Roger Ebert

Based on a well-known series of five books, the movie involves a soon-to-be divorced mom and her three children who come to live in a creepy old mansion. This is Spiderwick, named after her great-uncle, Arthur Spiderwick, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The house itself is one of the stars of the movie, looking Victorian Gothic with countless nooks and crannies and shadows and scary sounds. Is it haunted? Nothing that comforting. It’s ... inhabited.

The mother is Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker), who is battling with the rebellious Jared (Freddie Highmore), one of her twin sons. He doesn’t like being away from his dad, is homesick, doesn’t want anything to do with this dusty and spider-webby old ruin that was left to his mom by her aunt. Jared’s brainy twin, Simon, looks remarkably identical, no doubt because he is also played by Freddie Highmore, born 1992, a gifted young actor best known for “Finding Neverland,” “August Rush” and “The Golden Compass.” The twins’ sister is the plucky Mallory (Sarah Bolger), a fencer who seldom goes anywhere without her sword, which is just as well in this movie. You may remember how good she was in “In America” (2002).

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Hogsqueal, the hog goblin, is one of the supernatural creatures that Jared Grace (Freddie Highmore) encounters in “The Spiderwick Chronicles.”

Jared is the kind of kid who is always getting blamed for everything. When stuff starts disappearing, for example, he gets the rap. When he hears noises in the wall and punches holes in it, he’s being destructive. But he’s brave, and when he finds a hidden dumbwaiter, he hauls himself up to a hidden room -- his grandfather’s study, left undisturbed after all these years. This room fairly reeks of forbidden secrets.

Don’t read further unless you already know, as the Web site makes abundantly clear, that he finds a “field guide” to the unseen world left by his great, great-uncle (David Strathairn), and that with its help and a Seeing Stone, Jared can see goblins, sprits, hobgoblins, ogres, trolls and griffins, which themselves can take many shapes. Some of them are amusing, like Thimbletack (voice by Martin Short), some alarming, like Boggart (Short again), some helpful like Hogsqueal (voice by Seth Rogen) but undependable. And some of the newly visible creatures are truly alarming, like Mulgarath. The credits say his voice is by Nick Nolte, but I gotta say that all of Mulgarath looks a lot like the real Nick Nolte to me.

Anyway, Jared finally convinces his brother, and then his sister and mother, that what he reports is real, and then, after pages from the field guide get into Mulgarath’s hands, the Circle of Protection around the house is threatened, and the Graces are faced with dire threats. This is all done with a free mixture of lighthearted action, heavy action, and some dramatic scenes that, as I said, are pretty heavy going for younger imaginations. The movie is distinguished by its acting, not least by the great Joan Plowright as old Aunt Lucinda. Strathairn is completely credible as a spirit-world investigator, although exactly where the sparkling points of light take him, and what he does there, is a little murky.

They say be careful what you ask for because you might get it. I’ve often hailed back to the really creepy moments in Disney classics, like what happens to Dumbo and Bambi and the witch in “Snow White,” and I’ve complained that recent family movies are too sanitized. This one, directed by Mark Waters (“The House of Yes,” “Freaky Friday”), doesn’t skip a beat before its truly horrific moments, so if you’re under 8 or 9 years old, don’t say you weren’t warned.
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Roger Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, is a syndicated columnist based at the Chicago Sun-Times.