House (1977)I expected the classic Japanese Horror film to be crazy and out there. I wasn’t prepared for how out there it would be. Equal parts high-school comedy, surreal fantasy and gruesome horror, House is a synthesis of film tones that work to good effect, but the actual film techniques get in the way of the film’s best elements.
On the week leading up to summer break, Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) discovers that her plans for her friends would involve spending the summer with her widower father’s girlfriend. She quickly switches plans and takes her friends to her aunt’s house for the summer. But the small mansion where her aunt lives in the countryside harbors a great evil which unleashes itself on the unsuspecting girls.
While it might sound menacing and dark, the film is often hilarious. Upbeat music, a slapstick tempo to the action and some hammy acting make some of the darkest moments of the film also the funniest. The absurdity of the comedy also helps sell the horror which is almost never explained or clearly defined, leaving the film open to go anywhere and do anything.
There’s also a self-aware, almost meta level to the way the film presents the characters. All the girls are given names that are simply their overriding personality trait. Therefore, you’ve got characters called Melody, Kung-Fu, Prof, Sweet and Mac. While this might seem like a reductionist approach, it actually makes them surprisingly memorable and, in some ways, endearing.
At times, the film is too flashy. The film has a good number of crazy hyperediting scenes that work well in tense situations, but when everyone is just having a conversation, it becomes gratuitous. A camera pan or a wide shot would have got the job done. Therefore, by the time we get to the intense stuff, the film has already abused the editing style.
There’s also the problem of special effects. Some of them are fantastically surreal and look amazing, but other times it seemed like they just cobbled something together and threw it on the final print. A lot of superimposed effects have jagged edges or sharp contrasts that make the illusion obvious. Some might find it adds to the camp, but given that the film has more than a few sequences where the illusion looks fantastic, it comes across as lazy and inconsistent.
Still, there’s something to be said for the hyper, surreal style of the film. It’s infectiously fun and distinct, simultaneously unnerving and amusing. And the color in this film is fantastically unrestrained, creating for one of the most alluring looking horror films you’re likely to come across. Yet another example of how fantastic a film can look if left visually unrestrained.
The blending of the surreal and silly in this fever pitched dream of mad comedy and distraught horror makes House a distinct and memorable horror experience. Some will try to liken it to the modern horror spoof movie, but none of them have the momentum, allure and pitch-perfect tone of House.