House (1977) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 28

168

My house, is out of the ordinary. That’s right, don’t wanna hurt nobody.

House is a popular Japanese horror film that is certain to confuse Western audiences (and maybe everyone else as well). It has a comedic tone that puts it in a class all by itself, which is seemingly low on horror and high on watermelons.

Before Viewing

I have no idea what to make of this trailer. Is the movie funny or scary? Or both? Haunting music plays as a woman appears to be ground up by gears inside a plexiglass wall. Disembodied fingers play a piano, and a woman soaks in a tub as hair climbs up her back. But then there’s a musical interlude of a pop song while seven teenage girls are introduced. The effects look like weird video effects from a local cable station as body parts float around and a piano eats someone. And then it’s back to scary, bloody imagery. Just what is going on in this House?

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

---

After Viewing

With summer vacation approaching, Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami), a young high school girl, is preparing for a trip with her father (Saho Sasazawa). He returns from Italy (his job is as a film composer, and he was working with Sergio Leone) and introduces Gorgeous to a woman who will be her new mom, Ryoko (Haruko Wanibuchi). Gorgeous’s mother died 8 years ago, but this still upsets her. She writes a letter to her Auntie (Yōko Minamida), her mother’s sister, asking if she can come to visit. The vacation that her friends were planning to take gets canceled, so she invites them to come with her.

The seven girls take a train from Tokyo to Satoyama Village in the countryside. Gorgeous relates the story of her aunt. She lost her financé during World War II but chose to wait for him forever. Auntie watched her sister get married and move away. She’s been living alone since Gorgeous’s grandmother died. They ask a local watermelon vendor (Asei Kobayashi) for directions to the house. Mac (Mieko Sato), a girl who is constantly eating, buys a watermelon to present to Auntie, who is in a wheelchair. Gorgeous’s best friend Fantasy (Kumiko Oba) tries to take a picture of the group with Auntie, but Blanche’s eyes, her white cat, sparkle green and the camera breaks.

The watermelon is put in a well to keep cold and the girls clean up the dirty house. At dinner time Mac goes to retrieve the watermelon but doesn’t return. Fantasy, whose name comes from her daydreaming, looks for Mac and finds her disembodied head in the well instead. The head floats in the air, bites her on the butt, and disappears. The other girls only find a watermelon after Fantasy relates her story. After dinner, other strange things happen. While playing the piano, Melody (Eriko Tanaka) thinks that it bit her finger. Sweet (Masayo Miyako) explores the attic and is attacked by mattresses. Gorgeous discovers her Auntie’s dressing mirror, and while putting on make-up experiences flashes of her young Aunt and mother in the looking glass, which cracks and bleeds.

The girls find Gorgeous who appears to be sedated, and ask her to call the police. She tries and says the line is dead. She wanders out of the house. The door closes behind her and no one else can leave. Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo), an athletic friend, tries to kick her way out, but she can’t. They find Mac’s hand in a jar which scares them, and they ask Melody to play the piano for them while Kung Fu and Prof (Ai Matsubara) search the house. The piano comes alive and eats Melody as Fantasy watches, and screams. Kung Fu and Prof find Gorgeous upstairs in a white bridal kimono along with a clockwork gear that crushes Sweet’s body. Gorgeous’s giant head peaks in through a window and her disembodied lips tell the girls she is dead.

Gorgeous explains that her Aunt is also dead and has become part of the house, which eats all the unmarried girls that visit. Kung Fu is attacked by the telephone cord as she fights against Gorgeous. Seeing a painting of Blanche on the wall, Kung Fu believes destroying it will stop the magic. However, she is grabbed by a hanging lamp and her upper body is eaten. Her legs continue to fly through the air, tearing through the painting, which causes a river of blood to spew out filling the first floor of the house.

Prof falls into the liquid and dissolves. Fantasy floats to the stairs on a mattress where Gorgeous appears, switching between her youthful self and her Auntie. Fantasy curls up in Gorgeous’s lap as the niece’s eyes sparkle green. Ryoko makes the drive out to the Aunt’s house to bond with Gorgeous after their disastrous first meeting. Gorgeous welcomes her into the house, where she mentions that her friends will wake up soon and they’ll be hungry. Shaking Ryoko’s hand, Gorgeous uses her powers to vaporize the woman. A final voice-over says that even after death, one can live in the hearts of others and the story of love must be told many times. This way “the spirits of lovers may live forever.”

“Your aunt has been waiting for your letter for years. Come see me. Come to my house, Gorgeous.” – Auntie

How does one go about reviewing a film like House? The first thing is to point out that it should not be confused with the comedic 1986 film also called House starring William Katt. While they are both about haunted houses, and both have a comedic slant, the 1977 Japanese film plays like a mix between a Scooby-Doo episode, something cooked up by Sid and Marty Kroft, and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. Seriously, it’s kooky. The film was directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, who at the time was known for his experimentally avant-garde films and a series of popular commercials. This was his first directorial experience, and he did go on to direct a number of other mainstream films. Knowing his background appears to be key to understanding (at least a little bit) what is going on in the film. Unlike some other extremely avant-garde and experimental films, House at least has a linear narrative. There are also sections of the film that have the sensibility of a commercial: slick camerawork, catchy music, and exuberant actors who “sell” the sequence. But does this tone translate into a horror film?

Apparently, the executives at Toho Film Studio saw the success of Jaws in the summer of 1975 and wanted to capitalize on that success. If you read the summary above or have seen House that may seem like the oddest statement since the film feels nothing like Jaws–either in tone or in plot. Things start to fall in line further when research leads to stories of Nobuhiko consulting with ideas for the film with his pre-teen daughter, Chigumi. The nonsensical moments and lighter tones do feel like something that is directed toward a younger audience. Not that comedic horror films haven’t happened, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (a musical horror film) certainly qualifies as does Phantom of the Paradise (also a musical), or films like the original Little Shop of Horrors or The Fearless Vampire Killers. But at least in 1977, they were much fewer and farther between.

House is not scary in the conventional sense, but there is a darker undercurrent in the film. The first is its portrayal of women. The seven female stars of the film all appear to be between 16 and 18 years old and all are objectified by their names–which are based on elements of their looks or personality. Gorgeous and Mac are named for their looks (Mac being short for stomach, and is slightly chunkier than the others), Melody is a musical prodigy, Kung Fu is into martial arts, Prof (short for Professor) is the brainy one, Sweet is the nice one, and Fantasy is always daydreaming. It is demeaning to refer to real people in a way that is more often seen in children’s cartoons, especially for teenage girls who are also sexually objectified throughout the film. Fantasy is also teased about her crush on their teacher Mr. Togo (Kiyohiko Ozaki) which embarrasses her. The six girls had been planning to go to a training camp where he was also going to be, before having that trip canceled and getting invited to Auntie’s. Togo is then invited to join the girls as well. There’s nothing explicitly stated about this relationship, other than Fantasy being teased about how much she loves Mr. Togo, but it feels like an extremely inappropriate relationship. To offset this creepy friendship, his character is used as comedic relief throughout the film, which makes him feel safer–sexually speaking.

If the cute Japanese girls being chipper and (mostly) unflappable in the face of floating heads doesn’t seem off, then maybe discussing the motivations for the ghost Auntie/possessed house might. She was a woman who was enamored with a man and was ready to marry him for love when he returned from the war. The aspect of love in a relationship is important to the film. Fantasy and Gorgeous meet with a teacher before leaving school for the summer and congratulate her on her upcoming wedding. Fantasy tells her she must be getting married for love, but the teacher admits that it’s an arranged marriage. So marrying for love is an ideal, and also something that is rare. Auntie promises to wait for her fiancé to return from the war (to wait explicitly forever), but he never does. The girls think the story is so romantic. But eventually, Gorgeous mom marries, leaving the family. Auntie’s love turns sour and at some point, she dies or is consumed by the house. It’s never clear if she was the original force that created the haunting, or if the house was somehow to blame. Either way, her grief consumed her because she wanted to be married so badly. That grief now infects the house and with young, unmarried (eligible) women around, her strength returns to her. The house (her grief) consumes them as well. It’s a dark turn on how the unhappiness of one person can infect other people, leading to Gorgeous taking her place. She then ends up consuming Ryoko so that her father will not remarry. A little disturbing when you think about it.

For a horror film, the special effects are often goofy–but that appears to have been a conscious choice in keeping with the tone of the film. The dismembered fingers hopping on the piano keys or Sweet being “attacked” by futons is silly and juvenile, not anything to provide nightmares about. The scariest moment might be a shot of Gorgeous in a bathtub. Hair flows up from the water and begins to spread across her back. It’s unsettling like scenes from Ju-on: The Grudge or Ringu. It’s unfortunate there aren’t more scenes like this. The soundtrack for House is one of the more positive aspects. It was created and released before the film was made, with songs by Godiego, a Japanese rock band. Having a rock band score a horror film was a popular choice in the 70s and 80s with bands like Tangerine Dream performing the score to The Keep, or The Goblins working on Dario Argento’s Suspiria or Deep Red. I think that fans of the horror genre should experience many different kinds of films from various perspectives. Perhaps this film is more frightening to the director than it might seem to audiences. House certainly has an idea that it wants to communicate. Whether the audience finds it scary is up to the individual.

Assorted Musings

• The idea of having Mac’s head detach and fly around is not as strange as it may seem. In Japanese folklore, there are spirits called nukekubi (offshoots of the rokurokubi) whose heads can detach and fly around on their own.
• To capitalize on the youth-oriented film and its young cast, there were tie-in materials released with the film including a manga, a novelization of the script, and a radio drama.