The Japanese, Advertising, and the Kitchen Sink

The movie I want to talk about this week is a bit of an old one, definitely born of a different time. A time before the film industry became what it is today. To be more precise it was created at THE tipping point of the industry; arguably THE biggest year in cinematic history: 1977.

However this was no American movie, far from it as it comes to us from Japan and definitely looks the part. No this movie is something different something unique, special, and unquestionably weird. This movie is of course the Japanese cult horror classic: House. Directed by tv commercial director: Nobuohiko Obyashi, this movie has the manic energy of japanese advertising, and the throw-it-all-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mentality of a novice director.

The plot itself is super simplistic 7 teenage girls (all named after their single defining character trait: Gogeous, Prof, Melody, Kung Fu, Mac [Japanese slang for stomach], Sweet, and Fantasy) decide to spend their vacation in Gorgeous’ aunt’s mansion, but it turns out that the mansion is haunted, and the girls get picked off one by one in creatively gory fashion. With a plot that simple the question is: why does this film stand out as unique special and unquestionably weird? The answer is in the movie’s visual effects. The effects used in House are a far cry from what is often seen in horror movies like The Evil Dead or Dead Alive (Braindead). Nobuohiko Obyashi seemed determined to use just about every single effects trick in the book. There are countless in camera optical effects such as compositing, and color filtering, there are a few instances of puppetry, some very creative editing tricks, and even what must have been someone directly coloring parts of the film. All of this is creates an immensely creative and surreal film experience that really has to be seen to be believed.

Aside from the effects the actual images they seek to create are surreal in and of themselves: my personal favorite example appears near the end of the movie: a man approaches a watermelon salesmen asking about directions to the mansion. The watermelon salesmen changes the subject and asks of the man likes watermelons. He responds no, and that he like bananas. To which the watermelon salesmen responds by looking at him with an expression of horror, pointing at him, turning into a skeleton, and finally collapsing to the floor. The man responds appropriately by running back to his car yelling about bananas. Later in the movie we see his car and in the driver’s seat we see a bunch of bananas with his hat placed atop. Depending on your definition of weird this might be the weirdest happening in the film, but trust me when I say the rest of the movie DOES NOT disappoint.

The surrealism of the imagery and effects do actually add up to something though, this isn’t just weirdness for weirdness sake. Many of the scenes in the movie were inspired by a young girl’s own nightmares and fears. When Nobuohiko Obyashi was hired to make an intense thriller he decided to try and capture the fears of childhood so he took this young girl’s fears and simply inserted them into his movie using whatever visual effects he could muster. While he may not have succeeded in creating the scariest of movies he certainly created a unique gem of cinematic weirdness.