One Of The Nuttiest, Fantastical Cult Films Of The 1970s Comes To The Criterion Collection
The Movie: “House”
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Starring: No one you actually know, but for detail’s sake; Yoko Minamida, Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Oba, Ai Matsubara, Mieko Sato, Eriko Tanaka and Masayo Miyako.
What’s It All About: Oh boy, where do we start with this one? The seven-girls-coming-of-age-in-a-haunted-house genre will never ever be the same. Off-the-wall, hallucinatory and outrageously inventive, “House” has been dubbed a gonzo horror, but is more like an experimental child-like fantasy, or a comedic psychedelic ghost story about a schoolgirl — upset with her widowed father for remarrying — who takes six classmates on a trip to visit her aunt in rural Japan. Once they’ve arrived in what appears to be the placid countryside, the girls come face to face with a possessed cat and demonic entities of all kinds that seem to transmogrify inanimate objects into horrific instruments of ghoulish death. Auntie (Yoko Minamida) is actually a spirit restlessly awaiting the return of her fiancé who died in the war. Feeding off children who are naive to the precious cost of peace, she wreaks terror on the unsuspecting troupe of disparate girls and seeks a misguided revenge on these innocents.
Why You Should Know It: Why? Dear lord, because you’ve essentially seen nothing like it before or possibly since and Criterion has wisely unearthed a bat-shit crazy and creative cult classic that must be witnessed to be fully believed. Because it is wildly inventive and has made devotees out of filmmakers like Edgar Wright (“Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World“) and Ti West (“The House Of The Devil“) just to name a few. It is a must-watch film if only to be blown away by the myriad, bursting-at-the-seams film techniques utilized throughout.
Are The Extras Any Good: Yes, there’s the 40-minute “Constructing A House” mini-documentary, which we’ll detail in full momentarily. It features interviews with a now 72-year-old Obayashi, his daughter/story scenarist Chigumi Obayashi, and screenwriter Chiho Katsura. There’s “Emotion,” Obayashi’s 1966 experimental film which displays Norman McClaren-like abstraction in an unreal/non-linear story that shows off the filmmaker’s schoolgirl-tale proclivities plus some creepy-comical vampirism to boot. The new video appreciation, by director Ti West, is both funny, informative and it provides great context while also featuring an essay by critic Chuck Stephens. Of course, the transfer is great and there’s a wackball trailer in there as well (though nothing is as strange as the film itself).
What You Didn’t Know aka The Story of “House:” Probably everything about it unless you’re a devoted “House”-ophile already (and good on you if you are). Starting out as an experimental short filmmaker, Obayashi eventually moved into the world of directing commercials, much to the disdain of his peers who thought the form, and being asked to direct one, was “an insult and not fit for a respectable artist,” he said on the Criterion DVD extras. His directorial debut came about because “Jaws” had obviously become a huge game-changing international hit, so Obayashi was asked to write something as thrilling and entertaining.
The best that most pedestrian filmmakers around the world came up with trying to capitalize on the phenomenon of “Jaws” were bear attacks or some sort of wild-creature-attacks pictures. The filmmaker, attuned to a far different frequency, asked his daughter what she thought would be just as thrilling and scary, and her fears directly influenced the storyline and entire picture’s house of horrors.
“I always discuss important matters with children,” Obayashi explained. “Adults can only think about things they understand; so everything stays on that boring human level.” Every idea from a mirror reflection attacking the subject, to a futon monster falling on a child to the impact of her strict piano teacher’s lessons made their way into the script and were transformed into some kind of terror that only a child could relate to.
The ideas were related to screenwriter Chiho Katsura, tethered to a seven girls group scenario (not unlike “The Seven Samurai“), a familiar ghost story/haunted house tale and soon the script was in the hands of Japan’s famous Toho Studios (Katsura called it the most effortless writing assignment he ever had). Toho greenlit what it thought was a brilliant, original story immediately, and under three hours — “You’re amazing, a regular Spielberg,” studio heads said. But the caveat was that none of their in-house directors wanted to touch the bizarre and fantastical project. “Making such a ludicrous film would end their career,” they said, a recurring theme in the life of “House” — it was simply too out-there for everyone. Obayashi asked if he could direct it and could announce the project as well. Toho, while happy with it, had little intention of actually making the film and agreed to his requests, thinking nothing would come of it.
