls with far more credit than one might imagine under such circumstances. Undeniably over-the-top, the nefarious Isaac Izard nevertheless has sound motivation for his actions, tied into his tragic past and, as ever, McLaughlin gives the role everything he’s got.

Opposite him, Jack Black is as lively and bouncy as ever and, while at times he’s in a far more subdued mood than usual, he nevertheless makes full use of a fantastical setup that plays perfectly into his goofy, slapstick hands. Off the back of Jumanji and the tonally similar Goosebumps, The House with a Clock in its Walls feels like the perfect stage for precisely the kind of high-energy exuberance that’s become Black’s stock-in-trade. Much like Eli Roth, the actor has clearly found his mojo again with broader family fare and, after his wobbles over the past few years, it feels like we’re amidst an all-out Jack Black renaissance right now.

Alongside Black, Cate Blanchett absolutely owns the screen. Smooth, calm, authoritative, and nonchalantly kick-ass; Blanchett is clearly having a blast within a genre that she’s growing into wonderfully. While she’s never shied away from action in the past, Blanchett’s role here continues a trend that began with last year’s Thor: Raknarok, one that has seen her have a lot more fun with her increased prominence on the blockbuster landscape.

However, as the grownups take centre stage, the film’s young lead often appears lost. High concept fantasies such as this can sink or swim on their young protagonists and, while the relatively unknown Owen Vaccaro does an admirable enough job, Lewis as a character grows increasingly tiresome and hard to warm to as the film wears on.

In fact, a lot of the scenes with the younger cast members never really gel with the magical shenanigans in the house and with clunky, stilted dialogue and questionable direction, the kids never really click with the material like their more seasoned co-stars do. 

Derivative of Harry Potter and many of its magical pretenders, The House with a Clock in its Walls is nonetheless full of heart and imagination, if not the ambition to push itself further than merely adequate. While we may have seen these kinds of spell-casting antics many times over by now, this has the heart and endeavour to prove itself worthy of being considered among the better efforts within the genre.

The House with a Clock in its Walls is, at its heart, a warm and surprisingly touching celebration of the outsider; of the outcast in all of us who, like Lewis, needn’t shy away from the oddball and the magic within them.

By reigning in his gorier instincts and softening his filmmaking approach, Eli Roth seems to have finally found his calling and, while I’m sure he’ll be tempted back to the deep end of horror at some point, he’s shown himself to have a promising future in the genre’s shallows. While derivative and distinctly lacking ambition in parts, Roth has created a warm, Tim Burton-light gothic fantasy that plays it broad and generally succeeds. Backed up by typically enthusiastic performances from its leads and enjoyably quirky visuals, The House with a Clock in its Walls is solid, late-summer fun for all the family and certainly one of Amblin’s better non-Spielberg efforts of recent times.