Children are forced to grow up quickly these days, a phenomenon Monster House, with its leitmotif of necrophilia and generally dark worldview, contributes to and comments on. Executive producers Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg may have invented a new genre -- kiddy horror.

You'd certainly be hard-pressed to chalk it up as a lighthearted experience. Adults should know that many youngsters will be petrified but that everyone in attendance will be glued to the screen. Appropriate for viewers eight and older, parents need to ask themselves whether they mind accelerating their children’s maturation process. If they don't, they'll also be exposing them to an extremely well-made movie that cleverly tweaks the haunted house concept.

It's possible to read Monster House as a bromide against our nanny society and the way we coddle our children by attempting to shield them from every potential danger. If you believe the world is truly a violent and creepy place and that growing up is learning to deal with that fact (a perennial theme of coming-of-age stories), this is your ideal movie. 

The animation process familiar from The Polar Express has been improved upon and is deployed to great effect for the relatively harsh tale of two pubescent boys -- and the pigtailed girl they pine for -- who investigate the angry residence across the street. The premise that there are horrible people out there who do horrible things is quickly made evident, as the owner of the house Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) confiscates the tricycle of a blond pixie after threatening her life.

Across the street, junior Peeping Tom DJ (Mitchel Musso) is spying on the residence. His folks (Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard) are on their way out of town and leave him in the care of a criminally irresponsible sitter (Maggie Gyllenhaal). DJ's rotund best buddy Chowder (Sam Lerner) enters to provide comic relief. When they try to retrieve his basketball from the lawn, Mr. Nebbbercracker has a coronary and is rushed to hospital, whereupon the house comes to life. The voracious casa -- complete with eyes, mouth and tongue -- consumes the babysitter's mean boyfriend (Jason Lee) and grabs the full attention of DJ and Chowder and a red-headed smart aleck girl (Spencer Locke) from the neighborhood.

They call the cops (Kevin James and Nick Cannon) who ignore and harass the kids before falling victim. This highlights another staple coming-of-age theme: authority figures can't or won't help. And the children decide to venture in themselves. Deep inside the bowels of the house, they discover it contains the mausoleum of a circus performer. Apparently, Hell hath no fury like a fat woman scorned. The decision to destroy the house with dynamite and heavy construction equipment smacks of euthanasia.

Director Gil Kenan was chosen by Zemeckis and Spielberg on the basis of an award-winning student film. This daring effort is uniformly well-crafted and bodes well for his future. There are no weak links among the voice talents recruited (including Jon Heder and Kathleen Turner) and it helps that all the characters are boldly defined. The taut script makes no attempt to sugarcoat the proceedings and it's surprising the movie wasn't held for a Halloween release. One of the few concessions made to tickle cartoon-loving funny bones is the final image of a dog peeing on a jack-o-lantern. Crude, potty humor feels like a welcome reprieve from this movie's morbid subject matter.

When the inevitable exculpatory truth about the house and Mr. Nebbercracker's misanthropic behavior comes out, it's still hard to sympathize with him. The secret of Monster House is more than a little sordid and just a little bit sweet. Welcome to the real world, kiddies.

(Released by Columbia Pictures and rated “PG” for scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language.)