What better way to get into the Halloween mood than watching a rare and surreal Japanese horror film from 1977? Join us at The Plaza (1133 Kensington Road NW) on October 29th at 9:15 pm to see HOUSE (HAUSU). Tickets are $10.00 ($1.00 discount for members of CUFF, Calgary Cinematheque and CJSW)
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayahshi’s 1977 movie House? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby Doo as directed by Dario Argento? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home, only to come face to face with evil spirits, bloodthirsty pianos, and a demonic housecat. House seems like it was beamed to Earth from another planet. Or perhaps the mind of a child: the director fashioned the script after the eccentric musings of his eleven-year-old daughter, then employed all the tricks in his analog arsenal (mattes, animation, and collage) to make them a visually astonishing, raucous reality. Never before released in North America, and a bona fide cult classic in the making, House is one of the most exciting genre discoveries in years.
Obayashi has been making films in Japan since the 1950 – and for many years focused his energy on the Japanese commercial industry. Rumour has it that he was one of the first directors to bring western stars to Japan to sell Japanese products (check out his Charles Bronson “Mandom†commercials on youtube). As Joshua Smith has pointed out on the Cartoon Brew website, “House was his first mainstream feature, but as you can clearly see, he wasn’t pressured into curbing the stylistic excesses he’d developed over the years. As crazy as House was (and it’s pretty much the craziest of his mainstream films), it was a financial success, and it led to a prolific career as a feature director.â€
Join the Calgary Cinematheque and the Calgary Underground Film Festival as we present this wild and funny film – it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. When the piano eats one of the girls…well, that’s just the beginning of this amazing ride into Japanese horror-fantasy film.
"One of the most coveted cult films to emerge from the fantastic realm of Asian cinema." - DAVID WILENTS, THE BROOKLYN RAIL
"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
"Shot with so much visual panache and mid-70s excess that it comes off like Ringu on a Pixy Stix-fueled hug-a-thon ... a brain-rattling delight." - RICHARD WHITTAKER, THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
"About as stylistically unique as you can possibly get." - CODY STUART, BEATROUTE MAGAZINE
