The third submission in the June review writing contest: by Alex Kittle.
DIRECTOR: Nobuhiko Obayashi
FEATURING: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Yôko Minamida
PLOT: A group of fun-loving Japanese school girls plan to spend their summer at a
beautiful, isolated mansion, but after experiencing some paranormal activity they eventually realize the house itself may want them DEAD!
WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST: “Weird” doesn’t even begin to describe this movie. A floating head, a ravenous piano, sporadic animation, a laughing watermelon, a dancing skeleton, a glowing cat, gusts of wind that only affect one person, a host of aggressive, mobile objects, and a group of girls who REFUSE to acknowledge the weirdness: it defies explanation, really.
COMMENTS: House is a wondrous sight to behold, with delightfully trippy colors, spontaneous animated sequences, and experimental horror imagery; several sequences are reminiscent of home-made youtube music videos. The effects are noticeably antiquated, but that just adds to the fun! The entire film is really a collection of incredible, strange, and under-explained moments that left me as incredulous as I was tickled pink. Cats fly, clocks bleed, mattresses, logs, and floating heads attack, skeletons dance, and a score of other ridiculous, unexpected things happen at every turn.
The bluntly-nicknamed characters are hilariously one-dimensional, each one relegated to her specific interest/trait. Mac talks about nothing but eating, while Melody is only the focus when there’s a piano in the room (a very… hungry piano). Fantasy is the only one who plays witness to most of the strange occurrences, and of course no one believes her for her overactive imagination. Kung-Fu is by far the best character, handling every obstacle with badassery and no questions asked. Also: she has the best hair. Supporting characters include the girls’ heavily-sideburned teacher en route to the House but finding an impediment in bananas (that will make sense when you see it, I promise- well as much sense as it can make), a pudgy salesman with talking watermelons, and Gorgeous’s new step-mother, who literally cannot go more than 2 seconds without a gust of wind blowing romantically around her. It’s a remarkable talent.
The dialogue oscillates between being frivolous and insanely over-dramatic, but the best part about it is its frequent insistence on completely ignoring what’s happening in its own movie. Most of the weirdest scenes are just passed over by the characters without comment, and that just makes the “WTF?!” factor that much better. House is a strange, strange, strange film and I absolutely loved it. It’s hilarious, inventive, utterly unexpected, and lends no comparison to any other movie I’ve seen. Look for it on Criterion in September 2010!
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: