The House (2022, Netflix British Anthology with a cast including Jarvis Cocker)

[Small Man Big Horse]

So yeah, this is a brand new British stop motion anthology with three stories all set within the same house at different time periods, with a script from Enda Walsh (Chatroom, Disco Pigs), and it looks like it was originally going to be a tv series but the three episodes have been bundled together in to one movie. The first sees a poor family Victorian family (Matthew Goode, Claudie Blakley and Mia Goth) gifted a beautiful new house but this quickly takes a dark turn for it's new owners, and I thought it was easily the strongest part, and left me highly optimistic for the rest of it.

The second is pretty great too, with a rather stressed rat developer (Jarvis Cocker, surprisingly good) trying to sell the house which is under attack from various bugs, and it's largely amusing with a satisfying ending, and due to this I've no issue with the fact that humans have seemingly mysteriously suddenly disappeared from existence and it's only rodents who chat away these days. That's also (almost) the same with the third part except all of the characters are cats this time around, and it's an odd sort of near future house share comedy where much of the land is flooded, and landlord Rosa (Susan Wakoma) has to put up with tenants Helena Bonham-Carter, Paul Kaye and Will Sharpe wishing to leave her. Frustratingly this final part is much weaker though, to the extent that as much as I'd like to I can't wholeheartedly recommend the film, as while certainly watchable it felt occasionally annoying and didn't really go anywhere particularly interesting. 7.4/10

[neveragain]

The last part was weaker yes but not terrible (and I found the setting quite evocative) so I'd happily recommend the film. Creepy, odd and original.

Cocker played a blinder!

[olliebean]

I found myself getting bored with this by the end; the first two sections were better but in general even the good bits felt somewhat pointless and all three parts were a bit "Well, that happened." I'd sooner have seen a feature-length version of the first story, with the story considerably fleshed out.

[MojoJojo]

and it looks like it was originally going to be a tv series but the three episodes have been bundled together in to one movie.

That seems to be the case with a few netflix films - I guess it makes sense that netflix can be more flexible about whether they're making a film or a series than traditional commissioners.

I've watched the trailer netflix pushed at me, and it didn't hint that there was more than one part. Knowing it's 3 parts does make more interested.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

The second and third parts are indeed very similar. They reminded me of Mother, but toned down a lot. I'd struggle to call one better than the other - as a Pulp fan, it'd be tempting to favour Cocker's story, but I'm so familiar with his voice that he can't really disappear into the character.

Mark Heap's voice is also very recognisable, but he was perfectly cast in the first segment.

[Mister Six]

Watched this the other night and was very underwhelmed. The first part was all right as a creepy ghost story with a bit of a commentary on putting material wealth before family, but the second just seemed a bit hollow and pointless. I read later that the screenwriter mostly does plays, and I guess I could see this as a weird Pinteresque short, but there wasn't enough to it to warrant 40 minutes or however long it was, and it wasn't visually interesting enough to make up for the narrative shortfall.

Didn't bother with the third one.