We spoke with Hutman, who filled us in on arriving at the film’s final, super-saturated color palette, maintaining a sense of reality against the backdrop of a magical home, and director Roth’s surprisingly sophisticated inspiration for misfit young Lewis. In inventing a new version of this setting for House, the film’s production designer, Jon Hutman, built the space across an inspired series of soundstages and practical sets that, while not the Cronin House, did include another historic American mansion.
The home in Bellairs’ Edward Gorey-illustrated novel is based on a 19th-century mansion, the Cronin House, in the author’s hometown of Marshall, Michigan. In raising the dead, evil former owner of his new home, the house, too, comes to life, and it’s this often anthropomorphic setting that gives the movie its magic. Zimmerman’s witty barbs, Lewis hits his stride, or at least, he tries to. We see orphaned Lewis, daily clad in aviator’s goggles, struggle at school and with the loss of his parents, but at home with Uncle Jonathan’s eyebrows, and Mrs. Starring Jack Black as Uncle Jonathan, a self-proclaimed warlock, and Cate Blanchett as his sharp, competent witch neighbor, Florence Zimmerman, the plot of House and the fate of its young protagonist, Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) turn on its original titular setting. Horror master Eli Roth, known for directing The Hostel and Cabin Fever series, trades gore for wonder in his newest work, a PG adaptation of John Bellairs’ 1973 YA novel, The House With a Clock in Its Walls.
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