House
I love that the marching orders for director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi were to make something “like ‘Jaws,'” and one of the most bonkers, visually wild horror films of all-time was the result. When I first watched “House” in 2020, it was after I had seen Ôbayashi’s final film, “Labyrinth of Cinema,” for Fantasia Fest, which ended up being a good thing- I had vibed so hard with the director’s unique style, that I wonder if I would been too startled by it in “House,” had I watched it earlier. If you prefer some semblance of a realistic visual language in your films, I don’t think Nobuhiko Ôbayashi is for you. He doesn’t just march to the beat of his own drummer; he’s the drum major leading you down the parade route.
The visual style of Ôbayashi’s films are very artificial- rear-projection, the use of cinematic awareness in flashbacks; bright, old-school technicolor colors; and practical effects that are accentuated by musical choices that play against the expectations we have for a film, rather than embracing the archetypes of genre. In “Labyrinth of Cinema,” part of the reason I found them so endearing is that it played into that film’s lovely ode to cinema itself. In “House,” they turn what would otherwise have been a standard haunted house film into a surreal dark comedy where someone pulls a decapitated head out of a well, the cat that one of the girls brought with them is magic, and playing the piano draws you in to the supernatural. At 88 minutes, few horror movies are so deliriously, delightfully insane.
Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) is a young woman who enjoys spending time with her family, and the connection she has with her father (Kiyohiko Ozaki), even after her mother passed away years ago. When the summer camp plans she had with her friends fall through, and she is blindsided by the fact that her father is set to remarry, she needs a retreat, and she decides it’s time to spend some time in her mother’s old town, where her aunt still lives. Her and her friends are very excited, and her aunt is eager to have them there, and not at all because she’s looking to eat the girls to keep her spirit alive.
The story for “House” is by Chigumi Ôbayashi, the director’s daughter, and you can definitely see that a kid came up with this one. The film deals with the supernatural in a way that isn’t methodical the way an adult would, and one of the wonderful things about the screenplay by Chiho Katsura is that it just leans into that chaos. The names of the girls- Gorgeous, Prof, Melody, Kung Fu, Mac, Sweet and Fantasy- are all the description you need of the personality of the characters; they are clearly nicknames these girls have for one another, but we accept that these girls could actually be accepted by these names by friends and family. These are imminently watchable characters, and we enjoy our time watching them because the actors are all pitched in a way that is silly and archetypal, but their bond is genuine. They set the tone for the film, and that tone is teen comedy.
As the girls are travelling to the aunts house, Gorgeous is telling them the story of her aunt, who was to be married, but her fiancée never made it home from WWII. The flashback is told in the style of a silent movie, and it is wonderfully rendered. What’s striking about the way Ôbayashi plays it is, the girls are reacting to what we’re watching as if they are watching with us. This is breaking the reality of the film, but given the supernatural machinations of what we see throughout, we go with it because it feels like a natural progression in the film. Is any of what we’re watching actually scary? No, but I don’t really get scared at “Jaws” much anymore. This is more like the “Evil Dead 2” of the haunted house genre, and you know what? I’m down with that any day of the week.
