Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi • 1977 • Japan
Starring Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Oba
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie HOUSE (HAUSU)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of “Scooby-Doo” as directed by Mario Bava? 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 and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, HOUSE might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.
Up Next in Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
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Beijing Watermelon
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi • 1989 • Japan
Starring Bengal, Masako Motai, Yasufumi HayashiOverflowing with warmth and unpredictable cinematic invention, this humanist gem from Nobuhiko Obayashi unfolds on the outskirts of Tokyo, where a Japanese grocer (Bengal) becomes a kind of benefactor to...
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Hanagatami
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi • 2017 • Japan
Starring Shunsuke Kubozuka, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Keishi NagatsukaAfter being diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer at the age of eighty, Nobuhiko Obayashi set out to fulfill his filmmaking dream: an adaptation of a 1937 novella by Kazuo Dan that th...
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Casting Blossoms to the Sky
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi • 2012 • Japan
Starring Yasuko Matsuyuki, Masahiro Takashima, Natsuki HaradaIn the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake, journalist Reiko Endo (Yasuko Matsuyuki) travels to the city of Nagaoka as it prepares for an annual fireworks festival memorializing the fallen v...
