has the feeling of something made by a filmmaker who suspects he’ll never be given the same opportunity again, which Obayashi freely admits was the case.
It’s clearly the product of someone in love with the medium, and using everything at his disposal – and some things he had to invent – to create a masterpiece.
Despite its lunatic pace and crazy special effects, House has a Gothic elegance to it, rooted in its fairy tale and classic horror origins, an elegance enhanced by its musical score and gorgeous production design. His casting of long-time Nikkatsu star Minamida Yoko as the elderly aunt, a character far beyond her age she played with gravity and seriousness, made a big contribution to the film’s success as well, since six of the seven actresses playing the visiting schoolgirls were amateurs Obayashi had discovered in the course of his TV commercial work. (Ikegami Kimiko, cast as the character “Gorgeous,” was the sole seasoned pro).
The film’s copious special effects were deliberately designed by Obayashi to look unrealistic, in order to enhance the film’s surreal feeling, while hearkening back to the early days of silent filmmaking and the work of Méliès.
The resulting film is the ultimate adolescent bad trip, mixing his daughter Chigumi’s nightmares with classic horror film references provided by scriptwriter Katsura Chiho, and counterculture provocations from Obayashi. It’s a maelstrom of comedy, horror, melodrama and musical sequences, unlike any other film before or since, and something that was truly ahead of its time.
The Story: Upset by her widowed father’s decision to remarry, a schoolgirl nicknamed Gorgeous (Ikegami Kimiko), goes to stay with her elderly aunt (Minamida Yoko), who lives along in a strange old house. She brings along six friends: Prof (Matsubara Ai), Melody (Tanaka Eriko), Kung Fu (Jinbo Miki), Mac (Sato Mieko), Sweet (Miyako Masayo) and Fantasy (Oba Kumiko).
Soon after the girls’ arrival, strange, supernatural things start happening and they realize the house is trying to capture, kill and devour them, while blocking off avenues of escape. When two of the survivors find and read the aunt’s diary they realize that, after waiting futilely for her fiancée to return from the WW2, she herself died and, resenting the girls’ ignorance of the war, is using the house to eliminate them.
Executives at the film’s production company, Toho, didn’t know what to make of this unbridled mix of fantasy and horror and relegated House to the bottom half of a double-bill. But as Obayashi had expected, young audiences flocked to the cinemas, skipping the A feature and sticking around for House instead. Toho responded by flipping the bill and making House the main attraction.
Despite House’s sterling box office numbers, studio executives who couldn’t make sense out of either Obayashi or the film he’d produced openly insulted the movie to Obayashi’s face. But over the years, the film gradually built up a cult reputation in Japan, influencing new generations of filmmakers.
In 2008, House finally gained notice overseas, after being acquired by the prestigious Criterion Collection and screened first on cable television, then in cinemas as part of a repertory run that continued to be extended as midnight screenings grew more and more popular. Obayashi has said that he always expected House to eventually find its audience – but he never thought it would take thirty years to do so.