Steven Spielberg’s First-Ever Horror Film Is Taking Over Streaming Just in Time for Halloween
Monster House is haunting the charts: the 2006 Steven Spielberg animated horror comedy is holding firm in the Top 10 on Peacock in the US and on Netflix in the UK and Ireland as of October 22, 2025, according to FlixPatrol.
Spooky-season math checks out: right on cue, a 2006 animated haunted-house movie just barged back into the charts. Steven Spielberg-backed Monster House is suddenly everywhere again, and honestly, good. It still plays.
Streaming surge: Monster House is back in the mix
As of October 22, 2025, Monster House is parked in Peacock's Top 10 in the US and is also charting in Netflix's Top 10 over in the UK and Ireland, per FlixPatrol. Peacock's list is full of seasonal comfort food right now — Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, The Grinch, Ethan Coen's neo-noir dark comedy Honey Don'!, M3GAN 2.0, Scary Movie, and Scream — and Monster House is holding its own with all of them.
Why this one holds up
Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Gil Kenan, Monster House was a pretty big swing back in 2006. It marked Sony Pictures Imageworks' first fully computer-animated feature and leaned on performance-capture to drive its human characters. It was marketed like a kids' horror comedy about a cranky neighbor and his creaky old home, but the movie sneaks up on you. There's a tragic love story baked into the floorboards, snappy kid-banter, and a mean streak when the house stops being metaphor and starts being literal monster. Yes, the house is the monster. The title was not kidding.
Critics were into it the first time around: Empire basically called it a Goonies-for-the-2000s riff, and Common Sense Media said the pieces all snap together — spot-on voice cast, clever backstory, and an ending that keeps zagging. The New York Times went short and sharp:
"Marvelously creepy."
Almost two decades later, it is finding new fans on both sides of the Atlantic. The PG scares land for kids; the melancholy undercurrent and the craft are there for the adults. And for the animation-tech crowd, it is a neat time capsule of early mo-cap ambition that mostly works.
A quick refresher (no spoilers beyond what the trailer already gave you)
What starts as a standard 'get off my lawn' setup escalates into a full-on siege when the spirit of the old man's wife takes up residence in the house itself and starts terrorizing the neighborhood. The kids figure it out and, because this is a movie, decide to do something epically ill-advised about it. It is brisk, funny, and occasionally mean in the way 80s and early-2000s kid adventures used to be.
Receipts and stats
Monster House was a legit player during awards season, too. It earned Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Animated Feature, ultimately losing to Happy Feet and Cars, respectively.
Essential info
- Director: Gil Kenan
- Screenplay: Dan Harmon, Pamela Pettler, Rob Schrab
- Voice cast: Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Jason Lee, Catherine O'Hara, Kathleen Turner, Fred Willard, Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke
- Runtime: 91 minutes
- Budget: $75 million
- Box office: $141.9 million
- Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
- IMDb: 6.7
Where to watch (and when to hurry)
Monster House is streaming on Peacock right now — but it leaves in 9 days. If you have been saving it for Halloween, that timing could not be more on the nose.
And since we are here: what is your all-time favorite haunted-house movie? I have a short list, but I want yours.