I just sat through the trailer for the upcoming movie version of John Bellairs’ The House With a Clock In Its Walls. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to let Eli Roth direct this movie.

I loved this book when I was a kid, and one of the formative terrifying memories from my childhood was the scene in the 1979 version (part of “Vincent Price’s Once Upon a Midnight Scary” TV special) in which Lewis and Tarby raise Selenna Izard from her tomb. As with so much stuff from childhood, it looks silly now, but I remember obsessing about how these two kids are goofing around, and then suddenly find themselves running through a graveyard, being chased by an evil sorceress bent upon bringing about the end of the world.

That’s heavy stuff for a seven year old.