Welcome to Movie Shortens.
Follow us today to a 2008 American fantasy adventure film called: The Spiderwick Chronicles.
Before we start, be aware: there are spoilers!
The movie begins with a scene where Arthur Spiderwick walks into a room, jots down some
notes in a book and seals it.
Eighty years later, Helena Graces, a divorced woman and her children, Mallory, the twin
sons, Jared /JAIR-uhd/ and Simon, move into an old house, which is left for her by her
great grand Aunt.
While Jared is upset with the move and left alone with the car outside, a noise in the
bush nearby scares him off.
After entering his room, Jared starts whining about the house with his brother.
A family picture on the wall reveals the story of his great grand aunt - Lucinda /lu-CIN-da/
Spiderwick, who claims that her father, Arthur Spiderwick, was abducted by fairies.
She was sent to a sanatorium nearby for the rest of her life.
While the family is having dinner in the kitchen, Helena and Mallory realize their belongings
have been lost.
Mallory thinks Jared is behind this and both start shouting as he denies it.
After learning that his father can not come to see him, Jared gets angry as he assumes
that Helena has made his father change his mind.
When everyone leaves, Jared hears a noise in the kitchen and starts hitting the wall
with a broom suspecting something is inside.
After Helena steps in scolding him and leaves, another noise suddenly comes from the wall.
Mallory grabs the broom and unintentionally collapses a part of the wall, revealing an
old dumbwaiter, which contained Helena and Mallory’s stuff.
While cleaning the mess, Jared finds a key and decides to go upstairs by the dumbwaiter.
He reaches an abandoned room where he finds a chest with a book in it.
Now, while a text appears on the table telling him to leave, his flashlight suddenly turns
around, scaring him away.
When Jared returns and tells Simon what happened upstairs, Simon doesn’t believe him.
As he goes to bed and opens the book, a tremor radiates from the house following with roars
echoing from outside.
Despite sensing unusual things happening around, Jared hides in the footlocker and still decides
to read the book.
The book is a field guide written by his great great grand Uncle - Arthur Spiderwick.
In the book he wrote, there are fantastical creatures, invisible in plain sight, living
among them.
However, Arthur befriended them and compiled all of their secrets in a field guide.
Arthur also added that the book must be safe out of /mul-ga-rath/ Mulgarath’s hand, a
shapeshifting orge.
While Jared is reading, Mallory in another room suddenly starts to cry out in pain as
her hair is weaved and tied to the bed.
When the twins come over to see, Mallory still thinks Jared is behind all of this.
Jared seems to realize what is happening.
The very next day, Jared comes to ask Simon about the word ‘appease’ as he learns
that there is a brownie living with them that needs to be appeased.
Mallory thinks Jared is out of his mind and goes inside with Simon.
At this point, Jared sees something approaching him.
As he steps into the zone drawn by a circle of rocks, it immediately stops.
A while later, Jared goes upstairs along with some crackers, he decides to sit nearby to
observe but falls asleep.
After he wakes up and finally finds a brownie, the creature introduces himself as Thimbletack
/thim-ble-tack/, who is supposed to protect the field guide.
He reveals that the circle around the house was made to protect the book and immediately
gets angry after learning that the book has been opened.
Soon, Jared looks at the window and sees Simon is being dragged to the woods by the invisible
creatures.
With a piece of glass given by Thimbletack, he can clearly see a group of goblins led
by Red Cap is abducting his brother.
Jared unhestitantly puts the book to his backpack and runs to the woods to save his twin.
When he reaches the goblin’s campsite, Simon is already held captive in a cage.
While hiding under a tree, Jared becomes allied with a hobgoblin named /hawk-skeal/, who is
also held captive in a cage and has an obsession with eating birds.
Hogsqueal is determined to take revenge on Mulgarath as he killed his family.
After being released, Hogsqueal spits into Jared’s eyes to give him the ability to
see creatures in the magic world.
As they are approaching Simon’s cage to free him, the goblins start to summon Mulgarath,
our villain, who appears to be a harmless old man.
He asks Simon about the book and learns that they have mistaken Simon for Jared.
After discovering a photo of Simon with his parents, Mulgarath threatens Simon to bring
the book to him or else he will find his parents.
As Simon is released, Jared overhears that Mulgarath is going to kill his family anyways.
On the way home, the twins see each other and start fighting over the book as Simon
thinks their family will be safe if they give it to Mulgarath.
Seeing that, the goblins chase after the twins to get it.
The brothers run home hastily but Simon unfortunately gets bitten.
Just then, Mallory shows up out of the protection circle with a sword in her hand, which draws
attention from the goblins.
Now, she has to fight against the goblins that she can not see.
Mallory manages to get into the circle and uses the glass to see through.
She starts to believe Jared.
Now, while Simon is staying downstairs with his wound, Jared and Mallory find out that
the house is surrounded by hundreds of goblins.
Having learnt about the book, Mallory suggests giving the book to the goblins to keep themselves
safe.
However, Thimbletack gets furious and shows up to stop her.
He reveals that if Mulgarath knows all the secrets in the book, they will all die.
At this point, with Simon’s idea, the children destroy the book by setting it on fire in
front of the goblins and Mulgarath, who is now in the shape of a raven.
To their surprise, the book can not be burnt as it has a charm on it.
They finally decide to seek help from their great grand aunt - Lucinda, who is currently
in Woodhaven Sanatorium in the town.
To get there, they have to enter a secret tunnel underground.
Under Thimbletack’s request, Jared puts the field guide back into the chest and then
heads to the sanatorium with Mallory.
Starting the plan, Simon distracts the goblins by calling them to one side of the house while
Jared and Mallory sneak and run to the tunnel.
Unfortunately, the goblins quickly realize it and start chasing after them.
Meanwhile, Simon finds out the way to kill the goblins with tomato sauce and salt.
He and Thimbertick also learn that Jared has switched the field guide with another book
and brought it to Aunt Lucinda, asking her to destroy the book.
On the way pursuing the two siblings, Red Cap has the troll chasing after them in the
tunnel.
Mallory and Jared hastily run to the end of the tunnel and make it to the ground as the
troll follows them and gets killed by a truck.
En route, Jared and Mallory get caught by Helena.
Back home, Simon and Thimbletack are making a lot of tomato bombs.
Eventually, Mallory and Jared reach Lucinda, who is terrified after Jared shows her the
book and tells them to go inside immediately.
In her room, Lucinda starts to tell the siblings about the day her father was taken away.
One day, her father was trying to save her from the goblins but ended up being abducted
by the sylphs as what he knows put them in danger.
Despite the fact that he promised to come back, aunt Lucinda never sees her father again.
She adds that Mulgarath will stop at nothing to get the field guide and the only one who
could help them at the moment is her father, Aurthur Spiderwick, who she believes is still
alive and held captive by the sylph.
At this point, while she is handing Jared the book, Red Cap breaks in, trying to take
it and manages to take some pages.
Just then, the security and Helena show up.
Later on, Mulgarath is pleased as he now has a page about the charm of the protection circle.
He will get the book when the moon rises.
In the meantime, Hogsqueal overhears it and decides to warn the children.
Elsewhere, Helena drives their children home and starts scolding them as she thinks they
hate the house.
Jared, who is rather living with his dad, expresses his hatred toward Helena.
When Jared and Mallory get to the house, the goblins surrounding the house earlier have
left.
Now, Hogsqueal shows up and tells the children Mulgarath’s plan to break the circle when
the moon rises.
He also reveals if Mulgarath possesses the book he will kill all the species in the realm
just like he did to his family.
At this point, Hogsqueal spits into Mallory and Simon giving them the sight.
Jared starts to call his father for help as he promised to bring Jared with him.
But after being told that his father is with someone else, Jared is broken.
Meanwhile, more goblins are coming to the house, they have to find Arthur as soon as
possible.
Jared has an idea to summon Arthur Spiderwick’s pet - a griffin, to get to his place.
When the griffin arrives, the siblings get on it with the field guide and start an extraordinary
ride to the land of the sylph.
When arriving at Arthur’s place, they see him unaged and surrounded by millions of sylphs
that make him unaware of the time he spent here.
When Jared shows Arthur the field guide, Authur leads him to a quiet place to talk as it is
not safe to show the book to the sylphs.
Here, Jared convinces Arthur to destroy it as it brings nothing but misery to his daughter,
who has been living the rest of her life without a father.
However, it’s not until Arthur opens the book that he realizes the book has been switched
by Thimbertack.
The siblings have to go home soon before Mulgarath swoops into their house.
But after learning that the sylphs will not let them leave as they know too much, Jared
regrets that he was talking badly with his mom earlier.
Arthur later helps the siblings to escape by distracting the sylphs with the fake book
while Jared is summoning the griffin and fly away.
Back at the house, Helena arrives home while the goblins are outside waiting for the moon
to rise.
The siblings quickly manage to get in the car and drive the family inside the circle
to get rid of the goblins.
While Helena is still confused, Jared quickly tells Simon and Mallory to get tomato sauce
and salt.
Jared convinces his mom of the truth by having her looking outside through the glass.
The family starts to defend the house with salt, arm themselves with tomato sauce and
steel knives.
Outside, as the moon is rising, the goblins manage to break the circle and start to swoop
in.
In the meantime, the family encounters the attack in every direction and is quickly outnumbered
by the goblins.
They have to run to the music room.
Here, Mulgarath comes up from the ground in the form of a beast and chases after the family.
They quickly get to the kitchen, where they manage to make a tomato sauce bomb by putting
all of the sauce into the oven.
Just in time, Mulgarath and the goblins come to the kitchen but the family is one step
ahead.
At this point, Simon ignites the bomb by setting a fire leading to the oven.
As a result, the goblins are all burnt and dead before they are aware of what is happening.
After the family steps out, Mulgarath is nowhere to be seen.
The book is still safe in Jared’s hand.
To their surprise, their father, Richard, opens the door and shows up.
Before handing the book to his father, Jared finds out Richard is actually Mulgarath in
disguise and stabs him.
Soon enough, he returns to his beast form and chases after the boy.
Jared quickly runs to the secret room by the dumbwaiter followed by Mulgarath in a giant
snake form.
Jared manages to get out of the house and climb to the roof.
He then tosses the book for Mulgarath, who is now turning into a raven.
Right after Mulgarath is able to catch the book and fly away, Hogsqueal suddenly grabs
him and eats him alive as revenge.
In the end, Jared reconciles with his mom and chooses to stay with the family.
Weeks later, Helena brings Lucinda back to the house, where she sees her father, Authur
Spiderwick, arriving with the sylphs.
However, he reveals that he can only visit her in a short time as he will turn to dust
if he stays.
Lucinda asks to come with him and holds his hand as she transforms back to a child.
The family watches aunt Lucinda and her father get carried away.
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