THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS

Name: THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS
Item: THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS
Author: Admin

"Witches Fighting Demonic Forces"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

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Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Summary
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What You Need To Know:

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS is a scary fantasy about an orphaned young boy and his uncle, a sorcerer, who find themselves engaged in a battle with demonic forces in 1955. Ten-year-old Lewis, whose parents just died, goes to live with his Uncle Jonathan in Jonathan’s big spooky house. The house is filled with clocks, eerie sounds and strange objects. Jonathan finally admits to Lewis that he and his widowed neighbor friend, Mrs. Henderson, are witches. When Lewis accidentally awakens their dead friend, a powerful evil magician, they must band together to stop the man’s demonic plot to destroy the human race.

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS is well structured, with a driving plot that propels the action forward. The characters are also entertaining. However, the movie has a strong occult worldview that promotes teaching witchcraft to children, plus some brief foul language and many scary moments. Despite this, THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS has some positive Christian, moral references and content where the three heroes must stop an overtly Satanic, demonic plot.

Content:

(OOO, C, B, L, VV, N, A, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong occult worldview promoting teaching witchcraft (including spells and potions) to children and the orphaned boy hero disobeys an order and uses a forbidden black magic book to raise a dead person to impress a false friend, with some Christian, biblical references that include a main plot where the protagonists must defeat a Satanic plot to destroy the human race by a married male and female witch who are doing the bidding of one of Satan’s top demons, a reference to Jesus as the Alpha and Omega in the Book of Revelation, and the demonic villains are defeated by teamwork and by physical means that help destroy the magical device they are using;

Foul Language:

Four obscenities (three “d” words and one “h” word) and five light profanities (such as OMG and one “Good Lord!”), plus man says he has to urinate and then says he went in his pants, a baby urinates into the air, and a magical bush shaped like a griffin defecates dead leaves about three times as a joke;

Violence:

Scary suspense and violence includes pumpkins magically come alive and try to chomp the three heroes, mannequins and mechanical people come alive and attack the three heroes, villains suspend a boy over some knives in order to get a key they want, villains make some books come alive in a library and the books attack the boy hero, scary corpse of one villain who died comes alive and threatens other people, villains fall and magically disappear when their own demonic device turns on them (thus, they really destroy themselves), boy hero is threatened with falling into large machine gears and getting crushed, two boys are hit in the head with a basketball, and the house in the movie title is a very spooky magical house;

Sex:

No sexual content;

Nudity:

Upper nudity of a male-looking demon in a forest who entices the villain in the story with destructive occult power;

Alcohol Use:

Brief alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Villains are deceitful, schoolboy dishonestly befriends other students to get their votes for school president but shuns boy hero after he gets his vote, orphaned boy hero disobeys his guardian uncle’s one rule but learns his lesson, and some bullying but rebuked.

More Detail:

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS is a scary fantasy about an orphaned young boy and his uncle, who find themselves engaged in a battle with the uncle’s misanthropic former friend, who’s trying to destroy the human race using black magic. Well-structured with a driving plot, THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS has a strong occult worldview that promotes teaching witchcraft to children, but the story’s objective is to stop an overtly demonic plot to destroy God’s creation, the human race.

Set in 1955, the movie opens with 10-year-old Lewis, whose parents just died, coming to live with his Uncle Jonathan in Jonathan’s big spooky house. The house is filled with clocks and strange objects, one of which is a painting that comes alive and seems to change every day. Lewis meets Jonathan’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Florence Zimmerman, an old friend of Jonathan’s who loves to trade barbs with him.

Each night, Jonathan roams about the house looking for something. Meanwhile, at school, Lewis makes friends with another boy, Tarby, who happens to be running for class president. At night, Lewis has dreams about his mother, who tells him he must find a book and a key.

Eventually, Lewis confronts his uncle, and Jonathan confesses to Lewis that he’s a warlock and Mrs. Zimmerman is a witch. Lewis asks Jonathan to teach him how to be a warlock, and Jonathan reluctantly agrees. He only has one rule: Lewis must never touch a large magical cabinet downstairs.

Of course, trying to impress his new schoolfriend, Lewis soon does just that. Inside the cabinet, they find a large necromancy book, a magical book with spells where the sorcerer can talk with the dead or even bring them back to life. Lewis promises to meet his friend that evening at the local cemetery, where Lewis will use the book to resurrect a dead person. The book leads Lewis to one gravesite, where Lewis performs a blood ritual. However, Lewis and his friend run away when the lid to the tomb starts to open.

Unknown to Lewis, he has raised the dead body of Uncle Jonathan’s former friend, a powerful magician named Isaac who killed his wife and died while performing a dangerous blood ritual. Before he died, however, Isaac hid a large magical clock in Jonathan’s house, which used to be Isaac’s house. Isaac, who came back from World War II a hateful and despondent man, intends to use the clock to destroy the human race.

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS is well structured, with a driving plot. The characters are also entertaining, including young Lewis, who’s played by a talented young boy named Owen Vaccaro.

Sadly, the movie has a strong occult worldview that promotes teaching witchcraft to children. The only magic that’s condemned is necromancy. Eventually, however, it turns out that Isaac and his wife, who’s not really dead, are doing the bidding of one of Satan’s top demons. The two villains have grown to hate the human race, so that’s why they want to destroy it. To go along with this theme, the movie contains a reference to Jesus Christ’s title, the Alpha and Omega, in the Book of Revelation.

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS also has some light foul language and scary moments. For example, some decorated pumpkins come alive and try to chomp the heroes. Ultimately, though, it’s the movie’s strong occult worldview that makes it unacceptable viewing.

As Deuteronomy 18:10-12 says, “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.” Revelation 21:8 adds, “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”

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Quality:

- Content: -3