The boy’s contradictory impulses-he’s timid one moment, eagerly oversharing the next-aren’t out of place for a traumatized character, but Lewis only ever seems to be what a scene requires of him, and so his erratic nature becomes the stuff of wearisome formula. Upon learning that magic is real and that his uncle is capable of it, Lewis bypasses reconciling this world-altering fact to instantly beg to be taught wizardry. The rush of the plot’s setup extends to the dialogue, which never settles into a steady, believable cadence. As the clock can be heard ticking away in the house all the time. Decked out in a kimono and speaking with the clipped, enticing tone of a carnival barker, Jonathan immediately gives off a strange vibe, and when he takes the boy to his gothic mansion, Lewis scarcely has time to get settled in before he learns that his uncle is a warlock. It seems that evil Selenna and her husband built a timepiece into the walls, a clock that could obliterate humankind. The House with a Clock in Its Walls steamrolls out of the gate with a burst of exposition that introduces Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro), a recently orphaned 10-year-old, arriving at a quaint Michigan town in 1955 to live with his uncle, Jonathan (Jack Black). Roth’s pugnacious approach to horror makes him a curious choice to helm a spooky but family-friendly fantasy, and such misgivings feel justified by the maladroit sense of character that the film quickly establishes. For all the jump scares that dot The House with a Clock in Its Walls, nothing in the film is as shocking as seeing Eli Roth’s directorial credit attached to it.
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