Genre and slightly mind bending, this is the pinnacle of Japanese camp.
“It’s unscientific, unexplainable, unnatural, unreasonable. It’s absurd”, a line of dialogue from an intelligently precocious character from this film perfectly encapsulates the monumental absurdity that it puts you through. One of the most playful horror films that I’ve come across, House (1977), makes its strange and quirky vibrations apparent within the first few seconds of its title sequence. There’s something sublimely beautiful about everything in it, whether it be the extremely likable characters to the picturesque setting or the peaceful piano score that holds the soundscape together, take your pick because this is a film that deserves to be watched.
This is probably the point where I should pull the brakes and finish my review, but why should I? I’ve always had my virulent problems with word limits, my penchant for prolixity just doesn’t allow me to fit all I have to say within a given limit, so screw that. I shall ramble on till my heart’s content or until I get easily distracted by something else.
Japan is responsible for some of the most blood-freezing horror films that have kept me awake at night as a kid, although their effect is lost on me now, there is still something palpably terrifying about them. They’ve mastered the creation of ominous worlds from which folkloric denizens emerge to wreak havoc upon the lives of the unfortunate few who get tangled up in this terrible reality. It’s something only very few horror films from the west have been able to achieve and I can’t even remember when the last one was. House is a different case. The manner in which it builds up the essence of its setting is still there, but what it chooses to do with it is something else entirely. By no means does it intend to scare you, but you will want to stay up through the whole thing so as to not miss a single frame.
Hurry up and get to the damn plot already. Six School girls go to visit a house out in the countryside inhabited by one of the girls’ aunt. Upon their arrival slowly, each one of them are killed by the malevolent spirit of the house. In spite of the simple and dire premise of the plot, the filmic language through which it is told makes it anything but simple.
Visually, the film experiments with each step it takes. Every scene transition, every instance the camera moves around and with the characters, all the special effects are done in such skittish and fun-loving ways that it doesn’t really feel like a “horror” film until the first girl dies. Blending horror with fantasy, the animated special effects that possess the items within the house are deliberately cartoonish and unrealistic which lends the film its surreal aura. How the film plays with its animation and effects with such colourful propensity made it so that the few instances I actually saw blood gave it a disconcerting presence, almost as if it doesn’t belong here, reminding me that I am indeed watching a horror film. Never have I seen a piano devour a person whole before and I appreciate films like this that show me something different each time. There’s a marvellous painterly quality to the set design, especially how the sky looks. In several instances, the characters a framed against a fake sky on billboard or a sign, the camera would then pull back to reveal the landscape, complete with another painted sky – although this one looks less fake. This marmalade sky is a stark juxtaposition against the stuffy, dusty mansion where the characters are headed, and as the sky darkens, it makes for a portentous reminder that the girls are headed for their comical doom.
Throughout the film, you’ll hear multiple variations of the same soft piano score, the sort that you’d expect to hear if you wound up a music box. This emotional piece, although a bit repetitive, is beautiful and each time it caressed my ears, the scene felt complete. When that piano piece isn’t having its moment, the film fills the soundtrack with two rather funky sounding tracks and a barrage of expressive and creepy sound effects aligned with a vast range of action and movement.
With amateur actors, the characters are played in this squeaky clean and playful manner, never taking themselves seriously, thus staying weirdly calm within their predicament. From the moment they’re introduced, I was drawn to their likability and innocence and hoped that nothing gross would become of them. Even though it does, it’s done in such a hilarious way that I didn’t feel all that sad with their demise. It was almost as if they enjoyed their death with the same insouciance as they had lived their lives.
Though the ending didn’t make much sense to me, and that could be on account of the fact that I was wandering in a daze throughout the whole day, this film is a marvellous adventure through and through and I’d definitely recommend you feast your eyes upon it.
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