Pun Salad

A break from our film noir festival to watch this 2018 PG-rated movie. Really for kids, but it's got winks and nods to any adults who might be watching. Like us.

It's set in the 1950s in the fictional town of New Zebadee. The recently-orphaned young lad Lewis has been sent to live with his Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black!). Whose heart seems to be in the right place, but (frankly) lacks parenting skills. Help is offered by Florence (Cate Blanchett, looking her most beautiful). And (of course) they live in the titular House, which is full of magic, and but also contains dark secrets, due to its previous inhabitant, Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan!)

After some initial discomfort, Lewis decides to get into the magic game himself. Hey, why not? But he's a geeky kid who's kind of desperate to fit in at school, and that brings up its own problems as he makes some ill-considered magical mistakes which nearly destroy the world. I hate it when that happens.

So it's not bad. It's based on a series of kids' books, and the director, Eli Roth, has said there could be a sequel, but that hasn't materialized.