Parents' Guide to

The Strange House

By Jennifer Green, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Quirky teen mystery/horror tale has some scares, swearing.

Movie NR 2021 99 minutes
The Strange House Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 10+

Based on 1 parent review

age 10+

Not sure why this is MA rated.

Watched this movie with my 10 year old son and he loved it. I've seen much worse pg-13 movies. There are very few curse words most of the words referenced exist only in subtitle form but the movie changed many of the words in the English dub. There are no sexual scenes, just one small kiss. No violence, just fear of violence. There is a scene where 2 kids are being chased by a man with a gun but the gun is never drawn or fired on the children. The fear factor is low because the ghosts are nice but things do appear creepy at first. The movie is about a mother and her 2 sons moving to a new home. The kids soon find out that their new house once belonged to a woman who poisoned her kids and then herself. The youngest child starts sleepwalking at night and the brother soon finds out his brother is possessed. After recruiting a few friends to translate what he brother is saying, the friends soon find out there is more to the story of the dead family than the public knows. The rest of the movie is just friends bonding while trying to solve the mystery of what really happen to the ghosts. SPOILER ALERT! - - - - It has a happy ending!

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1):
Kids say (1):

If you take this quirky movie from Austria as a kind of throwback to the goofy but not entirely scary teen-led mysteries of the 1980s, you may just enjoy yourself. The Strange House mixes silly humor, some of it quite local and much of it based in the character of nerdy Fritz, with campy terror, complete with possessed kids and comically creepy neighbors. But if you don't know this going in, the set-up could throw you off and give you the erroneous sensation you're in an actual horror film.

What gives the movie its retro feeling? It could be the innocence of the teens (including a budding romance with one chaste kiss), their relative independence to roam around town (think Stranger Things), and their multi-age teamwork in cracking the case (those meddling kids!). Or maybe it's the stereotyped baddies and single-mom family (E.T.-like). It might also be the synthesizer music that creeps in repeatedly. The combination works if you're open to it; if you're looking for real scares, you should look elsewhere.

Movie Details

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