Weird Movies: Hausu
HAUSU
Okay, this is a reeeeeally weird one.
Last wednesday my roommate and two of my other friends went to check out Hausu (translated as House) at the IFC Film Center in the west village. First of all, if you’ve never been to this theater, ya gotta go. It’s really nice and super comfortable in there and they run interesting shorts before the movie (this time it was David Lynch interviewing a strange girl from Montana).
Hausu is a 1977 Japanese horror comedy from director Nobuhiko Obayashi. Real quick plot synopsis: A teenage girl named Gorgeous is angry because her widower father is marrying again, so rather than spend summer vacation with her dad and new stepmother she decides to go and stay with her aunt whom she hasn’t seen in many many years. She takes her friends Fantasy (who has a big imagination), Melody (musically talented), Sweet (she’s very sweet and kind), Kung Fu (knows Kung Fu), Prof (glasses and a big brain) and Mac (she’s fat) with her. Little does she know that her aunt is a vampire witch that gains immortality by feeding on young virgin girls. Also the aunt’s house is magical and haunted and helps her trap her victims. Her magical cat helps as well.
How these details are revealed and how the story plays out makes this, I think, one of the weirdest movies of all time. The movie is a cross between Vincent Price films, Archie Comics and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The whole thing is so bright and colorful and sparkly it would almost be a kids’ movie if not for the horrific nature of what’s going on. A severed head bites someone on the ass. An eyeball peers back and forth from inside the witch’s mouth. A possessed piano rips one of the girls into pieces but she continues playing while smiling maniacally. None of it is pure blood and guts but is instead all done with this trippy day-glo cheekiness. Watching the movie you alternate between laughing out loud at the sheer unabashed goofiness on display or simply going “!?!?!?!” at how shockingly odd it is.
The director makes even the non-fantastical scenes surreal by furiously throwing every trick in the book at you. He’s using animation, stop-motion, blue screen, split-screen, odd angles, funny lenses, music cues, black-and-white footage, collage, and cheesey rubber monsters to constantly surprise you and make you laugh.
In the end I think the movie is saying something about youth…or wasting youth…or motherhood? I’m really not sure. Maybe it’s saying ‘Be Careful or the Watermelon Man will turn you into a man-shaped pile of bananas,’ cuz that’s something that happens in the movie. But it’s a very satisfying good time and it all ends horrifically, the way a good horror movie should.
This movie might not be on American DVD. I can’t find it on Netflix. Right now you can see it at the IFC Film Center where the tickets were $12.50. Well worth it to check out one of the strangest films ever.
