Horace Nebbercracker (2024)

Nebbercracker: "Do you want to be eaten alive?!" Eliza: "No." Nebbercracker: "Then get out of here!" Eliza: (screams) "My trike."

- Nebbercracker to Eliza after she crashed into his lawn.Horace Nebbercracker is one of the main characters inMonster House. Initially assumed to be the main antagonist by DJ Walters, Chowder and Jenny Bennett due to his attitude and hostile nature to anyone who goes near his house, as well as rumors he had killed his wife, it's eventually revealed in reality his behavior was done to keep the people of the neighborhood safe from the spirit of his dead wife, Constance Nebbercracker, who had possessed their home after her accidental death. When this information is revealed, he becomes the overarching protagonist of the film and aids in stopping his wife from hurting anyone else.

Biography:[]

Nebbercracker once served in a demolition squad, presumably in WWII. Sometime after the conflict, he was in a circus watching a performance about Constance the Giantess and fell in love with her, which prompted him to rescue Constance when she was abused by others. He then purchased a plot of land to build a new house for themselves. On an unspecified Halloween, he tried to calm Constance from attacking a group of children bullying her, but is inadvertently knocked out. In the resulting chaos, Constance falls into the shaft and is buried by a lump of cement. He managed to finish the house, thinking it's what Constance would have wanted. However, he eventually realized her vengeful soul possessed the house to attack kids that approach her. Not wanting Constance to go on a rampage, he took on an intimidating demeanor to keep them away.

For the next years of his life, Horace became known locally as a mean and grouchy old man who was very protective of his house, no one knowing the truth as he had been protecting them this entire time, however, protecting his house and scaring the kids to keep them safe began to take a toll on his health. Little did Horace knew it would be a matter of time before someone finally suspected something despite his efforts, which eventually came to pass when he unknowingly brought the attention of his inquisitive opposite kid neighbor, DJ Walters, who proceeded to spy on his activities in last few months.

One day before Halloween, DJ and Chowder went to collect their ball which accidentally fell into Nebbercracker's lawn. As DJ went to collect the ball, Horace, who is using a spying glass, spots him and chases after him, he warns DJ about staying away from his house, when suddenly, thanks to the stress of having spent years warning and scaring children away from a house that could hurt them causes him to have a heart attack. He was taken away by an ambulance as his wife tries to prevent him to go away but to no avail. DJ and Chowder believed that DJ accidentally kill Nebbercracker with the hammer. The fact they wrongly believed the ambulance not having sirens meant that he died.

As he is away recovering in the hospital, his wife in the house becomes more active and aggressive, especially anyone that trespasses the lawn. The kids wrongly assumed that the house is possessed by Mr. Nebbercracker. As the kids managed to escape the house, Horace woke up from the hospital and stole an ambulance to hurry back to his home in fear that his wife may become aggressive. He almost crashed into DJ, who is returning home after his disappointment of destroying the house's heart. Nebbercracker, realising that it was Halloween attempts to go back to his house and calm his wife before she becomes active. As he's about to go, DJ confronts him about the house and his wife which initially seems to anger him due to him entering his house, however, it soon becomes quite clear to DJ that he wasn't angry, but scared that they had been inside, finally making DJ realise Nebbercracker had no part to play in his wife's death. He reveals his past to DJ; revealing how he met his wife and the real circ*mstances of her death and her soul possessing their house before he attempts to go back inside.

DJ then convinced Nebbercracker to let Constance go; it became apparent that just as Nebbercracker became weary of his duty in keeping others safe from Constance's wrath Constance became increasingly violent and restless due to trapped in the land of the living for too long. Before further action taken as Nebbercracker realized what was something he had to do, Constance's spirit became more furious and succumbed to her urge to kill: she assimilated nearby trees and turned them into hands, and rushes towards him and the children. The house smashes a nearby electrical pole and prompts them to make their way to the construction site. During the chase, Nebbercracker was exhausted from running, and seemingly squashed by the house. However, he survived, and the house was not hitting him. Instead, it was only chases after DJ, Jenny, and Chowder, much to his horror, as he quickly called her off.

Though still furious, the house calmed down, and they had a brief conversation. Here, the house expresses a degree of remorse over the carnage that it has done, and Nebbercracker said that he has done the best for it. But now, her suffering must be over as he reveals the dynamite to blow up the house that has changed her. The house was shocked by this and started to get furious, but Nebbercracker argued, trying to blow the house up with the dynamite, and tried to tell the house that it was the best for it. Suddenly, the house disarmed him and ultimately lost its ability to reason, as it succumbed to its murderous instinct to eat him.

Fortunately, the children interfered, and with this, he left the task of destruction to DJ. After DJ successfully destroyed the house, he spent his final moments with Constance's spirit who was now free from the house, and thanked him saying that "for forty-five years, we have been trapped for 45 years, and now we're free!". That Halloween night, instead of candy, he handed out the toys and other various items he had stolen to their previous owners including Eliza's tricycle as an apology to all the kids he pretended to hate.

What became of Horace Nebbercracker after the incident is unsure. Chowder told DJ that Horace might go on vacation, get some color and maybe meet someone new. Perhaps a "nice beach house".

Appearance:[]

Nebbercracker is a tall and slender man with short black and brown hair, blue eyes and wears a white sleeveless shirt with brown suspenders that are attached to his hips and shoulders at the beginning of the film and during his time with Constance moments before her death.

Near the end of the film, he wore a hospital gown and a white sling around his left arm, probably due to lifting DJ and losing his strength because of his old age after he tried to get Chowder’s basketball.

Trivia:[]

• Nebbercracker, DJ and Chowder are the only male main characters that appear in both the movie and video games.
• Nebbercracker is voiced by Steve Buscemi, who also voiced Randall Boggs from Disney/Pixar’s 2001 animated movie, Monsters Inc.
• Nebbercracker shares similarities with Dracula from Hotel Transylvania (in which his actor Steve Buscemi also starred in): both lost their wives (Constance and Martha), both were formerly mean and lonely, both are the enemy of the protagonist (DJ and Jonathan Loughran), both later become friends with the protagonist.
• Nebbercracker only appears at the end of the Nintendo GameCube version of Monster House while in the game boy advance version he appears in person, but he does not appear in the Nintendo DS game version and was only mentioned.
• Despite his incredibly frail appearance, he's strong enough to lift up a tricycle and rip its wheel off, as well as restrain DJ and lift him off the ground and shake him, though the latter almost immediately causes him a heart attack.

Quotes:[]

• "(Growling)."
• “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
• "Trespasser!”
• “Do you want to be eaten alive?!"
• "Then get out of here!"
• "Stay away from my house!"
• "YOU!"
• "What have you done?"
• "You are DEAD!"
• "You think you can terrorize my lawn?!?!"
• "You wanna be a dead person?!?"
• "This place, is not a playground for children!"
• "This is my house!"
• "Why can't you respect that?! Why can't you just stay from her?!"
• "(Grunts)."
• "(Groans)."
• "Be gone yourselves. Get away!"
• "Of course I'm not dead. Who said I was dead?"
• "YOU'LL BE DEAD IF YOU DON'T SCRAM!"
• "D-don't you know what day this is? I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time. Honey? I'm home."
• "Oh look at you, dear. Your shingles are all ruffled, and your windows are cracked."
• "What? What do you know? You don't know anything."
• "You were in my house?!"
• "I love her so much."
• "It's okay. I can take you away from here. Would you like that?"
• "All right. Okay, you can open your eyes."
• "Constance. What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
• "Now, now. They're just kids, dear. It's Halloween."
• "Constance, look at me! Look at me! As long as I'm here, I will never let anyone hurt you."
• "So, I finished the house. She would have wanted that. She died, but she didn't leave."
• "At night, that... that one night of every year... I-I had to take precautions. I had to... I had to..."
• "Hey! You…Stay away from my HOUSE!"
• "She attacks anyone who comes near.”
• "Go."
• "I-I'm coming, dear."
• "GO!"
• "But if I let her go, I'll have no one."
• "Constance, no!''
• "What are you doing?"
• "Move it, Porkchop."
• "I can't."
• "Go on. I'll be all right"
• "You stay away from those children, Constance!"
• "You've been a bad girl, haven't you?"
• "I have to make things right... I have to make things right."
• "I've always done what's best for you, haven't I? Haven't I, girl?"
• "Take this. You have to help me, please. I know you can do it."
• "Go on, go hurry."
• "45 years. We have been trapped for 45 years. And now... we're free. (Laughs) We're free! Oh, thank you, friend! Thank you all! WE'RE FREE!"
• "One tricycle coming up."
• "Hey. Stay off my lawn. *laughs* I'm just kidding."

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