Nobuhiko Obayashi's "House"

I kept putting off seeing it when it was playing in Chicago until I finally missed it. And then I bought the DVD as soon as it came out and I still haven't watched it. I dunno what my problem is.

I kinda want to watch it for the firs time with the right people at the right time.

On my second time getting this out of the library, I finally watched it (partly because of the horror poll). Nutso. All the heightened artificiality of the design and the performances made me think a little of Guy Maddin, and the acid rock stuff feels a bit like Suspiria, but really it's not like anything else at all. Mindboggling to me that it was a big hit when it came out. Makes me wonder about its influence on the J-horror generation of filmmakers.

Anyway, lots of fun.

this should be double-billed w/ Zardoz.

crap + crap!

You stinker.

This brand of camp and schoolgirl uniforms just don't do it for me.

(I hate to think how many pairs of jeans Tarantino ruined watching this, though)

I saw "The School in the Crosshairs" recently. It was pretty enjoyable! It more or less lays off the crazy effects til the very end, and damned if I could even remember the plot right now, but it was pretty great. Anyone seen any other of his post-"Hausu" films? Anything as exciting and weird as that?

i don't think this is camp -- they were trying to make it really scary!

well, and funny, and campy, and flat fucking bizarre

are they winking at you though? you can be spaceballs goofy without being campy.

Anyone seen any other of his post-"Hausu" films? Anything as exciting and weird as that?

I've seen a few of them. Hausu and Crosshairs are definitely my favorites. His stuff is much more straightforward later in his career. He more or less abandons the visual creativity of his earlier stuff.

I'm trying to remember what it's called, but he has one about two sisters where one dies after being crushed by a log, and the rest of the movie is the other sister and the family trying to come to grips with it. It's pretty good. Can't remember which one that is.

In the interviews on the disc, he and his daughter and the screenwriter all sound like they were mostly trying to be as entertaining -- and non "Japanese," at least in a cinematic sense -- as possible. It sort of makes sense that the indirect inspiration was Jaws, which also doesn't bother much about the line between funny and scary.

"Futari (Two of Us) is about two sisters, one of them the perfect child, the other clumsy and slow. One day, the perfect sister dies, and comes back as a ghost to guide her little sister."

This is the one I meant. It's pretty charming for the most part.

oh man, i also loved this. it's been a while. jaws is a great point of reference i think. what counts for entertaining there is so familiar while what counts for entertaining in "house" is unfamiliar or taboo. both seem to go a little bit deeper in their entertainment to the point where the machinery is exposed so to speak.

I really love those interview extras. He comes across like a proud grandparent.

I especially love the idea that so much of it came from his daughter. A house that eats girls! A piano that eats hands! A watermelon that turns into a head!