House (1977)
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A piano eats a girl alive. A severed head bites another girl on the behind. A Japanese film studio asked its ad-director hire for something to compete with Jaws, and this is what came back.
HOUSE (1977), known in Japan as Hausu, follows a schoolgirl nicknamed Gorgeous who takes six friends named Fantasy, Kung Fu, Prof, Mac, Sweet, and Melody to her aunt's country home. The aunt, still waiting decades later for a fiancé who never came home from the war, lives in a house that turns out to be very hungry for teenage girls.
Nobuhiko Obayashi had spent years directing television commercials, and he brought that background's visual tricks wholesale into the film: collage, animation, painted backdrops, crude matte work, and jump cuts timed to songs performed by the band Godiego. Many of its ideas came from his young daughter, Chigumi, which goes a long way toward explaining its dream logic.
Critics dismissed it on release, but young Japanese audiences made it a hit. It remains one of the most purely inventive haunted house films ever made, a horror comedy that answers logic with pure visual appetite.
Physical media
Blu-rayCriterion CollectionUnited States2010UPC 715515062114
Adam added 10/16/2026 · edited 10/17/2026
DVDEureka EntertainmentUnited KingdomRegion 22010
Adam added 10/16/2026
DVDCriterion CollectionUnited StatesRegion 12010UPC 715515062213
Adam added 10/16/2026
Blu-rayPotemkine FilmsFranceUPC 3545020084953
Adam added 10/16/2026
Blu-rayTohoJapan
Adam added 10/16/2026
Blu-rayEureka EntertainmentUnited Kingdom
Adam added 10/16/2026
DVDTohoJapan2001
Adam added 10/16/2026
LaserDiscToho VideoJapan1997
Adam added 10/16/2026
VHSJapan
Adam added 10/16/2026
About the film
In the heart of a violet forest, an old house awaits young girls.
- Directed by
- Nobuhiko Obayashi
- Runtime
- 88 minutes
- Released
- August 26, 1977
- US theatrical
- September 1, 1977
- Certification
- NR
- Country
- Japan
- Starring
- Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ohba, Ai Matsubara, Mieko Satoh
More credits
- Genres
- Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- Language
- Japanese
- Origin
- JP
- Studios
- Toho Eizo Bijutsu
- Written by
- Chiho Katsura
- Produced by
- Yorihiko Yamada, Nobuhiko Obayashi, Tomoyuki Tanaka
- Cinematography
- Yoshitaka Sakamoto
- Music
- Asei Kobayashi, Mickie Yoshino
- Also starring
- Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, Yōko Minamida, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Saho Sasazawa
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a brilliantly batshit movie
♥♥♥
The best review I ever saw this movie said it was like an episode of Scooby-Doo directed by Mario Bava.
I am sure this (and the 3 Stooges) inspired Sam Raimi – he probably watched it at one of the films they would show at the MSU dorms or the odeon theater that used to show foreign films there
Thomas Fletcher I think you’re right. And then in turn I think Raimi inspired a lot of A Chinese Ghost Story.
Anywhere But Hollywood I’m sure a Chinese ghost story had many influences, but in particular the creators cite The Enchanting Shadow (Ching nu yu hun, 1960).
Love this mayhem, have my own DVD 📀
You have to know that these girls were minors that time and had y’know… mature situations.
Siegfred Santillan lots of mature movies shoot with minors; what’s your point?
Kung Fu was the coolest.
It’s a movie that expresses the nukes on Japan. Lots of references. The director explained it in an interview
Brilliantly unhinged
Now I have to find this crazy film.