MarketHouse (1977 film)
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House (1977 film)

House is a 1977 Japanese comedy horror film directed and produced by Nobuhiko Obayashi. It is about a schoolgirl traveling with her six friends to her ailing aunt's country home, where they come face to face with supernatural events as the girls are, one by one, devoured by the home. It stars mostly amateur actors, with only Kimiko Ikegami and Yōko Minamida having any notable previous acting experience. The musical score was performed by the rock band Godiego.

Plot
In Tokyo, a teenage girl known as Gorgeous, so called for her beauty, has plans for a summer vacation with her widowed father, a wealthy film composer who has been away in Italy on business. When he returns home, he surprises Gorgeous by announcing he has married a woman named Ryoko Ema. Distraught, Gorgeous goes to her bedroom and writes a letter to her aunt, asking if she can visit her for the summer instead. Her aunt replies and allows her to come. Gorgeous invites her six friends along: Prof, who is highly academic and very good at problem-solving; Melody, who has an affinity for music; Kung Fu, who is athletic and especially skilled at kung fu; Mac, who has a big appetite; Sweet, who is bubbly and gentle; and Fantasy, who is a constant daydreamer. On arriving at the aunt's house in the countryside, the girls are greeted by her and present a watermelon as a gift. After a tour of the home, they leave the watermelon in a well to keep it cold, as the house's refrigerator is broken. Mac later goes to retrieve it and does not return. When Fantasy goes to the well, she finds Mac's disembodied head, which flies into the air and bites Fantasy's buttocks before she escapes. The incident is initially disregarded by the others, but over time, they begin to encounter supernatural traps throughout the house. The aunt disappears after entering the broken refrigerator. The girls are attacked or possessed by various items that have seemingly become alive: Gorgeous becomes possessed after using her aunt's mirror; Kung Fu is attacked by flaming logs, losing her skirt; Sweet disappears after being attacked by mattresses. The girls try to escape, but after Gorgeous manages to leave through a door, the others find themselves locked in. Searching for the aunt, they instead discover Mac's severed hand in a jar. Melody plays the piano to lift their spirits, and they hear Gorgeous singing upstairs. As Prof and Kung Fu investigate, the piano comes to life, bites off Melody's fingers and ultimately eats her. Upstairs, Kung Fu and Prof find Gorgeous wearing a bridal gown, who shows them her aunt's diary. Kung Fu follows Gorgeous, only to find Sweet's body trapped in a grandfather clock, which starts bleeding. The remaining girls barricade the upper floor while Prof, Fantasy, and Kung Fu read the diary. They are interrupted by a giant disembodied head of Gorgeous, who reveals that her aunt died waiting for her fiancé to return from World War II, and now eats unmarried girls who arrive at her home. The three girls are attacked by household items. Prof shouts to Kung Fu to attack the aunt's cat, Blanche. As Kung Fu lunges into a flying kick, she is eaten by a light fixture. Her legs escape and damage the cat's portrait, killing Blanche. The portrait gushes blood, flooding the room. Prof is pulled underwater by a jar with teeth and dissolves. Fantasy sees Gorgeous in a bridal gown and paddles toward her. In the reflection, Gorgeous appears as her aunt and cradles Fantasy. In the morning, Ryoko arrives at the house and finds Gorgeous in a kimono. Gorgeous tells her the others will wake soon and that they will be hungry. She then shakes hands with Ryoko, who burns away to nothing. == Cast ==
Production
Development Following the success of the American film Jaws, a proposition came from the Toho film studio for Nobuhiko Obayashi to develop a similar script. To find inspiration for the story, Obayashi discussed ideas with his pre-teen daughter Chigumi Obayashi. Nobuhiko sought her ideas, believing that adults "only think about things they understand ... everything stays on that boring human level" while "children can come up with things that can't be explained". Other themes Chigumi suggested drew upon her own childhood fears. These fears included a pile of futons falling on her that felt like a monster attacking her, a large loud clock at her grandparents' home, and getting her fingers caught in between her piano keys. Nobuhiko shared these story ideas with screenwriter Chiho Katsura. These ideas reminded Katsura of a short story by Walter de la Mare about an old woman who is visited by her granddaughters and then puts them in a trunk. Minamida was mostly working television and theater at the time and worried that taking the role of the older woman would have a negative effect on the roles she would be subsequently offered, but still agreed to play the part. Toho officially green-lit the film's production after the success of the radio drama based on House. Obayashi received special permission to direct the film despite not being a member of the Toho staff. All tracks were arranged by Mickie Yoshino, and produced by Yoshino with Asei Kobayashi. == Release ==
Release
House was first released on July 30, 1977 in Japan, where it was distributed by Toho. It was originally released as a double feature with the romance film Pure Hearts in Mud. Toho did not expect House to be successful, but the film became a commercial hit, becoming specifically popular with a youth audience. In January 2010, a remastered print of House by Janus began being shown theatrically across North America, with the first of the showings taking place at the IFC Center in New York City. House was released by the Masters of Cinema label in the United Kingdom on DVD. Bonus features on the disc included interviews with the cast and crew and the theatrical trailer. House was released by the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray on 26 October 2010. Bonus features on the disc include a making-of featurette that features interviews with the crew; director Obayashi's short film Emotion, which was first released in 1966; an appreciation video featuring American filmmaker Ti West; and a promotional trailer for House. == Reception ==
Reception
The film did not receive many reviews in Japan on its initial release. The general reception among Japanese critics who did review the film was negative. and, on House theatrical screenings across North America in 2010, the film began to receive generally favorable reviews. House was The New York Times critic's pick stating that "Mr. Obayashi has created a true fever dream of a film, one in which the young female imagination — that of his daughter, Gorgeous or both — yields memorable results." The Seattle Times gave House three out of four stars, stating that what the film "lacks in technical wizardry it more than makes up for in playful ingenuity, injecting cheesy effects into outrageously stylized set pieces." Slant Magazine gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "equal parts brilliant, baffling, ridiculous, and unwatchable." The New York Post gave the film three and a half stars out of four, praising the film's originality, comparing it to the work of directors Dario Argento and Guy Maddin. IndieWire included House in their list of "Haunted House films worth discussing" calling it "the cheeriest, most infectious blood bath in cinematic history." Richard Whittaker of The Austin Chronicle gave House a mixed review, saying that "there's surprisingly little to recommend House as a film. But as an experience, well, that's a whole other story." Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice gave the film a mixed review as well, saying that "Contemporary Japanese pop culture makes the hophead nonsense of House look quaint by comparison... though it plays like a retarded hybrid of Rocky Horror and Whispering Corridors, it is, moment to moment, its own kind of movie hijinks." Tom Russo of The Boston Globe gave the film two stars out of four, opining that Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson had attempted similar-styled films with more success. ==Legacy==
Legacy
In the years following its release, House has gradually accumulated a cult following and is now considered a cult classic. Contemporary review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes offers a approval rating from critics—an average rating of , which provides the consensus, "House is a gleefully demented collage of grand guignol guffaws and bizarre sequences." According to film critic and scholar Jasper Sharp, the film successfully managed to "recapture a younger audience demographic believed lost to television and Hollywood". House has been included in multiple lists by various media outlets. In 2009, the Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo placed House at number 160 on their list of top 200 Japanese films. It was placed at number 117 by Rotten Tomatoes based on its average review score, in their list of 200 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time. Screen Rant ranked the film at number 9 in their list of The 16 Best Japanese Horror Movies of All Time. Sarah Cleary for BFI commented that the film was "a fevered flight of horror-fantasy like no other." Similarly, Far Out described it as "a psychedelic trip like no other, featuring a flurry of animation, surreal violence and enigmatic Japanese energy [...] Obayashi suffuses his world with a mix of vivid hand-drawn animation and surreal cinematic choices to take the viewer on a dance of phantasmagorical absurdity." ==See also==
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