House ハウス 1977 - Japan

****I will not ruin the ending of the film for any reader's who might feel compelled to watch it afterwards****

I have decided to write my first post about one of my personal favorite films, and a movie I believe everyone should watch at least once in their life... and that is HOUSE (ハウス), a 1977 Japanese horror film directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. 

Despite sub par acting and elementary imagery, this film delivers plenty of creepy fun. The story follows a young girl, Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) and her six classmates, Kung Fu, Prof, Fantasy, Mac, Melody and Sweet, as they visit her aunt's house for summer vacation. Things start to go wrong almost immediately as, one by one, the girls begin to disappear...each one being devoured by the house itself! Add into the mix the most unusual evil aunt to ever grace a screen - and her sidekick witch cat - and you get a horror flick that is anything but ordinary.

While the storyline may be straightforward, the film itself is one of the most difficult movies to describe to potential audiences. It seems that Obayashi wanted to use EVERY single animation, graphic, audio, and lighting special effect that was available to him at the time - and his concoction couldn't be more perfect! The director's hodgepodge grab bag-style film obviously doesn't take itself too seriously - and audiences will be grateful for that.

As you can see in the photo to the left, the use of a very obvious background is implemented as the girls wait for a bus. Throughout the film, there are many times when inferior looking landscapes appear in the background, or fake looking birds soar across the screen, but it all feels very deliberate, as if Obayashi wanted it to seem as if a child created them. This even includes the names of the girls. Each of the names is used to make the girls archetypes. For example, Gorgeous, is the most beautiful of the group, while Kung Fu is the athletic one and Melody is the piano playing musician.

This leads to my next point. I believe one of the reasons HOUSE is so atypical in every aspect is because Obayashi was influenced greatly by his young daughter and actually used several of her ideas. These include the concept of a house eating people, monster-like mattresses, a reflection in a mirror that can reach out and attack, and as shown in the photo above, a girl pulling up a watermelon from a well which actually turns out to be a head! Obayashi once said in regards to this that adults "only think about things they understand ... everything stays on that boring human level" while "children can come up with things that can't be explained." As I mentioned previously, this film definitely uses several elements that cannot be explained!

Though the film is categorized as a horror film, the special effects bring opposite emotions to mind. With disembodied fingers bouncing across a piano's keys, the low grade effects make the scenes that should be terrifying almost comical. Nonetheless, the film does what it should, and that is to entertain.

Check out the trailer for HOUSE (ハウス) below!  

FUN FACT- I was able to go to a screening of the film a few months back and was able to meet Nobuhiko Obayashi himself! After the viewing they had a quiz about the film, and with the help of my Japanese skills, I won a t-shirt from the original release of the film. Director Obayashi was nice enough to even sign it for me after the screening. 

                    

           

Next week is one of my favorite director's birthday..and in honor, everyday next week (hopefully) I will be writing about one of his wonderful films. Need a hint?? 

Let me know what you think about HOUSE (ハウス) in the comments below and please subscribe here if you want more East Asian film reviews! 

Enjoy!

W