It remains a mystery on how I had missed this classic while I was in Japan! I ended up catching it on the IFC channel this past Sunday. First-time feature director,
Nobuhiko Obayashi, could have made this 1977 movie quite plain: maybe a youth summer adventure film or maybe a coming-of-age romance story, or even horror. The fact that he chose "all of the above" resulted in House.
This satirical murder mystery pits a woman who is the epitome of glamor (played by
Haruko Wanibuchi) against a clever murderer during a holiday stay at a strange ghostly mansion. It is up to the heroine -- whose every screen appearance is heralded by special lighting, gentle breezes, and a soft camera focus -- to find out what is going on.
This movie is interestingly bizarre! Even their character names are "hip", pointing to the character type they play:
Oshare (which means "fancy" in Japanese) is the fashionable one,
Kung-
Fu is the athletic one, Mac (for
stomach) is the glutton who's always eating and so on.
The premise is fairly simple: six female classmates, on their summer break, decide to spend some time at
Oshare's aunt's old house in the country. As everyone knows, though, old houses have secrets and this one wants to literally consume them.
There is an abundance of bizarre story elements; for example, when one man literally goes bananas because he doesn't like watermelons. Genre boundaries are frequently crossed from teen film to horror to romance to action to comedy, you really can't guess what the film is going to spit out at you next.
Interesting Fact about this film: the executive producer,
Tomoyuki Tanaka, was the creator of Godzilla!
10 minutes into the movie: It's quite slow and quite stupid.
20 minutes in: Holy crap is this music ever awful.
30 minutes in: Definitely not a horror, but wait...is it?
40 minutes in: Yep, the goofy horror has begun…
50 minutes in: Movie gets tiring after a while. Also, a piano just ate someone.
60 minutes in: There was some nice piano music earlier but now it’s back to the
ol’ spastic theme song.
70 minutes in: Should we be seeing nude high school girls? Is that okay?
80 minutes in: I think the movie just ended, but there’s another 15 minutes on the file. Oh good, it ends with a music video. Just Perfect!
At the end of the movie...
believe me...you'll be thinking...
what was that?
It's not a film for everyone and it will reward as much as it frustrates but it's a recommended watch, even if only just once.
The premise is fairly simple: six female classmates, on their summer break, decide to spend some time at Oshare's aunt's old house in the country. As everyone knows, though, old houses have secrets and this one wants to literally consume them.
There is an abundance of bizarre story elements; for example, when one man literally goes bananas because he doesn't like watermelons. Genre boundaries are frequently crossed from teen film to horror to romance to action to comedy, you really can't guess what the film is going to spit out at you next.
Interesting Fact about this film: the executive producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka, was the creator of Godzilla!
10 minutes into the movie: It's quite slow and quite stupid. 20 minutes in: Holy crap is this music ever awful. 30 minutes in: Definitely not a horror, but wait...is it? 40 minutes in: Yep, the goofy horror has begun… 50 minutes in: Movie gets tiring after a while. Also, a piano just ate someone. 60 minutes in: There was some nice piano music earlier but now it’s back to the ol’ spastic theme song. 70 minutes in: Should we be seeing nude high school girls? Is that okay? 80 minutes in: I think the movie just ended, but there’s another 15 minutes on the file. Oh good, it ends with a music video. Just Perfect!
At the end of the movie...believe me...you'll be thinking...what was that?
It's not a film for everyone and it will reward as much as it frustrates but it's a recommended watch, even if only just once.
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