Movies
[Review] Eli Roth’s ‘The House With a Clock in Its Walls’ is Fun Gateway Horror That’s Not Afraid to Deliver Scares
Growing up in the ‘80s, there was a certain kind of kids’ movie that’s all but extinct these days: one that wasn’t afraid to be weird and dark and even a little scary. Movies like The Dark Crystal and The Secret of NIMH and The Witches have almost nothing in common with the sort of computer animated talking-and-farting animal movies churned out today. Director Eli Roth is clearly much more a fan of the former, which is why his new film The House With a Clock in its Walls is a kids’ movie willing to be fun and silly but also genuinely scary. I’ve missed the scary.
Based on the 1973 book of the same name by John Bellairs, The House With a Clock in its Walls tells the story of Lewis (Owen Vaccaro), a recently orphaned 10-year old who comes to live with his Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in New Zebedee, Michigan. Lewis learns that his uncle is a powerful warlock – a “boy witch” – and that his neighbor Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett) is a witch. Jonathan’s house is full of delightful magic, but he and Florence spend all of their free time hunting for clock left behind the walls years earlier by the house’s original owner, Isaac Izard (Kyle McLachlan). As Lewis begins learning magic and trying to fit in at school, he learns more about his uncle’s past, his relationship to Isaac Izard, and just what will happen when that clock in the walls chimes for the last time.
If not for seeing his name listed as the director in the opening credits, you might not even know that it was Eli Roth directing The House With a Clock in its Walls. Given his previous harder-edged, often juvenile, always blood soaked output, he’s not the first filmmaker that comes to mind to helm a PG-rated kids’ movie produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Films. While he might not be the obvious choice, he is an inspired choice. His background in horror means he knows how to create atmosphere and build a scare, even those of the tamer PG-rated variety found here.
There’s an even better argument for why Roth is qualified for a movie like this, though. With the exception of last year’s Death Wish, Roth’s disappointing and leaden major studio debut, all of Eli Roth’s movies share a real enthusiasm for their subject matter – he’s a guy who is excited to make the movies he makes. Even when the movies don’t work for me (I cannot count myself among the fans of The Green Inferno), there is a clear sense of celebratory joy for his material that radiates right off the screen. That joy is all over The House With a Clock in its Walls, and it’s very apparent that Roth is having a blast bringing this world to life and making a scary movie without being able to rely on his splatstick shtick. This is a movie that has a lot of fun being a movie.
From a story perspective, there’s not much here that isn’t already familiar to anyone who’s read any of the Harry Potter series. That’s not the fault of the source material, written almost 30 years before Hogwarts was even a thing. But it’s nearly impossible to watch a movie in 2018 in which a young boy loses his parents and is brought to a special house where he learns magic and must prevent the resurrection of an evil warlock and not have HP on the brain. There are some interesting layers to the story – the horrors of World War II play a major role in a few characters’ motivations – but House offers little in the way of surprises. Even the performances are more or less what you would expect: Cate Blanchett is great and elegant and doing a slightly inconsistent accent, while Jack Black is fun but only ever really capable of being… Jack Black.
We don’t necessarily go to family films to be shown things we’ve never seen before, however, so it wouldn’t be fair to hold The House With a Clock in its Walls to such a standard, even with its horror genre pedigree. All this one has to do is entertain, to avoid pandering to children or insulting the intelligence of adults, and hopefully work as a gateway horror movie for the young kids who see it and walk away having been scared just enough that they want to be scared again. At these things, the film succeeds. I can’t say for sure that it’s going to be widely remembered five or ten years from now or if Eli Roth has a future as a family filmmaker, but if the movie does work the way some of those ‘80s films did and just a few kids come out of The House With a Clock in its Walls having been turned on to scary movies, I’m calling that a job well done.
Ghostface is back on the big screen this weekend… well, sort of… with the release of Scary Movie, which marks the Wayans brothers’ return to the horror spoof franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 2 back in the day. It’s likely to be the talk of the horror community for the weekend, but don’t overlook the other six genre movies that were freshly unleashed today.
Here’s all the new horror that released on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The horror spoof franchise is back with Scary Movie now playing in theaters!
Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite for the new Scary Movie, with the cast also including Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Jon Abrahams, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Felissa Rose.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe…
Scary Movie will slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t. A whole lot has changed in the horror genre since the Wayans Brothers were in charge of the franchise; their involvement ended with Scary Movie 2 back in 2001!
Michael Tiddes (A Haunted House) directs Scary Movie 6 from a script written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, original Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans (Scary Movie 2), and Rick Alvarez (A Haunted House).
From IFC, shark attack movie Chum is now available on Digital.
Alice Eve (Haunting of Queen Mary) stars in shark attack movie alongside Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock, Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat.
This one sounds very similar to last year’s Dangerous Animals…
Here’s the plot: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst-transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
Jonathan Zuck directs Chum, from a script by Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling) come together in Carolina Caroline, a sexy crime thriller now playing in theaters.
It’s not a horror movie, mind you, but it’s worth a mention here all the same.
Kyra Sedgwick (Family Movie) and Jon Gries also star in the romantic crime thriller.
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s film stars Samara Weaving as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast.
Adam Rehmeier previously directed the films Dinner in America and Snack Shack.
Tom Dean wrote the screenplay for Carolina Caroline.
Similar to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming big screen blockbuster Disclosure Day, Signal One explores humankind’s enduring question: what if we aren’t alone in the universe?
The sci-fi thriller is now available on Digital.
Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Raoul Bhaneja (Possessor), Emma Ho (“The Expanse”), and Dennis Quaid (The Substance) star in Signal One from director Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal).
When tech billionaire Sam Houston (Quaid) hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika (Fuhrman), she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence.
Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us.
When the goal of the endeavor shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.
A schoolyard dare becomes an urban legend in the creepypasta-inspired horror anthology The Summoning. The indie film is now available on Digital from Brainstorm Media.
“A babysitting gig becomes a nightmare of urban legend when three teens summon Baby Blue. Survival depends on uncovering the past to escape a mother’s wrath from beyond the grave.”
Felipe Vargas (Rosario, Hive), Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Piskorik, Corey Benson Powers, and Brian Sepanzyk direct the segments. Valeria San Martín, Justina Ceballos, Daniela Flombaum, Nannu Spannauss, Agustín Olcese, and Giovanni Onetti star.
The Summoning is written by Camilo Zaffora.
Happy Death Day actress Jessica Rothe stars as a mom struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and memory in the mind-bending Affection, now available on Digital at home.
In Affection, “Afflicted by a mysterious condition that resets her memory, Ellie becomes trapped in a cyclical nightmare with a man who claims to be her husband. She soon must uncover the horrifying truth of her existence—before she forgets it all again.“
Joseph Cross (“Big Little Lies”) and Julianna Layne (“Chicago P.D.”) also star in the sci-fi horror thriller. Affection marks the feature debut by writer/director BT Meza.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the film’s premiere, “Affection is steeped in existential questions and fears that plague modern society, while it embraces the ethos of the ’80s through bold body horror. Add to that Rothe’s revelatory performance, and Affection is a hidden gem that will connect with your mind, body, and soul.”
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s latest dark fairy tale, The Ice Tower, loosely reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Snow Queen,” and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
In the ’70s set film, “Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot of a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.“
Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne. August Diehl and Marine Gesbert also star in The Ice Tower, and look for a cameo from director Gaspar Noé (Climax, Irréversible).
“For me, The Ice Tower solidified Lucile Hadžihalilović’s place amongst the most fascinating creators of fairy tales today,” said distributor Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder Joe Yanick.
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