Hausu (1977)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Nobuhiko Obayashi

Writers:

Chiho Katsura (writer)
Nobuhiko Obayashi (writer)

Release Date:

September 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Fantasy | Horror

Plot:

Oshare is excited about spending summer vacation with her father, until she finds out that his beautiful...

Plot Keywords:

Well | Sexual Denial | Bizarre | Japanese | Cat

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Kimiko Ikegami	...	Oshare
Kumiko Ohba	...	Fanta
Yôko Minamida	...	Grandmother
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mitsutoshi Ishigami	...	Photographer
Miki Jinbo	...	Kunfuu
Asei Kobayashi	...	Farmer selling watermelons
Ai Matsubara	...	Gari
Masayo Miyako	...	Suuitto
Kiyohiko Ozaki	...	Keisuke Tougou-sensei
Saho Sasazawa	...	Oshare's father
Mieko Satoh	...	Matsuku
Eriko Tanaka	...	Merodii
Haruko Wanibuchi	...	Ryouko Ema

Also Known As:

House

Runtime:

Japan:87 min (original version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo

Certification:

Germany:16

Company:

Toho Company

Quotes:

Farmer selling watermelons: Do you like watermelons?
Keisuke Tougou-sensei: No! I like bananas!
Farmer selling watermelons: Bananas?

Absolutely bizarre "lost" film is well worth seeking out

"Hausu" (AKA House) from 1977, is one of the strangest Japanese (or otherwise) films I've ever laid eyes on. Seems like a young girl and her friends go to visit the young girl's aunt in a big old house in the middle of nowhere, and auntie is not quite what she seems. You see, auntie was to have gotten married but her fiancée died in the war and she never got over it. So now she lives in this big house all by herself (with a strange long-haired cat the girls call Snowball) and when the girls arrive, things at first seem idyllic, but then change as the girls start to meet with odd fates, one by one. Now, this was described as "if Dario Argento directed Beetlejuice" but while that's appropriate in some ways it doesn't quite say enough. It seems like auntie is no longer among the living and has to have unmarried women (or girls) in order to maintain her life-force, meaning, that she takes theirs. Oops, not exactly a good way to spend a holiday. This is chock full of bizarre happenings and imagery and at times it appears to be a children's show, and at other times it appears to be a children's show by way of David Lynch or Dario Argento. Young Oshare, the niece of the woman who owns the house, may or may not be changing in ways that she & her friends would prefer not to happen, while the other girls are merely falling victim to the evils of the house. The mayhem in this is mostly done with over-the-top effects and results in lots of severed limbs & bodily fluids but for all that it's not exactly graphic, for it's macabre without being too gruesome. I had never heard of Nobuhiko Obayashi before (the director) and in looking at his list of films I've never heard of any of them either...I confess that after seeing "Hausu" I'm interested in finding more by him & hope it's as entertaining as this. An absolutely bizarre "lost" film, part horror, part comedy, part parody, part kid's show (sort of), almost indescribable but well worth seeing for anyone that likes truly weird stuff. 8 out of 10.