Ebert review reactions

While first watching the film, I kept laughing, mostly at Mrs. Spoon whose old-school mentality on love was cracking me up. At first I though this is not a laughing matter, like the concept of a lonely widow looking out for her kids was something to be pitied. As the review says, "It is risky to combine horror and humor, and foolhardy to approach them through expressionism." It's very hard to incorporate comedy into a movie while still keeping fear in the hearts of viewers.  A few instances it came off as corny, which is why I gave the film a "meh" originally. But I agree with Ebert's review now; the makers of the film treaded right on the line of comedy and horror and made it work for the most part. 
The review goes on to say, "The basement sequence combines terror and humor, as when the Preacher tries to chase the children up the stairs, only to trip, fall, recover, lunge and catch his fingers in the door. And the masterful nighttime river sequence uses giant foregrounds of natural details, like frogs and spider webs, to underline a kind of biblical progression as the children drift to eventual safety." I had never thought of it as a "biblical progression", but it makes sense! The two children are constantly being compared to Moses, but all those references went right over my head when I first watched the movie. The river that John and Pearl travel on represents the Nile and the frog in that sequence is another clue pointing to Moses and his prophesy to the Egyptians that they would be overrun with frogs if they did not heed God's word. In another way, John and Pearl could be compared to Adam and Eve naming the animals in paradise. The Old and New Testament references play off each other, and I think incorporating them into the film may not seem necessary to everyone, but it makes the experience richer than a simple storyline.