THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS
HORROR-MAKER ELI ROTH TURNS HIS HAND TO FAMILY FANTASY THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS. WAIT, WHAT? JAMES MOTTRAM DISCOVERS IF KIDS REALLY SHOULD BE SCARED
Well, better than asbestos. Eli Roth is out to rekindle some Amblin magic in this adaptation of the classic kids’ book.
The Universal sTUdios backloT in los angeles is like a museum to cinema. dozens of exterior sets, all ghost-town empty, now play host to gawping tourists being driven in buses through the eerie streets at 5mph. but even cynical seen-it-all-before types will find it hard not to go slack-jawed at courthouse square, with its imposing city hall building, and its all-important clock face, used so prominently in robert Zemeckis’s classic Back To The Future. it couldn’t be a more apt setting to meet and greet with the cast and director of The House With A Clock In Its Walls, a children’s fantasy starring Jack black and cate blanchett. after all, the film’s set in 1955, the very same year Marty McFly first time-travelled to. and when young lewis barnavelt enters his eccentric Uncle Jonathan’s house, finding it full of ticking clocks, you can’t help but think of doc brown’s home with its numerous time-pieces.
“That’s not the only thing,” yells Jack black, warming to the theme. “There’s the Psycho house here! very creepy.” his voice goes a little mysterious. “Just like our house with a clock!” he’s right, of course. norman bates’s home is still standing close by too, something Clock’s director eli roth might appreciate.
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Perhaps even more fitting is that Clock is an amblin entertainment film, which means it comes from the company co-founded by steven spielberg, the same stable that brought us Back
To The Future, Gremlins, Goonies and dozens of other touchstone pictures from the ’80s. While he was gorging on video nasties like sam raimi’s Evil Dead at sleepovers, these were the films that a young roth paid to see in cinemas. Formative doesn’t even come close.
“They had kids at the centre of them,” he says. “The kids had to solve the problem. They were treated as adults. i remember watching
ET and watching all the behind-the-scenes, thinking, ‘if i met spieberg, he’d understand me because i’m a kid and he understands kids!’ – which weirdly wound up working out.” indeed it did; the some-time actor roth eventually wound up as an extra, “for a second”, in spielberg’s 1997 Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World.
“i’ve never told him that story. he has no idea! i’m going to wait. i’m going to wait until someone shows it to him,” smiles roth, who explains that he brought in his Raiders Of The
Lost Ark vhs tape to his first meet at amblin 15 years ago. since then, he’s befriended spielberg’s daughter sasha. “We’ve been working on a project together. so steven heard about me from her. she’s like, ‘our family loves horror movies. We watched Hostel as a family.’ so scary movies are a big thing in that house.”
Child in Time
While it’s mildly amusing to think of the spielberg brood all sitting down with their bowls of popcorn to watch that particular torture-porn tale, roth’s enthusiasm for being part of the legendary director’s cinematic family is understandable.
“You want to make a film that feels like an amblin film and has the same spirit of one,” he says. “so i watched everything: Poltergeist, Back To The Future, Gremlins, Goonies, ET,
Raiders Of The Lost Ark… anything spielbergian of that period.”
it was certainly good prep for bringing John bellairs’ 1973 book to the big screen. illustrated by edward gorey, Clock is one of a series of novels featuring lewis barnavelt, america’s equivalent to harry Potter. The book-reading squirt (played by Daddy’s Home star owen vaccaro) arrives in Michigan to live with his Uncle Jonathan (black) in the titular creepy clock-filled house, which – as the full title suggests – just happens to have a particularly troublesome time-piece buried in its walls.
black’s Jonathan, who boasts magical powers, initially comes across as being just as strange as his house. “in the end he’s a good guy,” assures black. “along the way, the audience learns as the kid learns… you don’t know he’s a warlock at first. and there’s some strange man searching the house for something… you don’t know what. so the kid’s a little concerned. it seems as though his uncle is a lunatic, wandering the halls in the middle of the night. You imagine it would be scary – living with someone new.”
living next door to Jonathan is the equally eccentric Mrs Zimmerman, another magic wielder who enjoys a rather odd relationship with her neighbour. “she’s the tall drink of water to the pancake that is Jack’s character,” says cate blanchett. “she’s practical and firm but also gooey inside.”
dressed in regal mauve, Zimmerman is a perfect character for the two-time oscarwinner to sink her teeth into. With roth directing and black co-starring, she calls it “the perfect storm” of elements. oh, and like the spielberg clan, she also digs scares. “i’m a big lover of horror,” she says.
having read the book at school, blanchett was taken aback. “i hadn’t really thought about it until the script came along, and reading it again, you think ‘Why has this book had dust on it for so long? Why has no one picked this series up before?’” arguably, because only in the last few years have special effects been able to do justice to bellairs’ work, as young lewis begins to learn about this secret world of witches and warlocks.
cue some serious cgi scenes done to greenscreen – one involving books flying around the room – that gave 12 year-old owen vaccaro the willies. “That scene scared me,” the young actor shudders. “People in green suits, with sticks and green cushions on them.” others required a bit more imagination. like the moment when, after lewis accidentally
I want to make a film that has the same spirit as an Amblin one
awakens the dead, he faces a giant griffin made of leaves. “i’m like, ‘can i get a picture? or do i just make it up?” says vaccaro.
When it came to crafting the visual effects, roth turned to louis Morin, a regular for denis villeneuve. “i really loved his work on Arrival and Sicario. and we wanted it to look very, very real,” says roth. even when you’ve got cate blanchett battling killer pumpkins. “We had cate on a green screen with two vines. i’m like, ‘cate, the pumpkin in your right hand is trying to bite your head off and the other one might vomit at you! i’m sure Woody allen said this to you on Blue Jasmine! but just try not to let the pumpkin bite your head off.”
For one scene, roth envisaged a group of automatons attacking; as soon as spielberg heard the idea, he rubber-stamped it and even offered access to his private collection of said robots. “he has some Raiders Of The Lost Ark-like warehouse of automatons!” laughs roth. it sounds like a bizarre joke. no, says blanchett, who worked with spielberg on Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. “he and Peter Jackson have these hangars full of stuff.”
Clock, though, isn’t all magic and mages; time is very much a theme and roth suggests it’s a story about moving forward in the face of tragedy, rather than remaining stagnant. “all these people are broken in their lives somehow. They’ve all been fractured in some way but they’re coming together as a family to move forward. it’s the only way to continue, to grow. You can move on from tragedy. if you feel your family is fractured or broken, you can find other people to create… we really create our own family.”
FREAK SHOW
another theme roth believes is vital to the lifeblood of the film is accepting your own weirdness. it’s no surprise given the director still remembers getting a kick from Tim burton – another filmmaker who encourages embracing your inner freak – when he watched Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.
“all the things that make us different, all the things we’re embarrassed about, all the things that we feel ashamed of, or that get us laughed at in school… those are your strengths. That’s a very powerful message for a kid. i think the movie gives kids permission to embrace their weirdness. certainly the kids we’ve shown it to have felt that way.”
black, who has charmed adolescents in Goosebumps and School Of Rock, feels the ideal audience for Clock is aged between 10 and 15. “Yeah, i think that’s the wheelhouse for sure.” it certainly passed the spielberg test, who called roth after seeing the first cut and told him how he’d made a true amblin movie. “he said, ‘i love it so much. it’s so emotional… it’s not beholden to or mocking an earlier film. it’s of its own piece and every part of it holds its hands together. You’re really carrying the torch.’ Which to me was all i wanted.”
The House With A Clock In Its Walls is out in cinemas 21 September.