House (Hausu) (1977)

Alfred Hitchcock often said that he was interested in "technique" rather than "content," and one thing he meant by that was the actual story of a film was less interesting to him than how it was realized and put to the screen; House is probably the ultimate example of such an approach to filmmaking, as it takes what could've been a typical haunted house story, with characters who are picked off one by one, and tells it in a way that makes it unlike any other movie of its kind (or any other movie period, for that matter). That was the best and most creative way I could think of to break the ice on this review, as I didn't want to start with the old cliches of, "Where do I begin with this?", or, "Words cannot do this justice," even though they absolute fit this flick. I first learned of it through Cinemassacre, albeit not from James Rolfe but rather from Mike Matei, back in early 2012 when James was filming the Angry Video Game Nerd movie and Mike was left in charge of the website. Every Monday during that period, he would put up a review of some sort (Motherfuckin' Monday, he called it) and, in one instance, he discussed House, talking about its being produced by Toho and released in Japan in 1977, where it was an unexpected hit, but that it wasn't theatrically released in America and was never seen here until the Criterion Collection put it out in 2010. But what he really stressed was just how freaking surreal and crazy the movie is, showing a bunch of clips depicting all kinds of insane stuff, like a severed head biting someone on the butt, a girl getting devoured by a piano and her severed fingers playing on the keys later, a geisha-like ghost with blood gushing out of her shoulder, a dancing skeleton, a pair of dismembered, cutout legs kicking a picture of a white cat in the face, and said picture vomiting blood everywhere. As many crazy films as I've seen in my life (Naked Lunch, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker, Blood Diner, Dario Argento's movies, Lucio Fulci's movies, etc.), even I was dumbfounded at some of the stuff Mike showed in that video, but I admired the creativity and effects work, which looked amazing for the 70's. A few years later, James himself talked about it during his last "true" Cinemassacre's Monster Madness, showcasing it on "WTF Wednesday," and while he couldn't show any actual clips due to YouTube's copyright system, he similarly stressed how out there the film was. Both of those videos made me decide that, if I ever got the opportunity, I would pick House up and check it out for myself.

And, as luck would have it, I came across the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray at McKay's one summer afternoon in 2020 and decided I should go ahead and do it, given the lower than average price. And yeah, this movie is just as insane as it looked from those clips. Again, the creativity and effects work are absolutely astonishing and kind of groundbreaking for the time, so it's small wonder it left such an impact on those who saw it back in the day. It's also a very gorgeous-looking movie, with the way it's shot and its constant use of backdrops, matte paintings, blue screen, compositing, and full-on animation, to the point where, as Mike said, just about every frame is an artistic masterpiece. However, as much as I admire it, I will say that it's so experimental and dream-like from beginning to end that it gets to feel like overkill long before the halfway point (which sucks, since the really crazy stuff begins to ratchet up during the third act), and the characters have so little to them and look very similar that I often have a hard time remembering who's who. Finally, the movie's crazy presentation and vibe can easily overshadow a thematic sense of melancholia and poignancy that crops up throughout it, especially in the subtext.

In Japan, summer vacation is coming up and a beautiful teenage girl named Gorgeous is looking forward to a trip to Karuizawa with her father, a film composer, while her other friends are going off to training camp. Upon arriving home, Gorgeous is surprised to find her father has returned home a day sooner than expected, and is further surprised when he reveals he's returned with Ryoko Ema, a jewelry designer he intends to marry. Having lost her mother eight years before, Gorgeous is not happy with this, let alone the idea of having to share her vacation with Ryoko. The next day, she meets up with her friends when the chaperone for their own trip, Keisuke Togo, breaks it to them that, because his sister is going to have a baby, they can't stay at her inn like they planned. Gorgeous decides to invite them to stay with her at her aunt's house in her mother's hometown and writes to her about it. A beautiful white cat, whom she names Blanche, shows up at her house, and then, she gets a reply from her aunt, who says she's more than welcome to come and that she's been waiting to hear from her. Like with the training camp, Mr. Togo agrees to be their chaperone, but when he suffers a humiliating mishap, they have to go on without him. Gorgeous and her six friends, Fantasy, Melody, Prof, Kung Fu, Mac, and Sweet, along with Blanche, travel by train to Auntie's home. On the way, Gorgeous tells them how Auntie's fiance never returned from World War II and she lives as a recluse, still waiting for him. Arriving at Satoyama Village, the girls make their way on foot, stopping at a watermelon stand run by a heavyset, creepy man who points the way to the house, as well as mentions that Gorgeous' aunt will be very pleased to have visitors. Reaching the house, they're greeted by Auntie, who's wheelchair bound. They're then given a tour of the house and put the watermelon in a well to keep it cold. When Mac later goes to fetch the melon, she disappears, kicking off a series of weird and increasingly threatening events that has the girls fighting for their very lives.

So, how is it that Toho, the home of Godzilla and Akira Kurosawa's classic films, came to produce and release such an insane and off-the-wall flick such as this? It actually came about through the studio's desire to have their own Jaws, as in their own locally-made, summer blockbuster, which they desperately needed due to the poor state the Japanese film industry was in by the late 70's. They hired Nobuhiko Obayashi, an experimental filmmaker turned television commercial director, to come up with a screenplay, and he, in turn, built the story around a bunch of frights and personal fears dreamed up by his preteen daughter, Chigumi. Once the script, which was written by Chiho Katsura (Chigumi got sole credit for the story), was completed, Obayashi offered to direct the film himself but Toho wasn't keen on it, as he wasn't a staff member. They did allow him to publicize it, and he went on to produce such tie-ins as a manga adaptation, a radio drama, a novelization, and even a soundtrack album, released before filming had even begun. In fact, production on House didn't occur until two years after the screenplay was written, as none of the directors on staff at Toho wanted anything to do with something so nonsensical. With no other choice, and with Obayashi's publicity materials proving very successful, the studio relented and allowed him to direct, making it his feature debut. Much to Toho's surprise, it did very well when it was released in July of 1977 and Obayashi went on to have a pretty steady and successful mainstream directing career.

Obayashi's reason for giving the film an English title was simple: he felt it would help get across its unusual nature, as it would be seen as taboo. For me, it's a deceptively simple title for such a crazy movie, as you could probably guess from images and some of the different poster artworks that it's a horror film and thus, by deduction, a haunted house movie, but that doesn't at all prepare you for the sheer mindfuck you're about to witness. But, as others, like Mike Matei and James Rolfe, have stated, it also might have contributed to the film's long period in obscurity, as it's so unassuming, generic, and, above all else, common a title (most mainstream audiences nowadays would probably associate House with the Hugh Laurie show, whereas to horror fans, they'd think of the 1986 movie and its handful of sequels). And yet, I can't think of what else you could call it, aside from maybe Cinematic Acid Trip or, as I already said, Mindfuck: The Movie.

By the time he directed House, Nobuhiko Obayashi was a veteran experimental filmmaker, having begun making 8 and 16mm films while attending Seijo University in the late 50's, as well as establishing, along with several other filmmakers, a film collective called Film Independent in 1964. Around this same time, he also accepted an offer from the advertising company Dentsu to direct television commercials for them, wherein he would continue to use and refine the same inventive visual effects he used in his experimental shorts and would later bring to his film work. It also proved significant in that many of the actors in House were people he'd worked with in those commercials. In the end, he made over 3,000 commercials, some of which featured big name American actors like Kirk Douglas, Sophia Loren, Charles Bronson, and Catherine Deneuve. After House, Obayashi worked steadily through the 80's and early 90's, making movies that were both commercially successful and won some awards. He made two thematic trilogies in his lifetime: the "Onomichi Trilogy" (I Are You, You Am Me, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Lonely Heart), which were about young people coming of age, and an anti-war trilogy (Casting Blossoms to the Sky, Seven Weeks, and Hanagatami), as World War II badly affected his childhood, and he'd already toyed with this theme in House. When he began filming Hanagatami, he'd just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a few months left to live. Despite this, he not only managed to complete it but also directed one last film, Labyrinth of Cinema, released in 2019. But, even though he defied the odds, he sadly did succumb to the cancer in 2020, at the age of 82.

Of the seven schoolgirls who make up the main cast, the only one who has any sort of meaningful character is Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami). However, for me, she comes off as a spoiled brat with how she reacts to her father and his fiance. Granted, her father does spring the news that he's going to get married again, and Ryoko Ema is going to be joining them on their trip, out of the blue, but Gorgeous doesn't give Ryoko, who seems nice enough, a chance at all. After her father breaks the news to her on their patio and introduces her to Ryoko, Gorgeous says she won't go to Karuizawa with them, storms back into the apartment, and throws this lace scarf that Ryoko put around her shoulders and neck in a nice gesture off the balcony. Moreover, even though it's clear she loved her late mother and still misses her eight years after her death, she doesn't at all consider her dad's feelings in the matter. She goes to her room, locks herself in, tells her mother's picture that her dad has disappointed them both, goes through some old family photos, x's his face out of them, and says to herself, "I'll bully Dad. I hate him." Then, while looking through her mother's wedding photos, Gorgeous remembers her aunt, whom she hasn't seen since she was six, and when she learns her friends' trip has been canceled, she comes up with the idea for them all to visit her home in her mother's hometown, as a way to have a vacation away from her father and Ryoko. On the train-ride there, she tells them of her aunt and how, ever since her fiance failed to return from World War II after being drafted, she's been a recluse who continues to wait for him to show up. Upon arriving at Auntie's house and finally getting to know her, Gorgeous becomes quite taken with her and her nice house out in the countryside. But it soon becomes clear that Auntie has certain, sinister intentions for the girls, with a particularly special interest in Gorgeous herself. When she goes up into Auntie's room and looks at her mirror in her vanity mirror while brushing her hair and putting on lipstick, she becomes possessed and gradually absorbed into the house by Auntie's evil spirit, to the point where it's debatable if Gorgeous is even herself at all anymore.

The other girls' characters and personalities are mostly defined by their very names. Fantasy (Kumiko Oba) tends to daydream a lot (the movie opens with her imagining Gorgeous as a witch while taking a photo of her), and she has a crush on Mr. Togo. She's the first of the girls to experience the supernatural happenings in the house and notice something weird about Auntie, but because of her fantasizing, the others don't initially believe her. In the end, she's last of the girls left alive,

though the last time you see her, she's being cradled by Auntie who'd previously taken the form of Gorgeous. Prof (Ai Matsubara) is, as her name and glasses suggest, the stereotypical smart girl. She often looks for logic in whatever is going on around them, though she does have to concede that it is supernatural, and is also really good at problem-solving. She's the last one left along with Fantasy, but ends up dying while trying to read through Auntie's diary to find some answers. The

most memorable of the girls is Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo), a tough, athletic girl who is just as skilled at martial arts as her name implies and whose reflexes are very attuned, to where it's nearly impossible to catch her off-guard. Not to sound like a pig but she's also memorable in that, during the latter parts of the movie, she's dressed fairly skimpy, wearing just a green tank-top and short shorts. She's constantly defending herself with karate chops and jumping kicks, accompanied by her own theme

music every time, and even though she gets devoured by a possessed light hanging from the ceiling, her severed legs manage to escape and kick a painting of the cat, Blanche, which causes a lot of damage. Sweet (Masayo Miyako) is not only as nice as her name implies but she's also a neat-freak, becoming obsessed with cleaning Auntie's house, to the extent that she puts on a maid's outfit. Fittingly, she gets attacked by mattresses and disappears completely, leaving behind only scraps 

of her clothing. Melody (Eriko Tanaka) likes to play music and becomes taken with Auntie's grand piano, often playing it when she gets the chance. The piano also appears taken with her, only in a different manner, as at one point, she gets a cut on her finger and says it was as if the piano bit her. This proves to be foreshadowing for her ultimate fate, where the thing ends up eating her alive. And finally, there's Mac (Mieko Sato), whose name is short for "Stomach" (not Big Mac or Mac and

Cheese, as you might expect), as she tends to eat a lot, is almost always hungry or thinking of food when she's not eating, and is quite pudgy (I just realized how very insulting that description would be to other women but, trust me, that just is who she is; plus, as you can see, she's not horribly obese). She's the first one to go, with her death happening offscreen when she goes to check on the watermelon in the backyard's well, though her severed head gives Fantasy a very memorable fright afterward.

Though she'd only met her niece once before, at the funeral of Gorgeous' grandmother ten years earlier, Auntie (Yoko Minamida) is ecstatic to receive her letter asking to visit her for the summer and is more than happy for both her and her friends to come. She greets them at the gate to her property when they arrive and, while a bit eccentric in her habits, comes off as warm and friendly towards them all, telling Gorgeous that she's been waiting for her. She allows the girls free reign over her house, allowing them to do as they please, but there's an unmistakable sinister air in some of the things she says, like when she tells Mac, "You sure look tasty, being round and all," and then, after Mac's sudden disappearance, she's suddenly able to stand up from her wheelchair. When Prof is shocked at this, Auntie simply answers, "You gave me energy." She starts to screw around with Fantasy, as an eyeball appearing in her mouth while she's eating some watermelon and she disappears through the refrigerator when no one else is looking, causing Fantasy to drop and break some plates. This, as well as her appearing on the ceiling beam behind Fantasy, confirms Auntie's supernatural nature, and as if that weren't enough, she's next seen dancing with a skeleton and eating a human hand on a plate. Shortly afterward, Gorgeous becomes possessed and taken over by Auntie when she puts on makeup while looking in her mirror, and the supernatural events begin ratcheting up towards the remaining girls. It's revealed that Auntie died many years ago and is now a malevolent spirit that devours unmarried girls who come to her house, often through the house itself, which she possesses every single part of. Her white cat, Blanche, is also a part of it all, having appeared to Gorgeous to deliver her response letter and is present when many of the supernatural events occur, her eyes flashing green right before.

The source of Auntie's malevolence is sorrow caused by World War II, which led to the death of her fiance, who never returned after being drafted into the military (Nobuhiko Obayashi was born in Hiroshima and lost all of his childhood friends in the atomic bombing). She spent the rest of her life waiting for him to come back, as he promised he would, becoming increasingly reclusive as time went on, and she also had to watch her sister marry and have a child, adding to her bitterness and

resentment, as seen in the flashback to the wedding. These negative feelings she had in life led to her spirit devouring those who were born after the war and, thus, unaffected by and even ignorant of it, while her targeting Gorgeous in order to possess her was likely out of spite for the jealousy she felt towards her sister's happiness. It's only through devouring unmarried young women that Auntie, who's still obsessed with her lost love, is able to wear her wedding dress, which the possessed Gorgeous does during the climax. By  

the end of the movie, she succeeds in eating all of the girls, and the next day, Gorgeous' future stepmother, Ryoko Ema, stops by to spend some time with her. She's met by the possessed Gorgeous, who invites her in, saying she's glad she came, and that her friends will be waking up soon and will be hungry when they do. The two of them shake hands and Auntie uses her power to completely destroy Ryoko.

Like Blanche the cat, the watermelon seller (Asei Kobayashi) whose stand the girls come across on their way to Auntie's house has some sort of connection to her and her evil deeds, as he knows that Gorgeous is her niece and, as the girls head to the house, he says to himself, "We haven't had visitors for quite a long time. I'm sure the lady will be very pleased." Exactly who or what he is is never explained, but he's clearly not human, as after the confrontation between him and Mr. Togo, he inexplicably disintegrates into a skeleton. While he's only in two scenes, the guy is very memorable, one for his appearance, as his head is about as large as the watermelons themselves, and another for his habit of stomping his feet on the ground when he becomes excited and the leering, creepy way he speaks to the girls, particularly Gorgeous. Also, it's his voice that says the film's title when it comes up and he does it again when he points the way for the girls.

The closest the film ever comes to a male lead is Keisuke Togo (Kiyohiko Ozaki), a bumbling teacher who Fantasy has a crush on and who also has sideburns that would make Elvis envious. He was originally going to chaperone the girls on their trip to camp and have them stay at the inn his sister owns, but his sister becomes pregnant, killing that plan and leading Gorgeous to invite everyone to her aunt's for the summer. Togo is supposed to chaperone the girls there but, on the morning they leave, Blanche causes him to trip as he heads down some stairs. He slides down them, ends up sitting right in a bucket at the bottom, and spins around like a top in the middle of the road, where he nearly gets hit by a car. He sends the girls on ahead, as he has to go to the hospital to have the bucket removed, after which he intends to drive up in his car. He never makes it to Auntie's house (though Fantasy, at one point, imagines him coming to her rescue on horseback when things really take a turn for the worse) and, instead, gets stuck in crazy traffic, spends some time at a noodle bar, and eventually meets the watermelon seller. Their scene together is really bizarre. As he munches on a slice of watermelon, the man tells Togo that the girls were eaten, before stamping his feet and asking if he likes watermelon. Imitating the man's tic, Togo answers with an agitated, "No!", leading to this exchange: "What do you like?!" "Bananas!" The man then throws away his watermelon and disintegrates into a skeleton, whose skull floats in midair, while Togo runs back to his car and collapses in the front seat, yelling about bananas. Even for this movie, that left me asking, "What... just happened?" That's the last you ever see of Togo, as well, though when Ryoko shows up later and finds his car, you see a pile of bananas in it, alluding to his ultimate fate.

As I mentioned earlier, I feel a lot of sympathy for Gorgeous' father (Saho Sasazawa), a film composer who, according to this movie, does music that Sergio Leone prefers to the work of the legendary Ennio Morricone. Again, he probably shouldn't have sprung Ryoko Ema and his engagement to her on Gorgeous out of the blue but it seems like he's an overall good dad who, like Gorgeous, misses his wife and needs to fill that void in his life, which has now been there for eight years. But Gorgeous 

rejects Ryoko right off the bat and runs off to her aunt's house, much to her father's consternation. As for Ryoko (Haruko Wanibuchi) herself, she comes across as a very nice and warm woman who wants to be a good parent to Gorgeous, if only she'd give her a chance. Despite being rejected, Ryoko decides to go meet up with Gorgeous at her aunt's house a few days later in order to talk with her alone, describing it as being the first trial in becoming her stepmother. Unfortunately for her, by the time she gets there, Gorgeous has been possessed by her aunt's evil spirit and all of the girls have been devoured. Unaware of this, Ryoko is lured into the house and Gorgeous uses her newfound supernatural power to burn her away to nothing.

In spite of how crazy and off-the-wall it gets during the second half, with the girls being devoured by the house, the film's tone never becomes one of absolute, hair-raising terror. Instead, from the very beginning, it often maintains a childish, whimsical, after-school special kind of vibe, with the girls being introduced in a manner where they're all smiles, talking hopefully about what they're going to do during summer vacation, before being briefly joined by a female teacher, whom they believe may be getting married. The drama of Gorgeous

becoming upset at the prospect of a stepmother, missing her mother, and being angry with her father is treated with enough drama as necessary but it never becomes heavy-handed or overly sad about it. There are instances of melancholia when it comes to Gorgeous writing to her aunt after having not seen her in many years and when you learn of Auntie's tragic backstory, but the movie never dwells on it for very long. As I've already described, the scenes with Mr. Togo feel like they're right out of a totally nonsensical, slapstick

comedy, and in the case of the scene where he trips and falls down the steps, a musical one, as it's in the midst of a cheesy Brady Bunch type of sequence set to an overly happy, 70's song by the Japanese group, Godiego. Finally, when Auntie's evil, supernatural nature is unveiled in all its glory and the house basically comes alive during the third act, there are moments of atmosphere and tension, like when Gorgeous becomes possessed, and the paranormal activity does become increasingly freaky, with some of the girls literally being eaten in various ways, but it all remains playful and childish rather than mean-spirited and overly gruesome. It is definitely best described as a child's nightmare put on celluloid.

To that end, the film's look is very bright and colorful, looking quite beautiful in the many scenes that take place at sunset, where the lighting is practically golden and even red in color, and never becoming too dark or feeling like a traditional horror film, even at Auntie's house. There's also a dream-like feel to it, as it often looks rather hazy, like it's being photographed through a very fine mist, which is further compounded by the blatant artificiality of the film's use of painted backdrops and blue screen work. Once in a while, it does

seem as though they did shoot in actual locations, like in the girls' trek through the woods while searching for the house, but for the most part, including for exteriors, the movie was confined almost exclusively to the sets and soundstages at Toho. And sometimes, rather than backdrops or even rear-projection of actual footage, Nobuhiko Obayashi had the background become full-on animation or child's storybook-like drawings, like in parts of the train ride, where the film literally transitions from a close-up of such a book to the

drawings in motion, with the girls looking out the window at the drawn scenery as it passes by. Speaking of which, when Gorgeous tells the girls the story of what happened to Auntie's fiance, we see silent film footage of the two of them together, him receiving his draft card, the two of them making their individual promises to each other (all with intertitles and different filters), him heading off to battle and being shot down while in a plane, and Auntie mourning his apparent death before

having to attend her sister's wedding. Not only do we see this but so do the girls themselves, who comment on the images and what's happening, as if they're actually watching a film being projected (we even see the entire film strips in some shots), and when it's commented that Kung Fu is just as masculine as the soldiers, she actually appears in the film, marching with them. This motif of a told or imagined story becoming an actual part of the film itself occurs a couple of other times, such as when Fantasy imagines Togo coming to her rescue while on a horseback, which, as with this flashback, is presented as if you're suddenly watching an old-fashioned, romantic adventure movie.

The film's sets and locations are mostly limited to what they could create at the studio, with the exceptions being the exterior scene with the girls outside their school, some exteriors outside of Gorgeous' apartment building, the slapstick moment with Togo early on (which takes place near his apartment, above an old-fashioned shoemaker's shop), some scenes in the flashback, and the girls' journeying through the woods to Auntie's house. Though the film begins inside the school, with Fantasy photographing Gorgeous, all

we see of its interiors are a chemistry lab and a hallway, and it's a similar deal with Gorgeous' apartment, as we see the balcony right outside the living room and Gorgeous' bedroom. The balcony is always filmed through the living room window, whose segmented glass often creates distortions of the characters, and with the bars often partially blocking them. Gorgeous' bedroom is shown in more detail, with its wallpaper featuring large flowers, a small piano, a white desk containing, among other things, a picture of her late mother

and a box full of old photos of her and her parents, and a lovely, white bed with a rather fancy headboard, all of which is often bathed in very beautiful lighting, with a mixture of purples and yellows. The train station is created through the absolute bare minimum of materials, with the wide exteriors being one of the ever-present backdrops, while the station interiors are an ordinary corridor and a flight of stairs; the inside of the train is also pretty typical-looking. Despite the obviously real

location footage, there's still an artificiality to some shots of the countryside when they arrive in Satoyama Village and make their way to Auntie's house, what with the continuing use of backdrops and the spot with the watermelon seller's stand and the final leg to the house clearly being a set, especially the latter.

The house itself is a fairly large mansion on a clifftop, set behind a large, wooden gate (which, from one angle, creates the feel of the place having eyes and a mouth) and at the end of a stone path through a small, wooded trail. Because of Auntie's isolation and confinement to a wheelchair (as well as her true, supernatural character), the inside turns out to be dusty and unkempt, with lots of cobwebs all over the furniture. The rooms include the foyer, with a staircase, an old-fashioned phone on the wall, and a chandelier that allows Kung Fu to show

off her skills early on when a sharp part of it falls and startles one of the other girls; the music room, which contains the grand piano that ultimately devours Melody, as well as a plastic skeleton in the back that later comes to life; the kitchen, full of appliances, such as the stove and refrigerator, that Auntie actually speaks with and which react to her voice; a living room with a painting of Blanche on the wall, which serves as the setting for the climax; a bathing room where Gorgeous takes a relaxing

soak at one point, only for creeping locks of hair to come at her from behind (which remind me of The Grudge and other Japanese ghost movies); a storeroom with a creepy doll, as well as bedding, mattresses, and pillows that attack Sweet; and finally, Auntie's room, containing the large vanity mirror through which Gorgeous becomes possessed. There's also a very lovely backyard area, with a well where they keep the watermelon

chilled, which is also where the first really freaky incident happens, as Fantasy has an encounter with Mac's severed head. Though fairly innocuous and even lovely overall, the place becomes more and more nightmarish in its appearance and atmosphere as the movie goes on, to the point where it feels like a carnival funhouse from hell.

Going back to the film's tone and overall feeling, in addition to its very childish nature, there's also a sense of sadness and melancholy about it, dealing with adults lamenting how their lives haven't turned out the way they hoped and a feeling of envy they have towards younger people who still have their lives ahead of them and are very carefree about it. It's first hinted at near the beginning, when Gorgeous and Fantasy walk with a female teacher of theirs, whom they've heard is getting married. Though they naively suggest that she's getting

married out of love, she says it's an arranged marriage. After sending them on to class, she watches them happily skip down the hallway while holding hands and sighs to herself, "How nice... summer vacation," clearly wishing she still had the freedom they do. It's a prelude to how Auntie's spirit is so bitter about how her life turned out, ending with her dying alone in her house, waiting for her fiance to come back to her like he promised he would, that she feeds on young, vibrant, unmarried women to give herself energy and

mobility. There's also a notion of the older generations having a disdain towards the current one for not having to cope with the traditions and past historical events that profoundly shaped and influenced their lives. Not only do these girls not have to worry about arranged marriages like their teacher, they were also born after World War II and the atomic bombings, so it has no bearing on them at all. For them, it's just an historical event they've only been told of and read about (akin to how those

born after 9/11 view it), and it's so far removed that it might as well be just an old story. In fact, when the flashback to Auntie's past begins, Gorgeous tells her friends about the war in a manner that comes off like she's telling them an old legend or fairy tale: "A long time ago, Japan was in a big war." And as the girls "watch" this metaphorical film, they come off as horribly naive and shallow about what they're seeing, commenting on how handsome Auntie's fiance was and how "manly"

men were back then, even as they see the soldiers marching off to war and witness the fiance being shot down in battle. They also make jokes about one of them finding a groom when they see the wedding of Gorgeous' mother, despite Auntie's obvious sadness. The worst offender, though, is Mac, who not only gets distracted by a shot of food but, when an image of an atomic explosion appears at the end of the flashback, she can be heard saying, "It's like a cotton candy!"

There's a sadness about life being wasted or cut short here, especially in the characters of Gorgeous and her aunt. Just like how Auntie grew bitter in life over lost love, Gorgeous is heading that way as well, due to her fixation on her mother, how she won't allow her father to move on and find new happiness, and how she flat-out rejects her stepmother, despite how kind and nurturing she appears to be. Because of this, Auntie's spirit manages to take possession of her rather easily, and Gorgeous herself seems to relish it once she

becomes part of the house, even to the point where she's able to go full in on her hatred of Ryoko Ame and kill her at the end. The movie then ends with a melancholic soliloquy from Auntie about keeping the memories of others alive, followed by footage of a much happier Gorgeous. Even the loss of her friends is dealt with, as they appear next to an exaggerated, monstrous image of the house, looking all happy and vibrant, and disappearing one by one, as the credits are sucked up by the house's mouth.

In making House the insanely creative monster of a movie it is, Nobuhiko Obayashi used every type of cinematography, editing, and visual effects technique available to him at the time: quick cutting, irises, dissolves, cross-fades, superimposition, image tilting, traditional animation, blue screen work, matting, stop-motion, reversing and replaying an action or rocking it back and forth, slowing down the film in order to create a dreamy slow-motion effect, and various practical effects and props such as objects flown around on

strings, doors and windows opening and closing by themselves, kitchen appliances moving by themselves, fake arms, hands, and legs, and quite a bit of blood, including enough to fill up an entire room (though, in that case, it's really just colored water). Seriously, if you can think of it, he probably used it, and it makes for a visual tour de force from beginning to end, especially when the house comes to life and begins killing the girls off later on. Obayashi intended for all these visual

effects to not look realistic whatsoever, in order to keep with the childlike aesthetic he was going for, but even still, so many of these effects look absolutely amazing, such as when Melody is devoured by the piano, Gorgeous becomes possessed up in Auntie's room, and all the craziness that happens during the climax.

Normally, I would just start my scene breakdowns with the girls' arrival at the house and the initial instances of paranormal activity, but because of the movie's experimental nature, I'm going to detail many of the techniques Obayashi uses from the very beginning, just to give you an idea of it (I'm not going to go into everything, though, as this review would go on forever, and I'll start to slack off as we get closer to the really crazy stuff). Indeed, it's completely and utterly unpredictable

from the very beginning, as the title, which appears inside a large square, changes in various ways within seconds, bending and stretching into its ghoulish shape as the interior of the square turns blue and the "o" in the title becomes a sharp-toothed mouth that starts chewing and spits out a severed hand, before the letters turn blood red, the background turns green, and the letters go back to white like they were before. You're introduced to Gorgeous as she has a white shroud over herself

while standing behind some flickering candles, in an image that has a ghostly green filter over it. It cuts to a shot of Fantasy, who peeks out from behind a camera while looking at her. At her urging, takes the photo and the image of Gorgeous briefly becomes red when she does. While the actual, normal environment, a chemistry lab, comes into view around them, the green-filtered image of Gorgeous remains in a square in the center of it, only for it to become normal when she

takes the shroud off and blows out one of the candles. The square disappears and the entire image becomes a normal shot when she walks away from the chemistry set and towards the window (the reason for the image in the first place is because Fantasy was imagining Gorgeous as a witch). Such editing and visual tricks are continuously employed throughout this first half of the movie. When Gorgeous and Fantasy exit the chemistry lab, their transparent images remain in front of the window for several seconds; you get

an image of them jumping up into frame from either side, as well as down from the top; a shot of them embracing is done through a green, iris effect; and as Gorgeous departs for home, she looks back in a shot that looks like something out of a commercial, with her expression being one of innocence and wonder. When Ryoko Ema is introduced, she's often shot in a manner where her scarf and dress are blowing back in the wind, making her come off as otherworldly, and when

Gorgeous becomes upset at the idea of her being her stepmother, she runs and tosses away the scarf she gave her, leading to an image of her frozen in the doorway to the patio, while next to her is a shot of the scarf floating down. Once she's in her room, there's a moment where the camera zooms in on her and she does a twirl, accompanied by a whistle-like horn that I've heard in many Toho movies whenever there's a port nearby, after which she's out of her school uniform and in her normal clothes. Later, when she looks through some old photos, we get a montage of zoom-ins on them, shot in a slowed-down manner and accompanied by sounds of cheering, followed by black-and-white images of her mother's wedding and the first glimpse of Auntie.

The rest of the girls are then introduced as they play around on the school's grounds, first with a slow camera pan across them, and then with a series of close-ups that swipe back and forth as they speak their lines, talking about Togo, as well as his sister and her inn, where they plan to stay. But then, Gorgeous is revealed to be standing right outside the school behind them, and as they all turn around to see her, the film irises towards her. The same thing happens as she stands just on the

outskirts of the group as Togo shows up and breaks it to them that they won't be able to stay at his sister's inn. This visual, meant to show her being a slight outsider, as well as her coming up with the idea to take them to her aunt's house, is followed up by a closeup of Gorgeous' face as she invites them. This closeup is first superimposed over the wide shot of the group and then, it gets a green-colored iris effect around it that comes in and out of focus to reveal itself to be a shot of some trees.

As she writes to her aunt in her room later on, an image of her mother's photograph is superimposed over her, just as Blanche the cat makes her first appearance and climbs through the window, knocking the picture over. Gorgeous cuddles the cat and that image is briefly superimposed over the next shot of her coming home from school the next day, the outer edges of which are briefly maintained when she next arrives back at her apartment. While the shot of Gorgeous' father talking with Ryoko about her out on the balcony is

pretty typical, Obayashi still maintains his motif of shooting them through the segmented window, often distorting their shape and partly obscuring them. Throughout it, the camera slowly pans in towards Ryoko, framing her face until it takes up the screen, complete with another gust of wind to make her scarf flow in the breeze like before. As I said earlier, the scene where Togo gets into a funny mishap occurs in the midst of a cheesy musical number, with the shoemaker and his daughter rocking back and forth to the melody as they do

some hammering, a guy walking by them while saying good morning, and Togo jumping through his apartment's French windows and onto his balcony, where he does some exercises and says good morning, in English, to a woman who lives above him and who said the same to him in French. Blanche then causes him to tumble down the stairs and end up in the middle of the street with a bucket stuck to his butt. Him sliding and bumbling about with the bucket is done with the film sped up, and it irises in to the middle of the screen, where the train station's clock appears as it transitions to the next scene.

When the girl's head into the station to board the train, the artificiality of the film is played with when they pass by some guys standing in front of a background that is revealed to actually be a backdrop in the context of the film. Once they're all onboard the train and are off, the camera pans over to a closeup of a boy's storybook depicting a train traveling past a city, only for him to turn the page and the scene to transition to the drawing in animation, which becomes the background outside

the window as the girls look out, with the girls themselves and their surroundings apparently becoming see-through. Eventually, when Gorgeous starts telling the others about her aunt, the painted background is all that's behind them, with the window and the train's wall having vanished. And while I've already talked about the flashback to what happened to Auntie's fiance, there are a couple of other noteworthy images here, such as his draft notice turning red when he opens it up, 

the film skipping a bit and the center burning when he and Auntie share a kiss before he heads off to war, and a black-and-white shot of Auntie standing in a graveyard, holding a rose with petals that are colored red, along with blood that trickles out after she cuts herself on its thorns. When the girls are let off the bus at Satoyama Village, they, again, stand in front of a backdrop when the entire background is itself a backdrop, and as they walk across a bridge suspended over a large stream, we get a roll call, with each of the girls' faces appearing in a

circle in the middle of the screen and their names in kanji next to them (which I appreciated during my first few watches, as I had such a hard time differentiating them). There's a memorable montage of images of the forest as the camera goes through it in a POV shot, with the screen opening up and dividing like a pair of doors to reveal the girls walking on past another fake background. When they meet the watermelon seller, he points out Auntie's house, the shot of which is given a helpful iris before the girls continue on their way.

The girls' arrival at the house gates is accompanied by a very fake-looking bird flying by while suspended on wires (again, I'm sure it was made to look phony on purpose), and after they finally meet Auntie and she leads them up the path to the house, a brief conversation between her and Gorgeous is presented with their faces in the middle of circles in the center of the screen. Right outside the front door, the first real supernatural happening occurs when Fantasy attempts to take a photograph of

everybody grouped together with Auntie, only for her camera to suddenly fly up into the air and smash on the ground, caused by Blanche's flashing green eyes. Inside the house, when Auntie switches on the chandelier in the foyer, it suddenly flashes several different colors and a sharp piece of it falls off towards the floor, impaling a small lizard. Alerted to it, Kung Fu goes into action when another piece falls, jumping into the air and hitting it to where it flies and sticks into the old phone in

the wall. Blanche, meanwhile, helps herself to the impaled lizard on the floor. They then go into the music room, where Melody helps herself to the grand piano, while the others explore it and the surrounding rooms, when they're shocked to find a fake skeleton in the back. Auntie, however, explains it away, saying that Gorgeous' grandfather once treated patients in that room, and there's a shot looking down the center of the group of girls as she comes wheeling in, with the girls seemingly frozen, while she moves in slow motion. Auntie

goes into the kitchen with Gorgeous and Mac (Blanche "jumps" into her lap but somebody obviously tossed her from offscreen), where she's shown to talk with her appliances, which react to her. While they head into the backyard to place Mac's watermelon down the wall, there's a moment where Kung Fu kicks down a door the other girls have trouble opening, only for a mouse to jump out at Sweet, and another at Melody. Gorgeous and Mac drop the melon down the well, with the camera at the bottom looking up when they do, and

before they go back inside, Auntie is asked why she wears glasses outdoors (an odd question, if there was one). She says the bright sunlight frightens her, as the camera focuses on her reflection in some water. She hits the water with her hand and the ripples shimmer as the scene transitions to a shot of the portrait of Blanche on the wall in the living room.

Later, Mac goes to check on the watermelon and the scene cuts with a wipe to a closeup of Sweet's face repeatedly closing her eyes one at a time, followed by a closeup of Prof, without her glasses and with the other girls braiding her hair, that cuts back and forth from two different angles. When Mac fails to come back after some time, Fantasy goes to the backyard to look for her. Seeing that she didn't pull the watermelon out of the well, she does so, but is so taken with the beautiful sunset

behind her that she doesn't realize until she looks right at it that what she pulled out of the well wasn't the watermelon. Rather, it's Mac's gray, severed head, which says her name. Freaked out, Fantasy falls back and tries to crawl away, as Mac's head floats through the air, saying, "Mm, tasty," and actually bites her rear end. Fantasy screams, bucks the head off, and runs back inside the house, while the head lands back on the rim of the well, pukes up some bloody water, and falls back down.

Inside the house, Fantasy collapses as the other girls come running to her aid. They're joined by Auntie, who was supposedly taking a nap. Fantasy starts babbling about the head, gradually managing to tell them about its being severed and that she saw it in the well. Auntie says she'll take a look, which is when she stands up out of her wheelchair, much to the others' surprise, especially Prof. Kung Fu volunteers to go instead, and is joined by Sweet, Melody, and Prof, while Gorgeous stays behind, trying to calm Fantasy down. Out in the back, the

girls find nothing but the watermelon in the well, making them think Fantasy was living up to her name again. In the next scene, Fantasy watches nervously as Auntie eats a slice of the melon, when she opens her mouth to reveal an eyeball inside it, one that looks around like her own eyes. No one else sees this, nor do they see the one half of the melon rocking back and forth by itself on its plate, accompanied by strange sounds. Gorgeous goes to have a bath, while Sweet starts cleaning the house, and the others begin to wonder where Mac is.

There's a moment where Blanche's silhouette appears behind a door, followed by her running out to Sweet. Sweet goes to the room where Gorgeous told her the bedding is kept, only to find a creepy doll inside that calls to her. When she walks up to it, the doll's eyes flash green like Blanche's and the door slides closed behind her, unbeknownst to her.

As Gorgeous bathes, Kung Fu attempts to chop more wood for the fire heating her bath. But, as some dark hair creeps out of the water behind Gorgeous and goes up her back, the two halves of the block of wood Kung Fu chopped stand up by themselves. Gorgeous, having sensed the hair on her back, looks behind her but sees nothing and wonders if she just imagined it. Kung Fu, meanwhile, wipes the sweat from her brow, as the two pieces of wood actually make short yelling

sounds. She notes how loud the cicadas are, and, again, wonders where Mac is, a burning piece of wood explodes out of the kiln at her. She's also attacked from all sides by other chopped pieces but manages to fend them off and even leaps up into the air and hits one with her hand, sending it back down. Landing on her feet and turning back around, she has a surprisingly relaxed attitude about what just happened, figuring it must've been an illusion, as she catches a towel that drifts down

at her. Meanwhile, Auntie waltzes into the kitchen, where Prof and Fantasy are drying some dishes, and says she's as excited now as she was when she went to a local restaurant as a kid. Noticing how worried Fantasy is, she assures her that she'll see Mac soon, before wiping her lips and, as Fantasy watches while Prof's back is turned, walking into the refrigerator and disappearing. Fantasy drops some dishes in shock at this, and when Prof runs back in and admonishes her for it, she tries to tell her what happened, unaware that Auntie is now up

on a beam in the ceiling. Prof shows Fantasy that there's no one in the fridge, while Auntie's shoes fly up to her hands and she dances on the beam. She's next seen dancing with the fake skeleton from before, and then pouring herself a drink, cutting into, and eating a bit of a severed hand in her room off the music room. She tosses some bits of the hand to a pair of goldfish in a bowl, while Blanche leaps and jumps around the piano, the film being rocked back and forth in the editing. Auntie places some sheet music on the piano and then goes off by herself.

Having finished her bath, Gorgeous heads upstairs while brushing her hair, when she's beckoned into Auntie's bedroom when the light inside turns on and the door opens, both by themselves. She walks in and sits down in front of Auntie's three-glass mirror, finding a framed picture of her long lost fiance on it. She also picks up a compact mirror and hears a familiar tune playing from it. Downstairs, Melody walks to the piano and finds the sheet music Auntie left for her. The sound of 

Auntie's voice calling her name can be heard, as a metronome next to the piano begins ticking. Melody sits down and starts playing the music, as the camera circles around her to reveal the skeleton in the back dancing to it. While the music fills the house, Gorgeous looks through the drawers under the mirrors and finds, among other things, Auntie's lipstick, which she applies to her own lips. But, as she does, she hears the faint sounds of wind rushing and someone either crying or laughing. Her

reflection in one of the mirrors is replaced with the vision of a scarf blowing through the wind over a landscape. Auntie's voice telling her that she can visit is heard, as Gorgeous' reflection in the mirror directly in front of her is replaced by one of Auntie when she was young. Her reflection in the mirror to her right morphs into Auntie as well, and Gorgeous, slightly panicked, looks behind her to see if Auntie came into the room. She turns back around to the mirror and sees the reflection turn back to her own, only for the one in the center to

become one of her smiling with vampire-like fangs. This image then becomes one of young Auntie yet again, whose shocked facial expressions match Gorgeous' own. Nearby, Blanche's eyes glow green and the glass cracks all across the one mirror, accompanied by sounds of thunder, and blood streams out of the reflection's eyes, as well as from the cracks. And then, in a really bizarre visual, even for this movie, Gorgeous' own face breaks off in glass-like shards, revealing a roaring fire underneath. In a cut to a wide shot, her entire body is shown to have undergone such a change, with the fire reflected in the mirror in front of her.

If I may interject for a moment, this is about where I feel one of the movie's flaws comes into play. We're only a little past the halfway point and just now getting into the really crazy supernatural stuff that happens in the house, but because the movie has been so strange and experimental from the beginning, not only does it kind of hurt these images' effectiveness (only slightly, mind you) but, by this point, I'm already starting to get burned out on it. It might've worked better either if Obayashi had held off on the strangeness until this point and built on it or if the movie was shorter, maybe just over an hour or around 75 minutes, at the most, as opposed to its final 87-minute running time.

Melody continues playing the piano when, as Blanche watches from atop the fishbowl, the keys begin flashing various colors, though she doesn't notice it. At that moment, Sweet, who's still in the room where the bedding is kept, is surprised when Blanche enters, apparently opening the door herself. Sweet climbs up a small ladder and switches on the overhead light, when Blanche closes the door, something that was noted earlier as an ability held by a witch cat. As if to prove the point, Blanche's eyes flash green and then, as the

sound of Melody's piano playing outside turns frantic and is accompanied by a loud gasp, a pillow hits Sweet on the head and explodes in feathers. Prof, Fantasy, and Kung Fu hear Melody yelling and rush to her aid, but on the way to the music room, Fantasy hears Sweet yelling. We then see why Sweet's yelling, as she's getting attacked by pillows and bedding from all sides, as feathers swirl through the air and she's practically smothered by it all, as Blanche watches from above her. Fantasy runs to the door, pounds on it, and

then manages to get it open enough to see what's happening. She runs to fetch the others, who are tending to a cut on Melody's finger, saying she thinks the piano actually bit her. Because it's Fantasy, the girls aren't all that inclined to come with her right away, and she has to lierally pull them to make them follow her. Kung Fu and Prof go with her and when they reach the room, they find no sign of Sweet, but the place is littered with feathers and mattress stuffing. They hear Melody 

yell again back in the house and make Fantasy go see what's wrong, though she's reluctant to go by herself. When she does go, she makes her way to the backyard and finds Melody in the toilet. She's horrified when she sticks her hand out and moans in pain, but then, she asks Fantasy for some more toilet paper. The two of them quickly rejoin Kung Fu and Prof, who find no sign of Sweet, save for articles of her clothing amid all the stuffing and feathers. The doll inside the room is revealed to

have been stripped as well. Though Fantasy is sure something horrible happened to Sweet, the others feel she may just be bathing somewhere and Kung Fu goes to make sure. She also feels that they'll all disappear eventually, but Melody and Prof assure her that Togo will be there soon, leading to Fantasy envisioning him as a knight in shining armor on horseback (for some reason, the sound in that vision is sped up).

Kung Fu returns to tell them that she couldn't find Sweet, and that's when they realize they haven't seen Gorgeous in a long time. Figuring she might be putting on makeup, as she often does, they all head upstairs to look for her. They go into Auntie's room and, at first, find no trace of Gorgeous except her clothes. But then, to their relief she appears, wearing a white dress. They all make their way back downstairs, talking about how Togo will be there soon, with Kung Fu commenting that he drives his buggy as though he were flying a plane,

which gives Gorgeous pause; when she stops, the sounds of gunfire are heard. They decide to phone the police in the village, which Gorgeous attempts using the old-fashioned phone in the foyer, as the sounds of people yelling for help are heard. But after dialing and listening, she hangs it up, claiming the phone is out of order. She opts to go fetch the police herself, ignoring the girls' pleas to not leave them alone in the house. She walks out the door with Blanche, telling the others to stay there, and closes it on Fantasy when she tries to get

out. Once she's gone, the girls find they can't get the door open (this whole sequence has been shot at a very slow frame-rate) and they rush to the back of the house, only for all the doors there to close on them by themselves. As they realize they're trapped, the windows and doors start opening and closing by themselves, the lights go out, and the large gate at the head of the property closes. Gorgeous is shown wandering the grounds, listening to a lovely song, and actually catches and

juggles two glowing orbs of light in a very fantastical moment. While Togo is stuck in traffic elsewhere, the girls manage to turn one of the overhead lights back on, while Kung Fu attempts to kick down one of the back doors, but to no avail. Prof tries to rationalize what's going on, figuring Auntie must have some mechanism that closes everything automatically at night (the other girls follow right behind her as she ponders this) and she comes up with the idea of simply asking her how 

this speculative machine works. They search for her, only to look in a cupboard in the music room and find a severed hand in a chair... with Mac's ribbon. They head to the piano, which they get Melody to play again to try to calm their nerves. As she does, they discuss why Gorgeous isn't back yet and what might be behind the bizarre happenings, when they hear her singing along with the song Melody plays. Kung Fu and Prof go to try to find her, while Fantasy stays with Melody.

But Fantasy then finds that she can't get Melody to look at her or stop playing the piano, as the keys begin flashing red. At the same time, Kung Fu and Prof enter Auntie's room and spy a figure wearing a traditional Japanese wedding dress. The figure turns around, revealing herself to be Gorgeous in the white face makeup used in such ceremonies. Meanwhile, the piano keys are flashing red and blue, as Fantasy tries to pull Melody off the piano while it thuds up and down. Blanche's eyes flash and Fantasy gets thrown back, while Melody

screams as the piano's lid slams down on her fingers and she can't pry herself loose. Suddenly, there's a flash of blue around her and she stops struggling. Fantasy watches as Melody lifts up her hands to reveal that her fingers have been chewed off. Her very calm response to this is, "My fingers are gone," as the skeleton dances in the background and Fantasy goes cross-eyed at the sight of it all. As Melody looks at the stumps of her fingers on her right hand, she puts her left on the keys and the lid comes down, this time severing her entire hand.

Both she and Fantasy scream as the lid reaches out past the keys and literally devours her headfirst. Fantasy watches this through the fishbowl, with Melody's upper half appearing in the back of the piano, struggling in the wires, while her legs are sucked up through the front, with lightning flashing in the background. The lid on the back of the piano comes down and severs one of her arms, which lands right in the fishbowl in front of Fantasy, causing her to scream and fall back, upending the

table and smashing the bowl on the floor. The rest of Melody is devoured by the piano, as she struggles to get out both through the front and the back, her severed body parts sticking out of various spots, hopping up and down, and even floating, as she alternates between screaming and laughing. At one point, her floating head looks at her legs struggling in the keys and comments, "Oh, that's naughty," with the background spinning around and around. In sharp contrast to the chaos

happening downstairs, the scene upstairs is quiet and spooky, as Gorgeous leaves behind a book titled Lonely Days, before disappearing through a door. Before she does, Prof sees that, when she looks in the mirror, she only sees Kung Fu, who's standing behind Gorgeous, reflected. Kung Fu takes the flashlight from Prof and follows after Gorgeous into the next room. Rather than finding her, she sees an enormous, see-through clock, as well as Sweet caught up in the machinery within. Different colored filters appear over this image, as green slime trickles down the front of the clock. Prof then sees what's happening, as the clock overflows with what actually turns out to be blood when the color changes back to normal.

They rush downstairs to find Fantasy passed out on the floor, Melody's severed arm (the sight of which causes Fantasy to pass out again), and each of her fingers playing one of the piano keys, as blood runs down it. The lid falls down on them, along with the sheet music, and blood splatters, as Kung Fu and Prof carry Fantasy out of the room. In the living room, they manage to rouse her and tell her what's happened to Gorgeous. They also tell her that they need to work together if they're to survive... and then, an old guy eating noodles pops up in

Fantasy's face. The film suddenly transitions to a noodle shop, as the guy in question shakes his head while warbling and comments on how awesome the noodles. We also see a bear wearing a kimono, as well as another customer bidding the older man a heartfelt farewell, and it's revealed that Togo has stopped there for a bite to eat. (This is meant as a send-up of a very popular series of Japanese films called the "Tora-san" series.) Getting back to the main story, the girls attempt to barricade the upstairs, while Prof reads through the book,

Auntie's diary, where she laments about there being no more young girls in the village and that she'll continue waiting for her fiance. The light above them goes out, Gorgeous' voice says Fantasy's name, and an enormous version of her head appears in the doorway to their right. She explains that she's in her aunt's world now and, her head turning into a pair of huge, red lips, tells them that her aunt died years before and she now feeds on unmarried girls who come to her house. Lightning

flashes about them and various objects hover and float through the air, as the sliding doors behind them open to reveal an enormous, floating eye, while outside, the house itself stretches and grows much bigger and into a monstrous shape, before becoming a demonic image of Gorgeous in the wedding dress from earlier. All hell breaks loose, with far too many crazy images and happenings to mention in full. All the while, the girls desperately attempt to fend off the objects flying around them,

while trying to appeal to Gorgeous, though it proves useless. While Prof looks through the diary for something that might help them, Kung Fu, in her battling with the objects, attempts to run to the phone and call the police, believing what Gorgeous said earlier about it being out of order was a lie. She manages to run out of the room and reach the foyer, chopping and kicking away whatever gets thrown at her, but when she tries to make the call, the phone line wraps around her neck.

While Togo tries to find the house with no success, Kung Fu struggles and fumbles around with the strangling phone line, eventually kicking the phone itself, which explodes. She tries to punch her way back to her friends, when a ghostly figure appears across from her and she either rushes at or is drawn towards it. Either way, they crash through the wall, ending up outside, and Kung Fu is confronted by the possessed Gorgeous, who does a back-flip into the yard. Kung Fu, in turn, jumps up and bounces off the top of a fence, when she's confronted by

her. She challenges her to a fight and the two of them grab each other and roll across the ground, before getting to their feet and swinging at each other. Kung Fu delivers a kick that sends Gorgeous flying, and then goes for another, when Gorgeous jumps up onto the house's roof. Inside, as the craziness ratchets up, Prof keeps reading through the diary, when they notice how sinister the portrait of Blanche on the wall has become. Gorgeous turns the tables on Kung Fu, managing to scratch her across the face, and then sends her crashing

through the wall and back into the room with the others. Prof tells her to destroy the portrait of Blanche and she jumps at it, only for a hanging light fixture to snag her head. She falls, is sucked back up to the light, struggles with it, jumps back, and the fixture then descends down from the ceiling and grabs her head again. As she struggles to get free, she's gradually absorbed up into the fixture, to the point where only her legs are dangling out (I also notice what kind of looks like a

big, wide Batman symbol in the background of one of these shots). Prof and Fantasy try to help her but we're then treated to an insane montage of Kung Fu's body swirling into a colorful spiral, a close-up of Blanche's portrait smiling evilly, the possessed Gorgeous, Kung Fu's head drifting amidst a background made up of numerous other heads, the other girls' body parts floating in front of backgrounds that cycle through a creepy kaleidoscope, a close-up of a skull, a full moon,

what looks like a freakish child's doll, and the possessed Gorgeous. However, Kung Fu's body comes back through the spiral and her severed legs jump out of the light fixture and fly at the portrait of Blanche. They kick it dead on, causing a chain reaction of Blanche herself dying, the painting falling apart, blood gushing out of its mouth, and Gorgeous' possessed body seemingly hemorrhaging, with blood flowing out of her. One of Kung Fu's legs bounces across the floor before ending up in the drawers in a large dresser. It tries to escape but is ultimately ensnared and blood sprays out of it.

Prof goes back to the diary, as blood continues spraying out of the painting. Fantasy sees the floor coming apart and the room begins filling up with Blanche's blood. As the girls panic, Prof suggests that Togo might not be coming, as he didn't promise he would to either Auntie or the house. This leads into Togo's last scene, where he has his weird encounter with the watermelon seller and completely loses his mind in his buggy. Prof continues reading from the diary, when the sloshing around of the rug they're floating on

causes her to lose her glasses. She tries to find them, when a jar in the blood with sharp teeth comes at her, grabs her hand, and pulls her in. Fantasy watches as the jar bobs up and down in the blood, then Prof pops up to the surface a couple of times, only to be dragged back down and slowly disintegrate as she flails in the depths. Now alone, Fantasy is swept out of the room and into the foyer, where she floats amid a bunch of furniture. Gorgeous walks down the stairs, seemingly back to

normal, much to Fantasy's delight. She paddles up to and reaches for her, only to grab and accidentally snap off part of the top of her kimono. Fantasy looks at Gorgeous' reflection in the blood and watches as it turns into that of Auntie. She calls to Fantasy and reaches her hand out to her, as Fantasy tells herself that Gorgeous didn't become evil. Now having taken the form of Auntie when she was a young woman, she pulls Fantasy up to her and cradles her head against her chest, as Fantasy calls her, "Mommy." She strokes Fantasy's hair, her eyes flashing that evil green again.

In stark contrast to the craziness of the last fifteen minutes, the final scene is very slow and drawn out, set to another song like those heard earlier in the movie, as Ryoko arrives at the house, as she told Gorgeous' father she would. She parks her car at the watermelon seller's spot, having found Togo's abandoned, banana-filled car there, and makes her way up to the house. Like everything else, her walk through the forest is done in a dream-like, abstract manner, and when she walks through the gate and reaches the front door, she

knocks and calls, butgets no response. She then makes her way around the back and, after looking around some more and still not finding anyone, she's met by Gorgeous. She invites Ryoko in, the two of them sit down across from each other, Gorgeous says her friends will be waking up soon and will be hungry when they do, and when they hold hands, Ryoko's body is set aflame and destroyed. The movie ends on a final shot of Gorgeous' face, as Auntie intones, "Even after the

flesh perishes, one can live on in the hearts of others, together with the feelings one has for them. Therefore, the story of love must be told many times so that the spirits of lovers may live forever... forever. The one thing that never perishes, the only promise, is love." Old footage of a happier Gorgeous is shown over the first part of the ending credits, while the rest feature the credits being devoured by the promotional painting of the house itself, as each of the girls appears on one side of the image.

As you've likely grasped by this point, House is a very musically-inclined movie, with both an actual score and songs proliferating it. The music was the work of Asei Kobayashi, who'd worked with Nobuhiko Obayashi on his television commercials and who also appears in the movie as the watermelon seller, and Mickie Yoshino, leader of the rock band, Godiego. Specifically, Kobayashi provided the piano pieces, while Yoshino handled the more electronic sounds. The film has a very distinctive and memorable main theme in the form of this gentle, piano melody lullaby, which you first hear when the title comes up and the movie begins. You hear this theme numerous throughout the movie, redone in various different ways, with my personal favorite being this calm, jazzy sort of waltz that plays during the scene when Auntie is seen dancing with the fake skeleton and eating the human hand, while Blanche jumps about the piano. Kobayashi also comes up with a sadder-sounding version of the theme that plays whenever there's a poignant memory or there's an emotional scene, such as when Gorgeous first meets Ryoko and is told she's going to be her stepmother, as well as a more mystical version that you occasionally here. One of my favorite versions is after Gorgeous leaves the house upon being possessed, as you hear a child singing along to the melody. As for other motifs, Kung Fu's theme, when she goes into action and shows just how awesome she is, is a memorably fast-paced, funky-sounding bit of music, and there's plenty of other funkadelic music throughout the film, often to go along with Togo's shenanigans and the weird scenes involving the watermelon seller. There's also a strong, yet still kind of funky, love theme that plays here and there and which, in full, transitions into one of the songs. And while the score doesn't dwell on truly scary music, there are pieces that are fast and frantic, as well as loud and rocking, to go along with the horror scenes.

When it comes to the songs themselves, the one that instantly comes to mind is Cherries Were Made For Eating, which is sung in English and is the overly cheerful, Brady Bunch-style song that plays when Togo has his mishap thanks to Blanche. Another is the one that plays at the end when Ryoko arrives at the house, which is simply called "Love Theme" and is the singer asking his significant other to live with him as his wife, which is rather twisted when you realize what's about to happen to Ryoko when Gorgeous invites her inside. Though you can't really hear because it's buried in the background, the track called "Hungry House Blues," which plays during the brief scene at the noodle bar, has to be heard by itself, in all its glory, in order for you to appreciate it. In addition to a classic, bluesy sound of a harmonica and a guitar (it makes me think of the soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop), it's accompanied by lyrics sung by a guy who comes off like a demonic Louis Armstrong. Seriously, track down this tune by itself and listen to it. Finally, the notion of melancholy the movie ends on is punctuated by a final, short closing song about getting old and feeling that life has passed you by, as well as trying to find strength from the sad moments and loss.

As it should go without saying, House is one of a kind, unlike any other haunted house movie, or horror film, or any other movie that's ever been made. It's a crazy, wild, loony movie, full of insane imagery, imaginative and well-done special effects, and a very creative visual aesthetic from beginning to end, while also keeping a surprisingly light-hearted, childish tone, with a sense of fun and playfulness, about it. The film's production design and art direction are also intentionally artificial to keep up that feeling, as are the very colorful cinematography and the music score and soundtrack that range from sweet melodies to upbeat funk and pop numbers. And yet, underneath it all are themes of loss, the impact of World War II upon an entire generation, lifetimes squandered, and the disconnect between the older generation to the current one. Unfortunately, I think that subtext is likely to be missed by many because of how crazy the movie's presentation is, and said presentation is so overt and in your face from the very beginning that it could hurt the effectiveness of the truly insane, creative visuals that happen during the latter half. Finally, the main group of characters are so flat and two-dimensional that it can sometimes be hard to tell them apart, and there are aspects of Gorgeous' character that make it difficult to really care about her as well. I don't think it's absolutely perfect or a masterpiece, but it is a very unique viewing experience and one I think everyone should go for at least once.