31 Days of Asian Horror: House (1977)

There’s no real good way to explain what House is. In the very simplest summary, it’s the story of a girl whose father has remarried. Saddened by that news she and a group of her friends go to visit her aunt - her late mother’s sister - when things go awry. But House is much more than that. It takes you on a weird acid-trip ride that really can not be expressed in words, it just needs to be experienced. Director Obayashi Nobuhiko was asked to do the movie as a response to the popularity of Jaws, which had also been a huge hit in Japanese cinemas. The film studio Toho wanted to find a relatively unknown creator and see if they could capitalize on the newfound talent creating not only a hit but a potential star out of the director. While Obayashi was developing the style of the movie, he talked to his daughter and was inspired by her ideas and own horror stories as a child and decided to incorporate them into the film.

House has a weird off-the-wall flair that is a combination of Obayashi being inspired by Alice in Wonderland, with his love of art-house and playing around with effects. The movie is filmed as if from the point of view of a child - fantastical and nonsensical, devoid of reality. The movie spends most of its time living in a dream-like state that looks straight out of a children’s book. Combine that with his daughter’s stories, such as futon monsters or creepy clocks at night, it’s wacky and unpredictable. Most of the time it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what makes it unique. It truly is a reflection of what scared you when you were younger paired with an underlying theme of dispair, sadness, and grief - all that has turned into anger from the constantly lingering side effect of unexpected loss and war which was something very close to the director. Obayashi was born in Hiroshima Prefecture and was seven when the atomic bomb was dropped.

“All of my close childhood friends died because of the bomb, so I wanted to write a fantasy with the atomic bomb as a theme.” - “Constructing a House” DVD commentary.

House, in a way, is about the parallels of the children who live in a very carefree way, and the aunt who saw firsthand the horrors of the war.

House can be found on the Criterion Channel, but also on DVD.

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