“That’s ridiculous!”
House (1977) is Japanese director Nobuhiko Oobayashi’s most well-known film internationally and has risen to a deserved spot in the halls of fame of cinema. Set in a single house in the Japanese countryside, it is an explosion of sound, colour (no, not only red!) and wackiness. On first viewing there is very little reverence for the conventions of horror-movie cinema and filmmaking in general. Yet director Oobayashi tries extremely hard to create an original and personal take on the horror movie genre.
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Probably unrelated, but I recently watched the Italian horror movie Suspiria (1977), which was released in the same year and drew attention recently because of a contemporary remake. Similarly to Suspiria, bright, vibrant colours underlined scenes. Towards the narrative climax the colour red paints a hellish hue on the entire set. But that’s not to say the two movies are visually similar, because they are anything but. Suspiria is far more conventional than House which is a groundbreaking experimental masterpiece. Not that Suspiria isn’t a fantastic film. The lighting and soundtrack are out of this world!
“Experimental” is a dirty word. It brings to mind films of a convoluted, messy or even pretentious nature. House is only experimental in style. Or perhaps in tone too, but that is to be discussed further down.
Very simply put, House is a film, that is a celebration of film. There is a youthful abandon in the way Oobayashi has constructed his masterwork. This characteristic is very hard to describe. A written review can barely do it justice.
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Consider this one scene, which illustrates the girls’ teacher Mr Tojo getting to school. There is a one-take shot of the first floor of the building, panning up to him on the second floor stepping out of the house, then to his third-floor neighbour, all set to a cheerful musical number. The next scene depicts his exaggerated tumble down a flight of stairs and a stop motion action sequence where he spins on his ass like a fidget spinner. Okay, maybe fidget spinners didn’t exist at the time, so he span like a yo-yo.
Parodic scenes like this litter the film and add a spice to it that would be impossible otherwise. Oobayashi says, “Here is a film that doesn’t take itself seriously. Here is a horror film that can be scary but also funny.” (That’s a lie, House isn’t scary in the slightest). He packs every scene with so much energy and excitement for the future. There is no fear whether a particular type of scene would work conventionally. Let’s just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks!
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And I haven’t even gotten started on the silent movie scene on the train. At first there’s a seamless transition into an animation of the train, then it gets a little less crazy. It’s in the background instead.
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Then, our protagonist launches into some exposition so that we as an audience know why the girls are going to get eaten/killed/maimed in the house, and there’s a flashback which pays homage to the silent films of old, of which I’ve sadly only seen the most famous, which the main characters deliver their commentary over.
I’ve honestly never seen this type of thing done in a movie before. Maybe Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, but House is a horror movie first, and an artsy, experimental flick second.
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And as I mentioned before House celebrates the culture of its time and place as well. Japanese schoolgirls playing exaggerated archetypes. Windows slamming shut with the sound effect of the beam rifle from UC Gundam. Sideburns. Rock and roll. Everybody’s kung fu fighting. Motherfucking Jaws? And there’s the tantalising little details that make you want to do a double take, too. Flowing water in the background that suddenly turns red in the last couple frames. A door opening and the creak is a woman’s scream (wait what?). A human eye in a mouth. Grandma breaking the fourth wall and dancing with a skeleton.
And there’s a whole lot of zaniness that goes way and above what I just described, which I’m not going to spoil for you because everyone needs to watch this film. Nobuhiko Oobayashi showed us filmmaking can be fun.