No one can deny that Japan has established a staggering legacy of skull-bursting cinematic hysteria. Since the post-atomic rumblings that spawned Godzilla, the greatest genre thunder hails from the East. And in 1977, every last goddamn ounce of Japan's unleashed insanity was distilled into one single film.
The story follows teenage girl Oshare, a doomed fantasist living in a garish, neon-pastel world of dancing rainbows and eternal sunsets, where two-dimensional subway trains take her away from the miseries of life and -- eventually -- to the remote home of her twisted, gnarled aunt. There, Oshare is joined by her friends, each named after her particular obsession; Melody plays music, Kung-Fu practices her high kicks, and so on.
Of course, things aren't as they seem. Auntie is actually a restless, manic demonoid and even her fluffy cat is in on the super-unnatural hijinks. But that's only the beginning...it doesn't take long for the house itself to reveal its true nature as a living, breathing, virgin-devouring reality-annihilator. This ain't your mama's haunted house, either...anyone unlucky enough to pass through the doors is confronted with man-eating pianos, villainous mirrors and even a flying, ass-biting human head. All known rules of the universe slip away as the girls are transformed and/or decimated one by one in flat-out bizarre sequences that could only be described as the waking nightmares of an alien drowning in a vat of narcotics.
Every aspect of this movie -- from the eye-defying color palate to the lazer-occult effects work -- is calculated to boil your organs. Obayashi's debut feature remains a crushing, 300-fisted assault on the senses, so viciously paced and perfectly presented that watching it would actually kill the average moviegoer. This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity to hit the screen. Ladies and gentlemen...HAUSU!!! (Zack Carlson)
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