Spooky House
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 "I don't want to SEE ANY OF YOU NEAR MY HOUSE!!"
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Spooky House is a 2002 American family film directed, co-produced and co-written by William Sachs, and starring Ben Kingsley and Mercedes Ruehl. It was entered into the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, winning two awards, "Best Of Fest" and the "Children's Jury Award".
Plot
The Great Zamboni is a famous illusionist who works with his wife and assistant, Dawn Starr. During a recording session of one of his shows, something goes wrong during the act, and Dawn Starr disappears.
Eleven and a half years later, Zamboni lives alone, save for his pet jaguar Shadow. He uses his character to scare off visitors and builds a reputation for himself as "the Spooky Man" in the "Spooky House". Also living in this town is a recently orphaned Max, as well as his friends Yuri, Beans, Prescott, and Zoe. These five are trying to enjoy themselves as much as they can before Max is sent to an orphanage after Halloween. The five kids run afoul with three kleptomaniac teens, Mora, Mike the Mouth, and Dumb Dave. These three work for Madame Boss, who is training them to be real thieves.
The teens steal Zoe's pet goat Princess, stashing her in a graveyard near the Spooky House, forcing the kids to go after her. Zamboni, seeing the children, uses various tricks and traps in his home to scare everyone away. However, Max is not afraid, and becomes intrigued by Zamboni. He begins repeatedly visiting the reluctant illusionist, who begins begrudgingly interacting with him. One day, the teens steal back Princess, leading Max to suggest talking to Zamboni and asking for help. When he doesn't answer, Max peeks through the window to see Shadow with her tail stuck in one of Zamboni's traps.
Bad Qualities
- It features the cliché of someone bonding with a kid that isn't theirs. However, unlike future uses of the cliché, it isn't executed well as The Great Zamboni acts hostile towards Max and his friends.
- Plenty of odd tone shifts.
- At the beginning, it has The Great Zamboni distraught thinking he blew up his wife on accident, but then it cuts to him happily walking on the boardwalk with a jaguar.
- When Max finds The Great Zamboni's secret room, he decides that his house would be perfect for a kid to live in. However, not long ago, he and his friends were being scared silly by Zamboni's house.
- The Great Zamboni is portrayed as this introverted kid hater. However, on Halloween, he's seen being nice to the children and cracking jokes, which is a half-baked redemption.
- The title is laughable.
- Bad Timing: The entire movie takes place before and during Halloween. However, the film was released in April.
- The Great Zamboni is unlikable at times, since he hates kids a lot without any reason for hating them, doesn't try to save the kids when they're getting scared in his house (and scares them with lightning once they find him), and his infamous line "I don't want to see any of you near my house!!".
- The bullies are highly unlikable characters, as they set The Great Zamboni's car on fire just because they stole something from it, and they steal the children's goat twice.
- Hypocrisy: The movie wants you to think that all the magic tricks shown in the film are fake and they are all possible without magic. But at the beginning, The Great Zamboni shatters then comes back without any stitches or anything, which is definitely not possible without magic.
- In the scene where the kids are researching The Great Zamboni on The Washington Post's website, one of the articles says it was published in 1988, when the website was launched in 1996.
- A few continuity errors including:
- Max cuts his finger and sits on some stone steps waiting for a Band Aid. In some of the shots, the steps are in full sunshine and in others, in the shade.
- Max draws a picture of Zamboni coming out of a box. Near the end, Zamboni looks at the book of Max's drawings. One of the drawings is supposedly the identical picture, but it's actually a different version.
- False Advertising: Many of the posters (such as the one on this page) show Max with a mustache, but he hardly has one on in the actual film.
Good Qualities
- Although it does leaving some questions to be answered, the plot twist at the end is quite creative.
- While it was too obviously going to happen, the scene where The Great Zamboni adopts Max is heartwarming.
- Max is a sympathetic character.
- Surprisingly good graphics for 2002 standards.
- The bullies get their comeuppance once they go inside the spooky house.