No, it’s not about a grumpy doctor. Gory, technically innovative and extravagantly kitsch, this 1977, Japanese, horror/comedy reworks conservative fairytales.
I can’t prove it, but I suspect it influenced Angela Carter’s work on The Bloody Chamber and what she and Neil Jordan did with The Company of Wolves. You can see traces of it, too, in the Melanie Martinez fantasy musical, K-12. The opposite of self-serious, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s debut critiques patriarchy via killer futons. I have a hate-hate relationship with futons. Naturally, I was blown away.
Obayashi wrote the script with the help of his ten year old daughter. Daddy’s girl, Angel (Kimiko Ikegami), is as beautiful as Snow White and has step-mother problems. In a fit of pique, she decides to visit her aunt (her dead mum’s sister and the ultimate cat lady). Angel invites six giggly, romance-mad, school friends to accompany her. Off they trek and, as they saunter through pretty fields, we see a sign that reads, “Return To The Countryside and Get Married.” Hah!
Angel’s elegant aunt, (Yoko Minamida) is tremendously good value. The heroines skip around full of innocent pluck, ready to clean aunty’s mouldy mansion and bring cheer to every room. Even the group’s self-style kung-fu expert, (Miki Jinbo), uses her strong legs to help out. Aunty looks into the camera with a smile that says, “Don’t you just love these morons?”
When the teens start being picked off, one by one, the film’s own relationship with them changes. As the remaining girls gather around a telephone, the camera lunges, haphazardly, in their direction (imagine a horny drunkard, in the mood to stroke hair).
Aunty’s house assaults the girls; it peels off their clothes and reduces them to flesh and gristle. Obayashi – at times – seems hell bent on doing the same to his actresses. Luckily, there’s more to it. Any old fool can play strip tease. What happens in House is far more original.
If I had to pick a favourite moment it’s when Angel looks into a mirror and realises who and what her aunty is. As the penny drops, Angel become a cut-and-paste figure (the only movement, in her paper body, are ripples, caused by cartoon flames). These SFX couldn’t be more primitive; that’s what makes them so powerful.
Also extraordinary is the bit where Fantasy (Kumiko Ohba) decides that her manly teacher, who she has a crush on, will save the day. Romantic fantasies, in this movie, cause permanent damage. Just like futons.
House is available to view on Mubi
