House- WTF?!

So I apologize to my followers but I haven't written in a while. However I saw a film recently that forced me, nay inspired me, to start writing this blog once again. What film could be so powerful you ask?

The film is titled HOUSE - (Hausu) from 1977.

Once again, I have to thank the wonderful New Beverly Cinema for unearthing this new 35mm print direct from Janus films. Hollywood and the New Bev is the third on a multi city tour. This crazy film is billed as a Japanese Psychedelic Horror extravaganza. It completely lives up to its description.

This film had me crying with WTF laughter and yet told a great story that was (somewhat) easy to follow. It tells the story of a group of girls, deciding to spend their summer vacation at a house in the country. The house is owned by one of the girls' unusual aunts. Each girl's name suits their personality; Mac (the over eater), Gorgeous, Kung-fu, Melody (the piano player), and so on... one by one the girls meet their demise in some of the most unusual ways. By the end we learn that the story is told "in the name of love."

The true WTF moments of this film completely lie with how this story is told by the film's director Nobuhiko Obayashi. Without spoiling it for the future viewer I will only mention a tiny bit of what to expect as an audience member: animated rainbows, piano playing cats, talking watermelons, Benny Hill-type "quick motion" action, ethereal step moms, people eating pianos, and so much more.

HOUSE has to be the craziest roller coaster ride of a movie I've been on in decades. An upside down acid induced loopty loop of Japanese imagery and weirdness, forcing the viewer to contemplate a lobotomy for the sheer enjoyment of the healing process. House is a cascade of do-as-you-please storytelling with a clever twist of humor and delight.

This film is not yet released on DVD in the US, although the rumor is that once it finishes its U.S. tour it may come out soon. It plays this week at the New Beverly Cinema now thru Wednesday. It is an absolute must see! Here's a Link to its touring schedule.

Here's are just a few of the quotes from the flier of The New Bev:

Run. Wake your neighbor. Slap your children. Eye your cat with suspicion. Every once in a blue-screen moon, a movie will remind even the most jaded of cult-film aficionados that, no, in fact, they have not seen everything.
- Jim Ridley, The Nashville Scene

MUST-SEE-NOW - Delirious, deranged, gonzo or just gone, baby, gone - no single adjective or even a pileup does justice to House. - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

FOUR STARS - Like a stream-of-consciousness nightmare sprung from a troubled head resting on a hot-pink pillow.
- Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

THE ULTIMATE MIDNIGHT MOVIE - This phantasmagoric head-trip has to be one of the strangest and most surreal movies ever made. - Matt Singer, IFC.com

I LOVE THE NEW BEV!!!

Below is the trailer. Here's a link to the Janus Films' website. I can't say enough that if this movie comes anywhere within a 165 mile radius of your hometown, it's worth a 3 hour drive to revel in its ineffable grandeur.