(MENAFN- The Conversation) In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Marion Crane looks up at the house looming in the night sky behind the Bates Motel, its hybrid New England/Victorian style oddly out of place. We're left with the odd, impossible feeling of a face made up of windows for eyes and a door for a mouth.

That uncanny sense of a building being unconsciously anthropomorphised became a well-used horror trope, from the New England clapboard home of The Amityville Horror (1979) and at scale in Kubrick's The Shining (1980), the vast Overlook Hotel's lit windows strongly suggesting a brooding, malevolent giant looking back at the camera.

Part of an early 2000s wave of horror-tinged animated family films, Monster House (2006) takes that eerie suspicion that houses are looking back at us and makes it brilliantly literal. The house really is looking back at DJ and Chowder, two pals who believe they see sinister goings-on across the street in the house of cranky, gap-toothed Mr Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi).

As the film's plot unfolds, we see the shutters of the top windows open and shut like eyelids, sharpened slats flip up and become teeth in the mouth of the front doors and the clapboard exterior creak and contort into frowns and sneers.

Read more: Scary stories for kids: Gremlins and the terror of normal, even cute, things becoming horrific

From the opening shot that follows an orange autumn leaf as it floats to the ground, Monster House oozes Halloween atmosphere. Co-written by beloved American comedy creator Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty and Community), it's a perfect film for horror aficionados and a brilliant first taste of the genre's delights for the young novice.

In the first three minutes alone there are visual references to The Shining, Rear Window, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Psycho and others I likely missed. Behind its quirky horror-lite surface there is a surprisingly emotional story of a devoted husband and wife, and a charming depiction of childhood friendship.

Pictorial Press Ltd

This article is part of a series of expert recommendations of spooky stories – on screen and in print – for brave young souls. From the surprisingly dark depths of Watership Down to Tim Burton's delightfully eerie kid-friendly films, there's a whole haunted world out there just waiting for kids to explore. Dare to dive in here.

This film is ostensibly for a family audience but I don't mind admitting it scares me. It carries a PG certificate and I might place the age range at 8+ for this film, not least because of the (apparent) onscreen death that occurs in the first ten minutes.

I regularly recommend it to seasoned grownup horror fans for how well it understands and executes the conventions of the genre. Watching it almost 20 years after its release, the CGI animation is clearly a bit clunky but the atmosphere remains deeply creepy.

The film is particularly brilliant in its execution of the“Lewton Bus” variety of fake-out jumpscares. These creative acts of trickery are named for a moment in the Val Lewton-produced 1942 film Cat People where the audience fears that Jane Randolph will be mauled by a growling off-screen feline only to be startled by the engine of a bus pulling up to the kerbside. This iconic scene became the basis for similar jump scares in classics of the horror genre, from Halloween to The Descent.

Read more: A brief history of the haunted house in western cinema and literature

Centring on friendship between a group of industrious kids and the inherent creepiness of American small town suburbia, the film is also a nostalgic love letter and a gateway to the fiction of Stephen King. It is particularly inspired by IT, whose dilapidated“House on Neibolt Street” provides the scariest sections of King's book and its 2017 film adaptation. King fans will also spot the cymbal clattering toy monkey as a reference to King's short story The Monkey.

While some of the film's eerie tension is lost once the house uproots itself and goes on a small-scale, Godzilla-like suburban rampage, it's a film that is unafraid to try out fun ideas and follow through on its weird promise. Monster House is one of my favourite family films and, for its sheer love and enthusiasm for the genre, one of my favourite haunted house films full stop.

Monster House is suitable for children 7+

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