Horace Nebbercracker

""Get off my lawn!""

- The thing Nebbercracker is known for saying

Horace Nebbercracker, (simply known as Mr. Nebbercracker, or Nebbercracker to some characters) is a secondary character of Monster House. He is DJ's crabby neighbour who lives across the street from DJ. Though he is somewhat being a bad guy that shoos away anyone that set foot his lawn, Nebbercracker is actually a desperate, tragic individual that tries to keep his late wife's ghost's murderous rage under control. He is 69 years old, actually.

He is voiced by Steve Buscemi, who also voiced Wayne the Werewolf from Hotel Transylvania and Randall Boggs in Monsters Inc. and Monsters University

Early Life
Mr. Nebbercracker, appears to be mean and heartless to anyone on his lawn, but only because he is afraid his house will attack the person. If any object lands on his lawn, he takes it, and keeps it in his basement.

He is likely at his 60s or 70s, because he cannot run very fast. He met an obese woman that eventually became his wife, Constance, at a circus when he was much younger. Despite her obesity and apparent "anger issues", Nebbercracker was whipped no matter what.

That night, when Constance was locked in the circus car (possibly due to many people eventually disgusted with her looks to the point that the manager locked her up and let the children make fun of her), Nebbercracker helped her escape from the circus and married her. Only a little later, their house began construction, and that's when the trouble began as their happiness proved short-lived. Children always mocked Constance for her body like her days back in circus whenever they met, and often threw eggs, tomatoes, and rocks at her. This ultimately led to the tragedy, that both change Nebbercracker's life and set the whole events of the movie.

The tragedy occured in at Halloween, the last day where children laughed at Constance, and she said she was going to "rip them to bits". Mr. Nebbercracker, whom see her complain over the children's bullying, told her, "As long as I'm here, I will never let anybody hurt you." However, just as he said so, the children continued their throwing, which now in a more aggressive manner. The furious Constance then uses the axe that Nebbercracker was holding to hurt the children, but ended up knocked away in attempt to take the axe back. This made her lose her footing, and to regain her unruly balance, she pulled accidentally the switch on the cement dispenser. She fell into the darkness of the unfinished house (Where the basement was dug), and the cement fell on her as well, drying over time, suffocating and killing her (though it's possible that she rather died upon impact due to her weight and her spine shattered during the impact).

Nebbercracker then finished the house for Constance's sake. Not long afterwards, he sense his wife's presence and learned that both her death, and love for Nebbercracker led her to possess the house. This made him take precautions on that one night of every year, Halloween; he was aware that Constance's spirit caused the house to come alive, and there was the risk of the house attacking innocent children trick-or-treating and even adults. He knows that the pain and suffering that his wife had in her lifetime has made her into a tricky but savage, bloodthirsty, and murderous monstrosity of her former self.

Nebbercracker's Absence
45 years have passed since he kept anyone away from the harm that can be inflicted by the ghost of his maddened Constance. This has turned him to be a somewhat mean person from the outside, as he was haunted by the change of his wife as the possessed house; he had taken any precautions to keep Constance from harming everyone that approach her, this would mean many death to innocent people. Her rage over her painful past would drive her to devour and kill anyone and anything that she met. While mean, his behavior is somewhat erratic to the point where at least 2 individuals aware with what he has hid during that time: DJ and Bones. Bones aware with what Mr. Nebbercracker hid from those whom he antagonize, but not as much as DJ who was spying on him.

One day, when Chowder accidentally had his basketball accidentally flew onto Nebbercracker's lawn and prompt DJ to immediately bring it back, Nebbercracker ambushes and storms towards him. DJ tries to calm him down, but this hasn't changed Nebbercracker's mind to scare him further. Nebbercracker proceeds by lifting him upwards and unleashed several tantrums on his face. This, however, made a great mistake; due to his elderly age, he forgot that his body is no longer able to endure the boy's weight and he had a heart attack at the same time. His bones cracked in process, causing him to fall unconscious on DJ's body.

Constance's Reawakening
When Nebbercracker was immediately brought to the hospital, Constance immediately awakened from her years of slumber. The house's fireplace started burning on it's own, and with both the house and her lawn under her control. She caused them to emit groaning voices as the ambulance approaches to carry her husband away. As the medics put Nebbercracker's body on a carriage, she possesses grass on the lawn and tried to prevent them from leaving, but failed. None of anyone aware with this, while her spirit, from the house's window, glares on unsuspecting DJ and Chowder, causes it to crack before they left.

Constance's Reign of Terror
What was feared by Nebbercracker ultimately comes true: without anyone to keep her in check, her murderous self possesses the house and starts her killing spree. She has claimed her first victim, Bones, and nearly kills Chowder, DJ, and Jenny. The trio tries to stop her, but two policemen interfere and arrest them, unaware about what they were attempting to do. Everything got worse as the policemen and the children were ultimately devoured alive, though the children escaped after escaping from her clutches and learned some information of her backstory.

In the hospital, when Nebbercracker nearly recovers, he realized that he has left Constance, she started her killing spree, and quickly stole one of the ambulances in the hospital to stop her (albeit it was too late as she has claimed a number of victims).

Final Confrontation
He nearly crashed on DJ as he arrived. Mistaken as a ghost, Jenny and Chowder threw him with rocks out of fear, which he shrugged off and scram them away. But he stopped them for a moment as he realized how long he was in the hospital. Watching a group of children in costumes from afar, he was scared and confronted his already awakened house. DJ, against his friends' wishes, confronts him and revealed that he knew some of her past. Nebbercracker starts to get mad, but DJ calmed him, and ask him about the truth. Nebbercracker then reveals the whole story about what happened, which made DJ realized that Constance has become a spree killer, had she had not cross to the afterlife.

DJ then convinced him to let Constance go. But before the further action taken as Nebbercracker realized what was something that he had to do, Constance's spirit became more furious and succumbed to her urge to kill: she assimilated nearby tree and turned them into hands, and rushes towards him and the children. She smashes a nearby electrical pole, prompts them to make their way to construction site. During the chase, Nebbercracker was exhausted from running, and seemingly squashed by Constance. However, he survived and Constance was not hitting him. Instead, she only chases after DJ, Jenny, and Chowder, much to his horror, as he quickly called her off.

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

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've 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 to their previous owners including the little girl's tricycle.

Personality
Even from the moment where they met in the circus, Mr. Nebbercracker loved Constance and he always protected her from harm.

His ongoing protection of children from Constance shows that throughout the years, he was the unsung hero. He has a caring heart, not only for Constance, but for the children who would dare come near the house and taunt it.