Is the film available anywhere you know of for download or streaming?
’Cause… I really, really, really want to see it, and…. yeah. I live in the United Arab Emirates right now.
—PolarisDiB
I attached some links. I haven’t tested (I’m at work, so can’t) the streaming one, but I know Hausu is widely available through torrent if that one doesn’t work.
Mucho gracias, senor!
—DiB
Finally watched this weekend…best movie I expect to see for a looooooooooong time.
ohhh I forgot about this thread…
There were a lot of directorial choices that really had me scratching my head, not because of their ridiculousness but because of their ineffectiveness.
I agree, the film was ineffective, nothing more than a curiosity piece.
tannhowser, i am happy to hear that. i thought i was the only one :\
Love the conversation with the schoolgirls and Mr. Togo when the director employed the sudden iris in on Gorgeous, singling out her emotional experience from the group’s conversation. I’m presuming this is the moment when it dawns on her to invite the gang to her Aunt’s house, but it also suggests the strange, melancholy isolation that she has developed, no doubt, after her mother’s death. So many amazing uses of optical effects. My textbook for optical effects (next to TIM AND ERIC).
I just saw this recently. I write some thoughts before I go back and read the thread.
I got excited by the film from the opening scene. I could tell this was going to be something interesting and creative, but as I watched the film, the part I liked best—namely, the filmmaking—started to disappoint me, too. For one thing, I felt the cuts, effects and other playful elements got excessive and distracting. In addition, the filmmakers didn’t seem to intergrate these techniques in a seemless or very skilllful way. You get the sense that filmmaker went overboard on these things and didn’t know how to pull back.
Not scary in the slightest, but that didn’t matter to me. The story wasn’t coherent, but that didn’t really matter to me, either.
I’m wondering if other people have an interesting interpretation of the film, though. (I’ll go back and read the thread.)
deckard croix
Hausu (House)
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
1977
WARNING: Spoilers present; watch the film first!
I meant to get this out last night, but for one reason or another it slipped my mind, my bad!
The experimental horror comedy Hausu by Obayashi shows no shame in flaunting the filmmaker’s previous experience directing TV commercials. The film is a hodge podge of vaguely-related ideas from ESP to demonic possession to cannibalism; all depicted in a surreally humourous style owing more to Sam Raimi than say, Masaki Kobayashi.
But to compare this to the Evil Dead series (which followed the release of Hausu) would be extremely inaccurate. While they are similar in tone, Hausu extends far beyond mere “horror comedy” into the realm of absurdist melodrama. The film is self-aware of its own silliness and characters’ actions are purely driven by fabrications suggested by the script as if their lives were indeed trivial in comparison to the grand scheme of things.
In one scene for instance, KunFuu, a schoolgirl with a penchant for randomly attacking things (yeah, the film is full of little puns, you might as well get used to it), battles several blocks of wood. A heavily edited sequence follows where KunFuu battles the elusive lumber which eventually disappears. With a cheerful sigh, KunFuu muses, “It must have been my imagination.” There are a lot of scenes like this where characters are immune to any form of logic; the most ridiculous of these scenes tend to involve KunFuu (the last of which, involving a lamp of death).
The story can be confusing at first because there are several threads that are literally forgotten and never resolved or explored fully. This is a major inconsistency in the film which both intrigued and irked me to no end. It was like the director was so busy filling the film with random departures from the main plot that he forgot to finish certain subplots.
The protagonist, Oshare, is planning on spending the summer with her widowed father (who is a film composer for Sergio Leone?!?) until he suddenly decides to take another woman along on the trip; a woman who Oshare is instantly suspicious of and views as a matronly doppelganger. If you’re expecting this portion of the plot to develop in any way, forget it. It won’t, except for a little zinger of a twist at the end (which I thought was spot on).
Oshare is furious and decides to visit an aunt she hasn’t seen or spoken to for many years, who just happens to dead and a cannibalistic demon requiring the flesh of “marriageable young women” (interpret this however you will). No one in the film is suspicious of this wheelchair-bound (well, temporarily at least) character who seems to have vampiristic traits which recede according to the amount of young women she’s devoured.
Coinciding with Oshare’s disappointment is the disappointment shared by a group of schoolgirls (attending the same school as Oshare) whose summer vacation plans are also dashed suddenly (some “subplot” involving their professor, a bucket, and apparently a poltergeist – only later revisited in a scene involving cursed “bannanas!”). Oshare invites these girls (all of which have their singular characteristics conveniently present in their names; such as Melody who plays the piano, Mac the overeater, Fanta[sy] the daydreamer, and my personal favourite, KunFuu who is able to kick in doors with her nubile limbs – god, I love Asian women) to vacation at her aunt’s house instead and so the real plot begins.
This is essentially (predictably) a haunted house film interspersed with baffling directorial decisions imposed as if by random on the unsuspecting viewer repeatedly. There’s also something about a cat which suddenly materializes one day on Oshare’s window sill and tends to spew blood and play the piano in reverse … but let’s not get sidetracked.
There are some inspired aspects of this film which really show a great sensibility on the part of the director. Many of the backgrounds are painted and nearly all of the sounds (environmental and otherwise) are artificially inseminated … or well, you know what I mean. The music teeters back and forth from melodramatic to J-pop fusion, but there’s a wonderful central theme reinterpreted throughout the film which is perhaps one of the best in the genre.
Personally, I found the film to be equally interesting and frustrating. There were a lot of directorial choices that really had me scratching my head, not because of their ridiculousness but because of their ineffectiveness. Chalk that up to it being a directorial debut I suppose, but frustrating or no, I thoroughly enjoyed Hausu and there’s a lot that’s worth seeing.
What are your opinions of this film, dear readers?
Hausu stream
Simultaneous Watching & Analysis schedule