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Directed by: Nobuhiko Obayashi

Cast: Kimiko Ikegami, Kumiko Ooba, Ai Matsubara, Miki Jinbo, Youko Minamida, Haruko Wanibuchi, Mieko Satou, Masayo Miyako, Eriko Tanaka, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Saho Sasazawa, Asei Kobayashi, Mitoshi Ishigami, Yoshino Micky, Tomokazu Miura...

HOUSE (aka HAUSU) is an obscure Toho production, written by Chiho Katsura after a story by Chishuyu Obayashi. Produced and directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi in 1977, HOUSE belongs to the best and most original haunted house films I've ever had the pleasure of watching!


A bombastic orchestral music score sets in upon the unsuspecting viewer while the title unfolds on the screen in white letters against a blue background: HOUSE. A dismal voice speaks the word 'Hausu'. The letter 'O' of the title HOUSE suddenly gets sharp teeth and a piercing scream can be heard. A mouth appears, with beautifully curved red lips' but behind them there are sharp pointed teeth with a big eye in the centre. A bite' nasty crunching' and a separated hand falls out of the mouth. The letters change colour into blood-red and then they disappear. A wonderful and inventive animated opening title sequence that makes clear right from the start that HOUSE is no ordinary movie. On the contrary, HOUSE is special in almost all departments!


The film continues with a young woman sitting in front of a few burning candles (the on-screen image is coloured into a dark sepia tone). A female friend is photographing her, while a simple but effective music score perfectly emphasizes the scene. A new photo, and the second the camera clicks the image turns red for a short moment. The picture becomes bigger (until now it only was a small image in the middle of the screen) and we are in a school's classroom. Two girls in great mood are talking, accompanied by a happy music score. Later one of the girls (her name is Oshare) is talking with her parents and it becomes clear that the idyll has got a few cracks. In her room the girl looks at a handful of photos' photos from happier times' and she nearly starts to cry. The pictures show her real mother who died some time ago, and it seems that Oshare isn't too happy about her father's new mistress. Cut to the school where a few schoolgirls are fooling around carefree.


To say I'm impressed wouldn't be correct. It's way more than that. HOUSE is like nothing I have seen before. I know this may sound hackneyed but it's the truth, believe me. HOUSE is literally bursting with strange ideas, stunning images, a whirling camera and imaginative editing. The director (with the help of cameraman Yoshitaka Sakamoto) creates such strong and visually beautiful images that one wants to print them in full colour, frame them, and hang them onto the room's wall. The cameraman uses all tricks that were possible at the time. Some camera tricks seem to be simple but they still are highly original and inventive. There are lots of image fade-overs, abrupt zooms, back projection, an upside-down camera, freeze-frames, very sharp close-ups (while all around is almost blurred), visual manipulations, etc. And the editing technique (film editing by Nobuo Ogawa) is great and original too. There's hardly a 'normal' cut in the movie. For example, the picture becomes black with the exception of a small part which then leads over to the next image. Or the picture is slowly sliding to the side and makes room for the new image. One time the picture opens up like a book. And so on. I can give you countless more examples but I'm sure you've got the idea by now. All this makes the film incredibly lively and modern' way ahead of its time!



In the beginning HOUSE is totally carefree, idyllic, sometimes inconceivably kitschy, even more so than the famous beginning of David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (1986)! All is marvellous, beautiful, perfect' there is absolutely no negative point (or so it seems). These images are perfectly accompanied by a positive, light, catchy tune. It's sweet as sugar, bright, cheerful, hell, there's even a painted rainbow copied into the picture! But as this idyll is destined to crack sooner or later, there always are small hints at imminent disaster. At some point the film breaks and starts burning, elsewhere the flashlight of a camera turns into the atomic explosion of Hiroshima. The decoration of the chandelier comes loose and skewers a lizard. Or ominous zooms of the characters while the background yields back in equal measure. You have to be patient with the film as the story moves along very slowly and nothing much happens in the first third of HOUSE, although ' as I said earlier ' the presented images are incredibly beautiful.


No doubt about it, HOUSE isn't for everyone. This daring mix of horror, adventure, gore, fantasy, drama, comedy and sexual awakening is as weird as imaginable. This movie is directed so totally against every viewing habit that it almost hurts. Besides HOUSE is spiced up with countless original (sometimes cheap and trashy but always impressive) visual effects too. There's a flashback sequence in form of a black-and-white silent movie, some images are tinted into different colours, some animated sequences are thrown in for good measure, and during the attack scenes the special effects are even drawn into the picture! Very odd but definitely unusual, interesting and effective. Despite one of my longest reviews to date I still have the feeling that it's not possible to really explain how weird, wild and fantastic this movie is. It's so visually unusual and stunning that words fail me to describe it. You have to see and experience it for yourself to really understand it. I can't remember the last film that impressed me the way HOUSE did. HOUSE is fantastic in all respects and I urge you to see it (just in case you are wondering why I 'only' gave it nine points for entertainment' that's because of the missing subtitles that prevent me from understanding the dialogues). Right now!


Director Nobuhiko Obayashi (born January 9, 1938) attended the Seijo University (where he also met his wife Kyoko by the way) and he made the first step into the movie business by making a few independent films. HOUSE (1977) was his first big production. His most popular movies are maybe EXCHANGE STUDENTS (1982), THE LITTLE GIRL WHO CONQUERED TIME (1983) and LONELYHEART (1985), the so-called Onomichi-Trilogy. He also directed SCHOOL IN THE CROSSHAIRS (1981), THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM (1987), BEIJING WATERMELON (1990), A MATURE WOMAN (1994) and SNOW REMAINING (2002), among many others. He is called 'The Magician of Pictures' by his fans, and if you watch HOUSE you know exactly why.


As far as I know HOUSE was once released on Japanese laserdisc and video tape before a Toho-DVD was released in 2001. All this releases are without subtitles, and this excellent flick sadly never got an official release outside of Japan. A huge shame if you ask me, as it's a great movie that deserves cult status all around the world. Hopefully someone (Mondo Macabro perhaps') will buy the rights and do this wonderful shocker justice by producing a remastered, subtitled DVD.

Entertainment: 9 (out of 10)
Splatter: 2 (out of 10)

For those who are to lazy to read the review, there is NO SUBS. I believe the version I owned earlier from 5minutestolive runs for 110 minutes at least it's what the cover says, I'll watch it soon, if there is nice scenes cut off, I can post the uncut version of the thing, what do you think about it'

Thanks to NEKROMANTIK at DELIRIUM-VAULT

Country: Japan Language: Japanese Duration: 87:38 File Size: 700.13 MB Video Bitrate: 980 KB/s Bits / Pixel: 0.161 Video Codec: XviD MPEG-4 codec QPEL: No GMC: No Aspect: 1.46:1 FPS: 23.976 Resolution: 608x416 Audio Codec: 0x0055 MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio Bitrate: 136 KB/s VBR Audio Channel Count: 2

ed2k: House.1977.DVDrip.XviD-nEkRo.avi  [700.13 Mb] [Stats]

Looks interesting....but let me get this straight....no subs and in japanesse?

Yap, precisely, there is no need to be scared about watching a movie without subtitles this one is pretty visual, but it's up to you, I've seen several japanese movies without subtitles, being this one of them, it's a very stunning movie, I think the dialogues are not in any way important to understand the movie.

this is dd, everythings rare

Most appreicated, I'll grab this. Thx for posting.

I already nabbed on it..just wanted to be sure what I was getting before I grabbed it and for it to be clear for others before you get the post of"Hey I downloaded this but it's all in Japanese!" post. Thanks again for the movie

yeh, thnx!


random

wwoooaaahhhHHHHH dude this looks so cool,,,huge thanks for the link and all the info on it,and look at the screenshots for a film from the 70's theyre nothing short of groundbreaking , again asian cinema proves its infront of the pack without question the most interesting film I'm getting right now

I hope nobody minds but I've appended the year to the filename. You shouldn't really miss that info off, since people searching won't be able to tell if its the crap House or not

It might be a good idea for everyone to append 1997 before DVDrip too, for the sake of people who haven't seen this post

looks very interesting, thanks

Yup you're right Spud My file now look like this:

House (aka Hausu) Dvdrip -1977 - Obayashi - ripped by Nekro.avi

Awesome, Fitz. I was waiting for you to grab this one from BT. Thanks.

Thanks for this. Muchly.

finally got this(a bit late ok,but still...)
one word...STUNNING

Wow! I remember this release in CM and that I don?t know why I didn?t download it...

It looks awesome, I love this kind of visual movies.

*click*

No problem. ^__-

hey cool, i assume your the man from the filename? thanks for the movie

Did any subs ever turn up?

?


The only sub available is this ed2k: House.(Aka.Hausu).1977.Dvdrip.Nekro.srt  [2.3 Kb] [Stats] but it seems like it's just someone trying to explain the movie.

No subs from original japanese DVD. I have tried with my dc++ hub friends to literally translate the whole movie, but it was too difficulty.
I know Unhearted (http://www.unearthedfilms.com/) is interested to release it. We have only to wait.

I am sorry. Ah, I am not involved with subs available on edonkey. ^____^
A "beast" ciao from Italy

this movie rocks ! i might be able to get a japanese friend to make subs...
just have to be very patient as she doesn't know the first think about fansubbing

if she just translates it in a txt or doc,I'm sure there's someone here who's made subs be4 & who's willing to help out
(I hope)