Since when did “black comedy” signify “something that ought to be funny, but isn’t?” While this bizarre stop-motion animated cinematic amalgam inspired many thoughts, that’s the theme I found most consistent in The House: I can’t tell you how many times I pondered the thought that this material should be funny, but it just isn’t. You need Aardman or Wes Anderson or even Ray Harryhausen to make stop-motion funny, because The House wasn’t constructed with that particular amenity.
The House is told in three distinct and isolated tales surrounding what could indeed be the very same multi-story piece of architecture set in different locales. In the first tale, the inhabitants are impoverished fuzzy humans living somewhere in the English countryside; in the second, a large anthropomorphic rat in the inner city is preparing The House for sale and in the final tale, an anthropomorphic cat plays landlord to other anthropomorphic cats on a seaside harbor.
“I – And heard within, a lie is spun” except I’m gonna call it: “Upgrade of Crap.” A family 
of chumps dining on dryer lint and dust bunnies gets embarrassed by presumably well-to-do older relatives. Giving into humiliation, dad gets drunk, wanders outside and runs into a manipulative wish-granting misanthrope. Without fam approval, dad signs a deal for The House, a bigger, slightly less-crummy version of what they already have. Are there drawbacks? Of course there are; but we can’t identify them immediately, so we may as well let this happen.
“II – Then lost is truth that can’t be won” except I’m gonna call it “Rats!” A developer (voice of Jarvis Cocker) renovates The House for sale. He discovers a little too late the place has a massive insect infestation. This has little effect on the open house he’s throwing as –except for one very odd couple- nobody cares anyway. But the odd couple does. Uh oh.
“III – Listen again and seek the sun” except I’m gonna call it “The Deadbeats.” Rosa (Susan Wokoma) owns The House and runs it as an apartment building. Her intentions are good; her dreams are big, but she has no financial room to maneuver as her only two remaining tenants are deadbeats. One
pays her in fish; the other pays her in hippie crystals.
Usually in a strange film, you only get one opportunity to exclaim with exasperation “WTF was up with that ending?” In The House, you get to do this three times. And you will. Each time. What you see is easy enough to describe, but what actually happened will likely require a dissertation and a panel discussion of some kind. I think it’s fair to say that I and II have downer endings while III has an upbeat ending, but what’s important here is despite all the imagination, invention, and effort put into these films, I can’t recommend a single panel of this particular triptych. Each tale left me feeling slightly queasy and ready to move onto some more wholesome domicile-themed entertainment, like Animal House or A Nightmare on Elm Street.
There are few genres I root for harder than stop-motion animation. They take a lot to animate; they tend to be clever, and they’re usually quite fun to look at. Those first two thoughts may well apply here, but the third most decidedly does not. This may well be an intelligent, well-considered piece of entertainment, but stay away from The House. I mean it.
Here’s a stop-motion animated throng
Tale one was about a family gone wrong
Tale two about rats
Tale three about cats
In the end, they were all thirty minutes too long
Rated TV-MA, 97 Minutes
Director: Emma de Swaef, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Paloma Baeza
Writer: Enda Walsh
Genre: What did I just see?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who like to be confused
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The rest of us
