Movie Review: House (1977)

There's a lot to love about The Criterion Collection, the company that not only has issued many of the greatest films ever made on DVD and Blu-ray, including several of my personal favorites, like Pandora's Box, Beauty and the Beast and Gimme Shelter. However, they don't neglect more obscure movies in less reputable genres like, say, the horror film: They've issued deluxe editions of well-known genre favorites like M and Vampyr, as well as unsung classics like The Haunted Strangler, Fiend without a Face and White Dog. Any distribution company that can provide me with pristine prints of both The Seven Samurai and The Blob is going to get a lot of my cash. And they have.

But even my knowledge of Criterion's extensive, eclectic catalog couldn't prepare me for one of their latest offerings: Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 effort, House.

In skimming online reviews of House I found that one of the words most commonly used to describe it was, oddly enough, "batshit," or some variation thereof. It's meant as a compliment: essay after essay declared this movie to be one of the looniest ever made by any director in any country at any time.

Having now seen House on Criterion's beautifully restored Blu-ray (as viewed on my brand-new HDTV), I understand calling it "batshit," "insane," "screwy" or any number of other adjectives that are synonyms for "crazy." However, that seems like a backhanded compliment, and possibly even unintentionally dismissive: House is many other things beside merely being "crazy."

So...what are those things, exactly? That's not so easy to nail down. Is House a horror film? Yes. Is it a comedy? Sort of--there are plenty of moments that are intentionally funny. Is it a satire? A parody? Pop art? Yes, yes, and oh hell yes. But even with all of that, there's something else going on here as well. Obayashi's combination of all of these elements turn House into a commentary not just on horror films, but on the Japanese film industry and, ultimately, on cinema itself.

The plot is almost beside the point, but nonetheless worth noting. A young schoolgirl named Gorgeous (because, well, she is) is excited about going on her summer break with her best friends/classmates. (All of them have character-defining nicknames as well: Prof is the smart one; Fantasy is the head-in-the-clouds one; Melody is the musical one; Kung Fu is the athletic one; Mac is the one who eats a lot; Sweet is the one who's, um, sweet.) When Gorgeous's movie composer dad comes home from his latest assignment in Italy with a new stepmom for her and the class trip gets cancelled, Gorgeous writes a letter to her aunt in the country, asking if they could all visit. Auntie writes back that she'd be happy to have them stay with her, neglecting to mention that the house is haunted by violent, hungry spirits who start picking off the girls one by one.

Sounds simple, right? Not exactly. Obayashi, a former director of TV commercials, imbues the whole affair with a dreamlike logic and progression, like when Gorgeous brings her new cat, Blanche, along on the trip and doesn't seem to think it strange that Auntie has pictures of a cat who looks exactly like Blanche all over her walls. Colors and compositions are bright and saturated--especially the blood. Scenes shift from live-action to animated to a combo platter of the two. Body parts fly everywhere--literally. The same tune is played or sung throughout the film by various characters, including the cat. (Yes. Really.)

All the while, Obayashi has fun with film conventions and cliches like the haunted house/vengeful spirit movie, the Japanese "pink" (i.e., soft-core) film popular at the time (the girls are in increasingly skimpy states of undress), cute-couple comedies, romantic war dramas, mad slasher movies...the list just keeps going.

The experience can be overwhelming--there's a lot going on in this House--but it's so visually rich and moves along at an increasingly frantic pace that multiple viewings are likely required to take in all that this delirious, phantasmagoric fever dream of a movie has to offer.

So yeah, House is indeed "batshit." And brilliant.