The House

With its dark humor and excellent execution, “The House” offers a striking showcase for the singular talents of its directors and the limitless possibilities of stop motion animation.

There’s more to The House than just watching a bunch of little fellas scoot their way around a cool-looking set. There’s a unifying theme here, involving characters who are captivated by this building, and who think they can they can make something out of it: a safe shelter, a profit, a community, et cetera.

It’s hard not to appreciate the sheer amount of work that went into crafting this threefold fever dream, and the directors’ sheer effectiveness at creating such instantly believable fantasy worlds. They set out to make these stories vividly oppressive and claustrophobic, and they certainly succeeded.

Stop motion is a tedious, finicky art form unsuited for rapid commercial production, so there’s something thrilling about the glossy Netflix machine throwing its weight behind a niche project like this one. It’s not for everyone, but with a short runtime and idiosyncratic direction, The House tells a transportive series of fables for fans of the less-beaten path.

The House is certainly off-putting and weird at times, but the animation is great and the stories moved along just quickly enough to keep us interested.

While it isn’t exactly outright horror as many of us might understand it, there is something effectively nauseating about its imagery. I liked it; but I won’t be watching it ever again.

The story will also satisfy those who like their stop-motion animation served with a home-spun quality though, unlike Wes Anderson’s stab at the milieu, it’s still a long way short of fantastic.

This final third is a very, very slight affair. If the content of the stories had matched the painstaking form, the anthology could have been rather a groundbreaking success. As it is, the architects need to go back to the drawing board.