Roth's instinct for horror maximalism is precisely the wrong approach to the material, which doesn't accommodate that much visual noise. They've retrofitted Bellairs' book for the age of Harry Potter and Goosebumps, turning the house on High Street into a Hogwarts satellite where magic infuses every object and floorboard, and the CGI pops like the spring-loaded spooks at a carnival funhouse.
The new film adaptation, written by Supernatural creator Eric Kripke and directed by Eli Roth, the horror-provocateur responsible for Cabin Fever and Hostel, doesn't have the patience for such grace notes. Though busily plotted, it thrives in understatement and incidental detail, from an illusory glass ball atop the front coat rack to all-night sessions playing poker and eating chocolate-chip cookies.
Those who encountered the book as children will remember the lingering creepiness of its gothic elements, enforced by Edward Gorey's illustrations, and the old house at 100 High Street, which is full of wonder and terror in equal measure. There's a deft sleight-of-hand at work in John Bellairs' The House with a Clock in its Walls, a children's mystery published in 1973, about warlocks and witches, necromancy, and a doomsday machine that nonetheless carries itself with whimsy. Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) in The House with a Clock in its Walls. Magic is just a passing fez: Lewis (Owen Vaccaro), Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) and Mrs.
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