For the Japanese high school student Gorgeous, the beginning of the eagerly awaited summer holidays turns into a disaster when she meets her new stepmother. As her friends Mac, Sweet, Melody, Kung-Fu, Prof and Fantasy are all about to miss out on summer camp, Gorgeous suggests that they all spend the holidays together at her aunt’s house. In their euphoria about the friendly hostess and her beautiful house (among other things), the pupils have no idea of the ravenous interior, to which the first extremities soon fall victim.
House gives the impression that director Obayashi tried to put as much marvellous nonsense into it as possible. The absurd, the odd and the quirky become the topmost maxim. Obayashi apparently tried as faithfully as possible to realize the vision of his nine-year-old daughter of a horror movie. The less frightening, but all the more absurd result works so well, especially because of the stylistic mischief. From the faked backdrops to the man-eating piano, House offers a crazy film experience, whose charm essentially stems from the deliberately amateurish special effects.
Lucien Duc
Translated by Carlos Hartmann
