Monster House is an Academy Award-nominated American 2006 computer animated fantasy film released on July 21, 2006. Executive produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, this is the first time since Back to the Future Part III that both have been involved together. It is the very first time that Zemeckis and Spielberg both served as executive producers of a film together. The film's characters are animated primarily utilizing performance capture, making it the second film to use the technology so extensively, following producer Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express. The filmcompleted production in early 2006, and was released on July 21, 2006 by Columbia Pictures.
A preteen boy, D.J. Walters (Mitchel Musso), spends a lot of his free time spying on the house across the street and its owner, Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi), a crotchety old man who terrorizes anyone who steps anywhere on his lawn or close to his house. DJ has seen and documented Nebbercracker taking toys from kids that have stepped in his grounds. His parents (Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard), dismiss his comments as "kid talk" and leave town for the weekend, during which he is to be cared by Elizabeth or "Zee" (Maggie Gyllenhaal), DJ's apathetic babysitter. When Charles "Chowder" (Sam Lerner), DJ's best friend, loses his basketball on Nebbercracker's lawn, DJ ventures there to recover it, but Nebbercracker appears and grabs DJ, who then starts screaming. This causes him to collapse from a stroke, seemingly dead. While Nebbercracker is carried away by the paramedics, a gold key is dropped, which DJ scoops up. That night, DJ gets a call from Nebbercracker's house (which was just eerie moaning from the other end). He calls Chowder and they agree to meet at a construction lot. There, they decide to investigate the house. When Chowder tries to ding-dong-ditch the house, it comes to life and attempts to eat him. They run back to DJ's house and spend the night watching across the street. Unknown to them, Zee's boyfriend, Bones (Jason Lee), has already been "swallowed" by the house.
The next morning, a girl named Jenny Bennet (Spencer Locke) is on the street selling Halloween chocolates. DJ and Chowder see her going to Nebbercracker's house, and they rush out to warn her, managing to catch her before she is eaten by the house. Jenny decides to call for the police, but when police officers Landers and Lester (Kevin James and Nick Cannon) arrive, they don't believe their story, as the house doesn't react to the kids' teasing while the cops are there. The kids watch horrified as the house swallows Officers Landers and Lester. The children then go to an arcade and ask advice from a video-game addict nicknamed Skull (Jon Heder).
They learn that the house is a "domus mactibilis" (deadly home in Latin), which is created when a human soul merges with a man-made structure. They conclude that the house is Nebbercracker back from the dead and that the only way to "kill" the house is to destroy its heart. Though they have trouble figuring out what the heart is until DJ realizes that the chimney has been smoking (and apparently beating like a heart) ever since Mr. Nebbercracker died. The kids make a dummy that they fill with cold medicine, intending to "drug" the house. As the house is about to swallow the dummy, the police officers return. Officer Landers decides to arrest the children for stealing the cold medicine and places them in the car. The house then swallows Lester, Landers and the police car, while the kids survive by jumping out the broken back window. As the group is trapped inside the house, they notice that it has fallen "asleep". They see lights in a net in the shape of a uvula and Chowder incorrectly thinks it is a vulva. 
They explore the house and find a locked cage, which DJ opens it with the key he took at earlier. They find the body of Nebbercracker's wife, Constance the Giantess, covered in cement. The house then realizes that the kids are inside and starts attacking them. They manage to escape by pulling on its uvula and forcing the house to "vomit" them outside. As they return home, Nebbercracker arrives in an ambulance, with an arm in a sling. DJ confronts him, and Nebbercracker reveals his story. He met Constance (Kathleen Turner), who was an unwilling member of a circus freak show, and fell in love with her. After helping her escape, Nebbercracker moved them away and started building the house she always wanted. However, children still taunted and threw things at her for her size. On one particular Hallowen day, as children cruelly attacked her with objects, Constance went after them yet lost her footing retaliating and as she fell from the edge of the house's foundation, she grabbed the lever of a cement mixer, which covered her in cement as quickly as she fell to her death. Nebbercracker ended up finishing the house, yet found her spirit had not left. It possessed it. To protect children from the wrath of the house, Nebbercracker had to pretend to be a child-hating old man.
However, Nebbercracker felt it was now time for the house to be destroyed. The monster house overhears this alliance between him and DJ and is angered. It breaks free from its foundation to attack the group.As they flee from the now-walking house, they run to the construction lot. A chase ensues, during which Nebbercracker tries and fails to throw a stick of dynamite into the house. Jenny kisses DJ good luck; getting courage, DJ takes the dynamite and climbs to the top of a crane. He swings with the crane cable and throws the dynamite down the chimney, where it reaches the furnace and destroys the house completely. The kids see Nebbercracker dancing with the spirit of Constance as he lets go of her and she fades away. DJ apologizes to him and Nebbercracker thanks him for freeing him and Constance after 45 years of being "trapped."
The film ends with the kids returning to the hole where the house was, and Chowder, DJ, and Jenny helping Nebbercracker return all the toys. During the credits, it is shown that everyone that was eaten by the house crawls out of the basement bewildered but unharmed.