The thing in October (part VIII).

Every once in a great while, a composer comes along from out of nowhere and just amazes with what they have to offer. It is hoped that the composer will have a long, successful career showing off their abilities. Such a composer got his start on Monster House.

We all know that creepy-looking house on the block and the crotchety old man who lives there, always screaming at kids to get off his lawn. What if there was a good reason to keep people away? Three kids soon find out. Of the roughly four thousand animated movies released in 2006, this is one of the best, exciting and slyly subversive.

The film marked the feature scoring debut of Douglas Pipes. The "Opening Titles" get right into the spirit of the film, with a theme of horns and racing strings that seems to suggest a dark version of Mancini's bounding and leaping Great Mouse Detective theme. The end of the "Opening Titles" features an ascending four-note notif for horns that gets reprised in tracks like "Construction" and "Dummy Feed".

The other major theme comes in "Eliza's Song", a bustling, wistful five-note tune for the neighborhood. Interestingly, this track features dialogue as little Eliza rides her tricycle. The track ends amusingly as the orchestra mickey-mouses her sudden tumble. "Tricycle" reprises the theme in a peppy arrangement.

There's also a recurring motif of loud, menacing horns when something or someone gets eaten ("Cops Get Eaten", "House Comes Alive!", "Cop Car Gets Eaten"). Racing strings and snare drums highlight "The Plan" (which introduces a heroic-sounding submotif for horns that figures later in the score in "Chowder to the Rescue").

To augment the creepy vibe, Pipes utilized the theremin along with the orchestra, and in tracks like "Awesome Kite", "Cops Get Eaten" and "Ding Dong", it's quite effective. The score also has a surprising amount of heart, as in the meditative "Elegy", "The Flashback" and "The Dance" (a lovely, piano-based take on the main theme).

The latter tracks give themselves over to action, but it's very exciting action. "The Battle", in particular, builds in intensity, interpolating everything from a march-like version of the main theme to the 'Plan' sub-motif at it's most noble.

Surprisingly, this was also discontinued by its manufacturer (Varese Sarabande, in this case), but copies are available, dirt cheap, at Amazon.com.