Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 2: Today on Weird House Cinema, we're tackling what might be
Speaker 2: by many measures, I think, by my measure, the ultimate
Speaker 2: haunted house movie. In another Haunted House property, nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: one's Hell House, a novel by Richard Matheson. This was
Speaker 2: later made into the Legend of Hell House in seventy three.
Speaker 2: There's a description of the Belasco House, this haunted house
Speaker 2: that's key to the plot, and it's described as quote
Speaker 2: the mount Everest of haunted houses, due to the intense
Speaker 2: sanity warping powers that it holds over anyone who attempts
Speaker 2: to make it through the night there to complete the journey. Now,
Speaker 2: there are various great haunted house films out there, and
Speaker 2: I feel like the best of them excel in connecting
Speaker 2: with something very ancient in the human psyche, right, the
Speaker 2: essence of the damned place, a location that is so
Speaker 2: just fundamentally physically or spiritually polluted that to venture into it,
Speaker 2: to be there, to take place there is to just
Speaker 2: absolutely warp your identity and connection to reality. So there
Speaker 2: are haunted house movies that tackle this in a very
Speaker 2: serious fashion, and you might argue that they tackle it
Speaker 2: more seriously than the movie we're talking about here today,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven's House. But when the chips are down
Speaker 2: and House is firing on all cylinders, I think it
Speaker 2: absolutely delivers on all the goods. It absolutely checks off
Speaker 2: all the boxes. For my money, right now, I'm going
Speaker 2: to say that House is the Mount Everest of haunted
Speaker 2: house movies.
Speaker 3: It's got to be up there, and like Mount Everest,
Speaker 3: it may cause the kind of altitude sickness, maybe a
Speaker 3: sense of dizziness, a visions of other figures climbing up
Speaker 3: the mountain with you that may or may not be there.
Speaker 3: It is a weird, baffling, life changing experience. House is
Speaker 3: one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, but that's
Speaker 3: not an observation unique to me. It is widely regarded
Speaker 3: as like one of the great weird movies of all time,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I think it also qualifies in the subgenre
Speaker 3: of weirdest and most interesting haunted house movies. Though it's
Speaker 3: different than than a lot of haunted house movies, because
Speaker 3: a lot of haunted house movies, like you're pointing out,
Speaker 3: are about a house that's been polluted, a house that
Speaker 3: has been sort of like made into a place of
Speaker 3: evil because of something evil that happened there. You know,
Speaker 3: like a person, an evil person, does something wicked inside
Speaker 3: the house, and then that evil infects the house and
Speaker 3: so forth. But the difference I would point out is
Speaker 3: that the evil in those cases seems to be spurred
Speaker 3: by human wrongdoing, and in House nineteen seventy seven, I
Speaker 3: don't know if i'd say that's the case. Instead, it's
Speaker 3: hard to say where the evil comes from. The person
Speaker 3: who occupies the evil haunted house doesn't seem to have
Speaker 3: initially been an evil or bad person, but someone who
Speaker 3: suffers a kind of unfortunate fate and is transformed by
Speaker 3: forces unnamed into a type of monster. And in that transformation,
Speaker 3: it's like the house comes with her, you know, like
Speaker 3: she and the house merge into one being that is
Speaker 3: fully just an expression of monstrousness and magical predation.
Speaker 2: It's like tragedy plus time equals house. Yeah, that's like,
Speaker 2: you know, like you're saying, she's not an evil person
Speaker 2: and she had she went through a great tragedy, but
Speaker 2: it's like over time that is like spiritually fermented into
Speaker 2: this new shape, and that shape is is hungry and
Speaker 2: in many respects evil.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a tragedy plus time plus cat equals house
Speaker 3: because the cat. What is the role of the cat
Speaker 3: in this movie? Could we last October did an episode
Speaker 3: or a series of episodes about monster cats of Japan
Speaker 3: that was October, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: I believe it was?
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, like the Bakan echo and stuff. There are
Speaker 3: a number of different sort of cat ghosts or evil
Speaker 3: cat monster entities cat yo kai in Japanese lore, and
Speaker 3: we talked about a few of them shape shifting cats,
Speaker 3: cats that the cats that might lurk out in the
Speaker 3: wilderness and be some kind of monster. I don't know
Speaker 3: if the cat in this movie is exactly supposed to
Speaker 3: be supposed to correspond to one of these cat monster archetypes,
Speaker 3: but what a presence it is. It feels kind of
Speaker 3: like maybe all of the evil in the movie comes
Speaker 3: from the cat, and it's not clear where the cat
Speaker 3: comes from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cat is somehow key to it is like
Speaker 2: a nexus point or a physical incarnation it's uncertain. I mean,
Speaker 2: as I feel, like, you know, scary supernatural things should be.
Speaker 2: They're difficult for us mortals to fathom. But we yeah,
Speaker 2: we have this fabulous cat at the center of everything here.
Speaker 2: And I think it also this is what serves to
Speaker 2: make House not only a great haunted house movie, but
Speaker 2: also a great cat movie. Like all the cat stuff
Speaker 2: is completely on point and very cute, very cute cat,
Speaker 2: very cute flu fear.
Speaker 3: This movie got me thinking about it what it is
Speaker 3: meant to say about a character when a character often
Speaker 3: has a cat in their lap. So this is the thing.
Speaker 3: Actually I mostly associate with villains in films like Blofeld
Speaker 3: and the James Bond movies. Is this villain who in
Speaker 3: the early James Bond movies, I think you don't even
Speaker 3: ever see his face. You just see the lower half
Speaker 3: of his body. He's a man who's presiding over this evil,
Speaker 3: shadowy criminal empire known as Specter, and he has all
Speaker 3: these henchmen going out and doing things for him. When
Speaker 3: you see the lower half of his body, he has
Speaker 3: a fluffy, very flufy white cat in his lap and
Speaker 3: he pets the cat while you know, demanding updates from
Speaker 3: his assassins, and then later in the James Bond movies
Speaker 3: you do actually see the face of Blofeld and so,
Speaker 3: and he's played by various different actors, but in one movie,
Speaker 3: for example, he's played by Donald Pleasance. And so you know,
Speaker 3: we were sharing before coming in here, like images of
Speaker 3: Donald Pleasants holding a white cat, much like blanched the
Speaker 3: cat in house. What does the cat mean? Why is
Speaker 3: the cat in the villain's lap, and what associations are
Speaker 3: we supposed to make from seeing that image?
Speaker 2: I mean, in the case of Blowfeld, I guess kind
Speaker 2: of you know, it's the idea of like a regal
Speaker 2: sort of lap creature, but also maybe a commentary on
Speaker 2: the nature of the cat. You know, the cat has
Speaker 2: its own air about it. Though it's weird that owning
Speaker 2: the cat is villainous in these Bond movies, and yet
Speaker 2: James Bond kicks a cat. I would think that that
Speaker 2: is me. That's that's the And also like the Forgo
Speaker 2: what was this? I forget which one this was. This
Speaker 2: may be the one that actually takes place in Japan
Speaker 2: part of the time anyway, but there's a whole bit
Speaker 2: where it's like oh, Blowfeld has a double which one
Speaker 2: is a real Blowfeld? Better kick the cat to find
Speaker 2: out which master it scurries to. And it's like, I
Speaker 2: don't even know if that would work, Like, is that
Speaker 2: really going to be the cat's number one? Moves like
Speaker 2: to go back to a safe lap. I think the
Speaker 2: cat may just go hide under something.
Speaker 3: I think there is something to be signaled about the
Speaker 3: villain with the cat that it like makes them seem
Speaker 3: more threatening and sinister, the fact that they are ordering
Speaker 3: up murder of humans at the same time that they're
Speaker 3: being very gentle and stroking a cat. You know, It's
Speaker 3: like that contrast of of delicate gentleness and and friendliness
Speaker 3: with one creature but cruelty to another.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that. I think that probably sums it up.
Speaker 3: Now. We've talked about House as a as a widely
Speaker 3: reputed ultimate weird movie. We've talked about it as the
Speaker 3: mount Everest of haunted House movies. But there's another thing
Speaker 3: that we haven't really mentioned about it yet, which I
Speaker 3: think is key to understanding what it is, which is
Speaker 3: the childlike logic that operates in House. It is different
Speaker 3: from a lot of horror movies, and I somehow connect
Speaker 3: this to the fact that, say, the house doesn't have
Speaker 3: a standard backstory of like human evil drawing in demons
Speaker 3: and wicked spirits. Instead, it feels like the evil that
Speaker 3: infects the house is just sort of totally unexplainable and random,
Speaker 3: something that comes in and strikes and infects the house
Speaker 3: and the occupant of the house from outside. That seems
Speaker 3: much more in line with the way that children imagine
Speaker 3: evil spirits. You know, you don't need that like backstory
Speaker 3: of it being caused by someone's human wicked choices. Instead,
Speaker 3: it's just it comes out of nowhere and it's scary
Speaker 3: and it doesn't even need to be explained.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a a very important aspect of House,
Speaker 2: and we're going to be talking about Nubuhiko Obyashi, the director,
Speaker 2: who is also an actor in it and a producer
Speaker 2: and director of special effects. But famously this, like the
Speaker 2: key aspects of this film were inspired by conversations he
Speaker 2: had with his daughter, who I believe was ten at
Speaker 2: the age, Chigumi Obayashi, where he would come to her
Speaker 2: and like, well, what what what do you find scary?
Speaker 2: What tell me what what frightens you or what would
Speaker 2: be I think he also said, like, hey, if daddy
Speaker 2: were to make a movie, what kind of things would
Speaker 2: you want to be in it? And and so she
Speaker 2: came up with these various ideas that were all based
Speaker 2: on just this child's eye view of the world, like,
Speaker 2: for instance, so one particular thing. We'll probably run through
Speaker 2: most of them, but there's a scary clock in the movie.
Speaker 2: And according to her on the Criterion collection disc of
Speaker 2: this film, there's a interview with her and her father
Speaker 2: from several years back, and she says that there was
Speaker 2: this there was this point where they were staying at
Speaker 2: this house in the country, you know, a family house,
Speaker 2: and there's a big clock in the hallway and she
Speaker 2: would have to cross by it in the night in
Speaker 2: order to go to the bathroom, and she was frightened
Speaker 2: by the clock, you know. And so it's the kind
Speaker 2: of thing like humans are generally not frightened by big,
Speaker 2: dusty clocks and houses, but children can be. And so
Speaker 2: the beauty of this film, one of the beautiful things
Speaker 2: about this film is that he took these ideas from
Speaker 2: his daughter and then you know, added a little more
Speaker 2: traditional ghost story structure to it, and then handed it
Speaker 2: off to the screenwriter. But yet it still retains these
Speaker 2: very childlike views of fear and threat and then sort
Speaker 2: of translates them to a certain extent into a wider
Speaker 2: understanding for you know, any viewer that may watch it.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be a child to feel the
Speaker 2: fear this clock.
Speaker 3: There is a young person's creativity in the way some
Speaker 3: of the scary images in the movie are conjured, so
Speaker 3: like making connections that an adult might not normally make,
Speaker 3: but then also a kind of a young person's fearlessness
Speaker 3: in deciding what is scary. So there is a scene
Speaker 3: in the movie where a character is fatally attacked by
Speaker 3: pillows and mattresses that fall from the ceiling. I think
Speaker 3: that is an image that if an adult were to
Speaker 3: come up with it, they might think, No, that's silly,
Speaker 3: that's not scary. That doesn't work. It just doesn't fit
Speaker 3: the language of what is a threat in horror movies.
Speaker 3: But I think I read this idea also came from
Speaker 3: the director's daughter. You know, she was afraid of like
Speaker 3: being attacked by mattresses from the sky, and in the
Speaker 3: movie they just they just do it. That's a scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think she mentioned in the interview
Speaker 2: that it came from or maybe your father did that.
Speaker 2: It came in part from going out the countryside and
Speaker 2: having to sleep on futons and then fold them up
Speaker 2: during the day and as a child, like the futon
Speaker 2: is so big and it's kind of heavy and it's
Speaker 2: kind of falling on you, so it kind of feeds
Speaker 2: into this idea.
Speaker 3: I never would have thought of that, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's really the beauty of it. Like,
Speaker 2: these are all things that grown ups would not have
Speaker 2: thought of. They come from the mind of children, and
Speaker 2: the child's mind is capable of such wonders and such horrors.
Speaker 2: You know. That was that. It's one of the joys
Speaker 2: of parenthood is getting to, uh, to be on the
Speaker 2: receiving end of so many wild and creative ideas that
Speaker 2: they just come up with on their own, you know,
Speaker 2: because they have to this innate creativity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to see to see the wild mental leaps and
Speaker 3: the strange connections that a young brain makes that you
Speaker 3: just you're seeing into something that your brain may once
Speaker 3: have been capable of but is no longer like the
Speaker 3: pruning has cut you off from from that kind of
Speaker 3: connection across mental distance.
Speaker 2: So this again. This is a huge part of the film.
Speaker 2: We'll keep coming back to this as we discuss the
Speaker 2: making of the film and also get into the plot.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm glad that we're finally covering House. It's
Speaker 2: a film that has been on the Weird House Cinema
Speaker 2: list for I mean really since the beginning. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's just if when you think of weird films and
Speaker 2: you get into, you know, listings of weird films, it's
Speaker 2: always up there. There's a you know, poster or a
Speaker 2: recreation of the poster for this film in the front
Speaker 2: window of Videodrome, the movie rental place here in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: So you know, it's it's always been on the list,
Speaker 2: and today we're finally talking about it. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: gonna stick with the mount everest of hunted House Films
Speaker 2: for my elevator pitch. Do you have any anything to
Speaker 2: add to that?
Speaker 3: Joe worst summer vacation ever. Seven high school friends go
Speaker 3: out for a leisurely visit to a countryside manor somewhere
Speaker 3: in Japan and get and by various household appliances.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's go ahead and listen to at
Speaker 2: least part of the trailer audio here. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: it necessarily makes sense to listen to the whole thing,
Speaker 2: but we definitely want to get just a little taste
Speaker 2: of that music, a little taste, especially of the title.
Speaker 2: So let's have a listen.
Speaker 4: House, I see in your rise.
Speaker 2: My All right now, if you want to run out
Speaker 2: and watch House before we get into any further discussion here, well,
Speaker 2: lucky for you, House is widely available in pretty much
Speaker 2: any format you might desire. Uh. Here in the States,
Speaker 2: you can currently stream it on Max unless it's I
Speaker 2: think it's still there. Uh. It's also available on Blu
Speaker 2: Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection. And that's how
Speaker 2: I watched it. I rented it from Videodrome and watched
Speaker 2: it on Blu Ray, and I refer back to some
Speaker 2: of the special features as we proceed. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: let's get into the people who made this film, starting
Speaker 2: once more at the top with Nuwahiko Obayashi again, director.
Speaker 2: He also plays husband in this producer, director of special effects.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen thirty eight through twenty twenty. He was
Speaker 2: a Japanese director, screenwriter, and editor known for his work
Speaker 2: in experimental cinema of the nineteen sixties TV commercials, reportedly
Speaker 2: by the thousands, and often involving the sort of Western
Speaker 2: celebrity appearances that were parodied in two thousand and threes
Speaker 2: Lost in translation.
Speaker 3: Okay, so where you might have like a celebrity famous
Speaker 3: in English language movies and TV come in and kind
Speaker 3: of deliver some strange out of text lines for a
Speaker 3: soda commercial in Japan or something exactly.
Speaker 2: And if you look up at images of him, you'll
Speaker 2: find a lot of old images of him, like standing
Speaker 2: around with various celebrities from the West. Now, this film,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy Seven's House was his first feature film, an
Speaker 2: intentionally off kilter, highly weird, experimental horror comedy I guess
Speaker 2: you might call it, but you can describe it many
Speaker 2: other ways as well. Initially didn't land all that well
Speaker 2: with especially with Japanese critics and in the industry, but
Speaker 2: it subsequently developed a cult following in Japan and abroad,
Speaker 2: and today it's celebrated as just a complete cinematic freak
Speaker 2: out and stands tall amid the pantheon of global psychatronics cinema.
Speaker 3: As long as you're sticking to coherent narrative films, it
Speaker 3: is one of the weirdest ever made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do want to stress that it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it does have a plot that you can follow, It's
Speaker 2: not one of these. You can definitely describe it as
Speaker 2: as art house to a certain extent. Ty West, the
Speaker 2: horror director, has a little bit on the Criterion collection
Speaker 2: disc where he talks about it being an art horror film,
Speaker 2: which he says, you see little of these days, in
Speaker 2: part because studios want to bring ironically someone in from
Speaker 2: the commercial world to direct a very cookie cutter horror
Speaker 2: film that kind of matches up with the style of
Speaker 2: everything else and doesn't stand out. But you do still
Speaker 2: see some art horror films like Slip Through, and there's
Speaker 2: some great examples of that for sure. But yeah, this
Speaker 2: is a very artistic vision here.
Speaker 3: Well. Yeah, I think horror films are often thought of
Speaker 3: as a cash grab, and in many cases they are
Speaker 3: because horror films are, for the most part, relatively cheap
Speaker 3: to make, and they tend to gross a lot more
Speaker 3: than their budgets. But you know, something that might be
Speaker 3: true of a lot of entries in a genre is
Speaker 3: of course never true of all.
Speaker 2: Right, Right, So again there's a great interview with Obayashi
Speaker 2: and his daughter on the Criterion Collection disc and I
Speaker 2: highly recommend folks to check that out. But because it
Speaker 2: also has a lot of interesting stills, behind the scenes
Speaker 2: photos and so forth, and they run through several aspects
Speaker 2: of the making of and the reception of the film,
Speaker 2: and I just want to go through a few things
Speaker 2: that really stood out to me and I think are
Speaker 2: important for understanding how this film came together and then
Speaker 2: how it was interpreted. So he says that at the time,
Speaker 2: so we would be dealing with I think at the time,
Speaker 2: like mid seventies Japan. He said that cinema was pretty
Speaker 2: much in decline, in that young people did not go
Speaker 2: to the movies. TV was what was really in and
Speaker 2: even his daughter, who would apparently go with him to
Speaker 2: the theater all the time, would comment that Japanese films
Speaker 2: were boring, Like when he asked her what kind of
Speaker 2: film should Daddy make, she would be like, Oh, don't
Speaker 2: make a movie, daddy. Japanese films are boring. So a
Speaker 2: lot of what he's doing is definitely trying to create
Speaker 2: something different, something new.
Speaker 3: Bummer shut down by your child.
Speaker 2: But he says that a lot of aspiring filmmakers at
Speaker 2: the time, like himself, didn't want to do commercials, but
Speaker 2: he thought differently. He seems to have thought differently about
Speaker 2: a lot of things. He points out that the big
Speaker 2: thing is there was money in commercials. And the key
Speaker 2: here is not that you would make a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and I think that may have also been true, but
Speaker 2: more to the point, you could actually work with a budget.
Speaker 2: So again, like the Japanese cinematic world, according to him,
Speaker 2: was sort of shrinking at the time. You couldn't get
Speaker 2: these big budgets, but you could go into doing these
Speaker 2: commercials and there was money there could He says that
Speaker 2: ultimately the content might be meaningless, but you could experiment,
Speaker 2: you could chase the visual expression of the thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you see a lot of directors who eventually
Speaker 3: end up making movies in all cultures. It's an American
Speaker 3: cinema two that you know, they started in commercials and
Speaker 3: also music videos. That used to be a big thing
Speaker 3: because it was a place to just like work on techniques,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever the actual content is, you're just experimenting
Speaker 3: with ways of showing things and learning the craft that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he speaks in the interview of turning experimentation
Speaker 2: into expression, and that really seems to have been a
Speaker 2: big part of his im at the time, certainly in
Speaker 2: the production of House, which didn't even have any storyboards.
Speaker 2: They intentionally they did not do storyboards for it. They
Speaker 2: would just try things out and just like throw everything
Speaker 2: against the wall and see what they could get. I
Speaker 2: believe it's tie West and the extra that points out that,
Speaker 2: like they use just basically every in camera technique imaginable
Speaker 2: in the film.
Speaker 3: That makes sense because I would say that the visual
Speaker 3: style of the finished product is incredibly chaotic. There are
Speaker 3: just tons of different techniques on display, sometimes seemingly at random.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about this later when we get
Speaker 3: into discussing the plot, the sometimes the violation of cinematic
Speaker 3: norms that takes place throughout the movie, but also with
Speaker 3: in terms of special effects, in terms of editing techniques,
Speaker 3: like it all just just crazy different visual stuff happening
Speaker 3: all the time that does not feel part of an
Speaker 3: attempt to select a particular visual texture that like a
Speaker 3: lot of films do, Like they just have totally different
Speaker 3: looking effects and styles happening back to back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he mentions like having great admiration for filmmakers like Carasawa,
Speaker 2: but then also wondering what would irritate Carrossola and then
Speaker 2: pursuing that line of thinking that's great. So anyway, Toho
Speaker 2: Studios famously was inspired by Jaws for this one. This
Speaker 2: is often just thrown out there. It's like this was
Speaker 2: this was an attempt to catch it on jobs. Well
Speaker 2: sort of kind of, at least from Toho's position. Established
Speaker 2: studio again realizes they need to they need to do
Speaker 2: something fresh, and they look over and they say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: this Steven Spielberg guy just made like this enormously successful
Speaker 2: shark movie, huge hit from the mind of a young
Speaker 2: emerging talent. Let's get one of those young emerging talents
Speaker 2: and get them to make us a Jaws.
Speaker 3: And of course Jaws did lead to numerous ripoffs and
Speaker 3: copycats in the American market and all around the world.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can find the Italian Jaws ripoffs, American
Speaker 3: Jaws ripoffs, They're they're popping off all over the place.
Speaker 3: Jaws made a lot of money, and much like when
Speaker 3: Star Wars made a lot of money, it spawned an
Speaker 3: endless series of copycats, so did Jaws. So you would
Speaker 3: get Jaws with a bear Jaws. Other people would just
Speaker 3: do shark you know, shark copycat movies, Jaws with a
Speaker 3: killer whale. There are so many.
Speaker 2: Of these, Yeah, and Obiasci points out that that's how
Speaker 2: the grown up mind works, especially like the corporate mind
Speaker 2: is like shark attack films are in, let's do a
Speaker 2: bear attack. Let's do it, you know whatever, animal attack.
Speaker 2: And that's the reason he turned to his ten year
Speaker 2: old daughter for this fresh inspiration, like what what does
Speaker 2: she want me to make a movie about? And so
Speaker 2: she gives him this list of ideas. He adds this,
Speaker 2: you know, basic ghost story premise, because he says, you
Speaker 2: can't have the house eating people for no reason. It's
Speaker 2: got to be a story reason. And then he hands
Speaker 2: this off to the screenwriter and they have a script.
Speaker 3: In a way, it's so beautiful just to imagine taking
Speaker 3: all of your, like your kid's weirdest, most messed up
Speaker 3: ideas and just saying that's gonna it's in the movie,
Speaker 3: in the style of the key and Peel sketch for
Speaker 3: Grimlins too. It's just very much it's in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's impressive that the screen play was green
Speaker 2: lit by Toho. They're like, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 2: But there was still apparently a long run up to
Speaker 2: actually shooting the movie. I think it was like a
Speaker 2: couple of years. Uh. And so during this time, they
Speaker 2: produced and sold the soundtrack, they produced and sold a novelization,
Speaker 2: there was a radio play of it. I was really
Speaker 2: surprised by all of this. You know, I'm often not
Speaker 2: cued into all of the gears of getting you know,
Speaker 2: the film from the screenplay stage to the production and
Speaker 2: release stage. But you know, it sounds like obashually put
Speaker 2: a lot of effort in just like all right, let's
Speaker 2: do all these things sort of to ensure that Toho
Speaker 2: keeps it green lit and and knows that it's coming.
Speaker 2: He talks about like printing up business cards with the
Speaker 2: movie poster on it and handing them out and saying
Speaker 2: Toho is making this movie, TOAs making this movie, and
Speaker 2: so forth. And I also have to to say that,
Speaker 2: like in the interview and the various photos, it's like
Speaker 2: it's very clear that Obash was a very flashy, very creative,
Speaker 2: you know again, experimental and establishment bucking young director, but
Speaker 2: also one who seemed to be very personable with cast
Speaker 2: and crew, to the point that he has shares this
Speaker 2: story about how the lighting team ends up really coming
Speaker 2: around to him because he addressed them by their names
Speaker 2: and they this had never happened before in the production
Speaker 2: of Toho films. They were just they were never addressed
Speaker 2: by name and like, so he brought an entirely different
Speaker 2: vibe to the production. And he also says that he
Speaker 2: made a point of wearing a different outfit every day
Speaker 2: in order to sort of keep the vibe up. So
Speaker 2: there are all these interesting photos of him in various
Speaker 2: flashy outfits. He's often got sunglasses on. Very hip hoocking dude.
Speaker 3: I think I read something about how in order to
Speaker 3: get people in the feeling of a scene in the movie,
Speaker 3: he would like play music while they were shooting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it would kind of like, I think, dance
Speaker 2: with everyone, that sort of thing. Now. Obyashi was born
Speaker 2: in Hiroshima, and all of his childhood friends, he says,
Speaker 2: died as a result of the bombing. And he also
Speaker 2: makes a point of pointing out that he incorporates elements
Speaker 2: of this into this picture as well into the anti
Speaker 2: war themes and other movies that he would go on
Speaker 2: to direct. So he speaks of the in this interview,
Speaker 2: he talks about the youth in this film. The Seven Girls,
Speaker 2: as we'll get into that are key. So he was
Speaker 2: about forty at the time, and he talks about like
Speaker 2: the young people being too young to really know what
Speaker 2: war is and as a result to fully appreciate the
Speaker 2: joy of peace. And I thought this was really interesting.
Speaker 2: I have to hear this after watching the film, because Yeah,
Speaker 2: you think about the tension in this movie that's president
Speaker 2: most horror movies, like the space between leading up to
Speaker 2: the horrible things, and there is like this unnatural, almost
Speaker 2: sickeningly sweet aspect to the sweetness, like it's artificial sweetener
Speaker 2: leading up to those moments that you know were coming.
Speaker 2: And it absolutely works in house like it like I
Speaker 2: felt myself, you know, you know, getting chill bumps because
Speaker 2: I knew something terrible was going to happen, which I
Speaker 2: have to say wasn't what I quite expected from the movie.
Speaker 2: Like I was expecting, you know, psychotronic weirdness and craziness
Speaker 2: and all that, and I didn't really expect the scary
Speaker 2: parts to be scary or to feel that the tension leading.
Speaker 1: Up to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there is a I would say this movie
Speaker 3: is almost always in some ways trying to subvert its
Speaker 3: own tone. So there are scenes that are very ominous
Speaker 3: in what's happening, or they're conveying dark or sad or
Speaker 3: scary information. And a lot of these scenes will have
Speaker 3: things about, like the sights and sounds of the scene
Speaker 3: that are lighthearted and funny, like it'll play jolly, sort
Speaker 3: of happy music while something really sad or scary is
Speaker 3: happening this, And then it'll do the opposite too, something
Speaker 3: very lighthearted is happening on screen, but there will be
Speaker 3: things about it that make it very ominous and unsettling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, as mentioned earlier, critics hated it
Speaker 2: at the time, many didn't even review it, and those
Speaker 2: that did often were just very savage about it all.
Speaker 2: But is he stressed the interview, young people loved it,
Speaker 2: like he says, like like ten through thirteen were the
Speaker 2: ages of people that were going out and seeing this
Speaker 2: movie and.
Speaker 3: Too young for this movie. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. We had a an off mike discussion
Speaker 2: like when is the appropriate age to see House? And
Speaker 2: I have no answers, but hard to say ten to thirteen.
Speaker 2: I guess at least in the late seventies in Japan.
Speaker 2: But anyway, yeah, young people loved it, made it a
Speaker 2: success in a way, kind of to the disappoint of
Speaker 2: the studio establishment, and then ultimately some of the people
Speaker 2: who loved it were future filmmakers, the people who loved
Speaker 2: it were future film critics, and so it would eventually
Speaker 2: be held up as one of the great Japanese horror
Speaker 2: movies and ultimately, like we've been saying, one of the
Speaker 2: great weird films of global cinema. So Obiyoshi followed up
Speaker 2: House with a long filmography that ultimately broadened his mainstream appeal,
Speaker 2: including several less nutty coming of age movies, but he
Speaker 2: didn't abandon horror. His subsequent movies also include nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: two's Cute Devil, nineteen eighty three's Legend of the Cat Monster,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven's The Forbidden Classroom, and nineteen eighty eight's
Speaker 2: The Discarnates. The same year as House, in seventy seventy,
Speaker 2: also made The Visitor in the Eye. This was a
Speaker 2: live action manga adaptation, and his twenty seventeen anti war
Speaker 2: film Hanagatami was actually forty years in the making. He
Speaker 2: was actually working on the script for that film with
Speaker 2: the screenwriter Katsura right before House. His last film was
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen's Labyrinth of Cinema and again he died in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Now his daughter is Chigumi Ogashi. She actually
Speaker 2: appears in the movie. She's the shoe store girl.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, there's a scene outside like a cobbler's shop,
Speaker 3: shoemaker shop, and there is an old man and the
Speaker 3: girl like hammering on some shoe soles. I think I
Speaker 3: think this is where mister Togo, the teacher in the movie,
Speaker 3: gets a bucket stuck on his butt and has to
Speaker 3: go to the hospital.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in one of the goof here, just like Monty
Speaker 2: python S sequences that occur in the film. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just complete nuttiness, complete slapstick Charlie Chaplin esque and then
Speaker 2: some I guess yeah, but yeah, keep a lookout for her.
Speaker 2: And bucket butt scene is Yeah, it's powerful, almost as
Speaker 2: good as a banana scene. Later on, Oh that okay,
Speaker 2: And then the screenplay proper I mentioned Katsura. This is
Speaker 2: Chiho Katsura, who lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: so he was a Japanese screenwriter novelist, translator, and film critic,
Speaker 2: whose work, based on what I could see of his
Speaker 2: available filmography, included a great deal of Japanese pink he
Speaker 2: erotic films, but he also worked in other genres, including
Speaker 2: at least a couple of family films. He worked with
Speaker 2: Obashi on several mainstream films, including again twenty seventeen's Hanagatami.
Speaker 2: All right, but now we should mention that really on
Speaker 2: the acting front, we have seven core characters. These are
Speaker 2: the seven girls. Their names are Gorgeous, kung Fu, Fantasy,
Speaker 2: pro or Professor Mac, which is short for stomach because
Speaker 2: she likes food.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't get Mac.
Speaker 2: It took a while for me to put that together.
Speaker 2: Okay yea Mac, Melody, and sweet. And they are all
Speaker 2: exactly what their names.
Speaker 3: Imply, right, So they're named after their traits. So Gorgeous
Speaker 3: is supposed to be beautiful. Kung Fu is the jock of
Speaker 3: the group. She can like she can do sports and
Speaker 3: kung fu, and she's very decisive and active. Fantasy is
Speaker 3: a day dreamer. She's Gorgeous's best friend, and she likes
Speaker 3: to I don't know she gus. She's often daydreaming, though
Speaker 3: most of the things in the movie where it's like
Speaker 3: is she daydreaming? No, they're actually happening. Prof is very
Speaker 3: smart and logical, and she often has a book in
Speaker 3: her hand. Mac is always hungry to a ridiculous extent,
Speaker 3: Like I think literally every single line she says in
Speaker 3: the movie is like I am eating now, yummy, you know,
Speaker 3: I want a watermelon.
Speaker 2: She just has a great metabolism. Though I have to
Speaker 2: stress like, it's not like she's overweight or depicted as such,
Speaker 2: Like she just is hungry all the time.
Speaker 3: Mac loves food and Melody loves music. She plays the guitar.
Speaker 3: I think we see her with a violin case, and
Speaker 3: she plays the piano. There's a there's a very unfortunate
Speaker 3: piano scene where she gets her fingers bitten off. And
Speaker 3: then there is Sweet, who is You might think Sweet
Speaker 3: is the one who is into desserts, but no, that's Max.
Speaker 3: Sweet is named so because she is friendly and like
Speaker 3: gentle and kind.
Speaker 2: But yeah, still, it's kind of like the Seven Dwarfs, right,
Speaker 2: like their names yeah tell you who they are for
Speaker 2: the most part, except what is Doc. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: know what Doc Steal is. But these these gals names
Speaker 2: all make sense, and apparently the number seven was was
Speaker 2: important to Gosh because like teams of seven are or
Speaker 2: were common in Japan now. In casting the Seven Girls,
Speaker 2: he says that, like he pretty much depended on just
Speaker 2: casting girls that he'd worked with in his commercial work,
Speaker 2: so a lot of them were, you know, models with
Speaker 2: very limited acting experience. They're basically gorgeous. I think it's
Speaker 2: the only one who had had an acting career that
Speaker 2: was already like emotion, but it was still still very early,
Speaker 2: so he but he says like this is also an
Speaker 2: important part of the vibe, Like the acting from these
Speaker 2: girls is kind of amateurish and it doesn't feel polished
Speaker 2: or professional, but that, like other aspects of the film
Speaker 2: are intentional, Like I think that's part of the intended
Speaker 2: fabric of the thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are scenes in the movie that have an
Speaker 3: almost sketch comedy kind of feel, if you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like characters kind of like stumbling over each
Speaker 3: other with their lines, talking over other people's lines, and
Speaker 3: like sometimes maybe it seems like they're improvising, but it
Speaker 3: is clearly part of the fabric of the movie. It's
Speaker 3: what they're trying to create. I think somehow it simultaneously
Speaker 3: makes the movie funnier but also makes the characters somehow
Speaker 3: feel more vulnerable when they are threats by the evil
Speaker 3: magic of the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, and in a way that maybe comparable to
Speaker 2: how sometimes your B horror movies are more terrifying in
Speaker 2: that they feel more like its documentary footage, you know,
Speaker 2: like they're not actors, and it can, Yeah, it can
Speaker 2: sort of warp your expectations and experience of watching it.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I'm not going to list all seven actresses
Speaker 2: who played the seven girls. A lot of them again
Speaker 2: were new to acting and didn't necessarily, you know, stick
Speaker 2: around for more acting or maybe only have a handful
Speaker 2: of credits. But the key exception is the actor who
Speaker 2: plays Gorgeous. This is Kamiko Ikigami born nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: American born Japanese actress. She's been acting for a few
Speaker 2: years at this point, having made her TV and film
Speaker 2: debuts in seventy five. Her subsequent films include nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine Is the Man who Stole the Sun, The Acclaim,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three drama Yokiro, for which she was nominated
Speaker 2: for a Japanese Academy Award and nineteen ninety three's Lone
Speaker 2: Wolf and Cub The Final Conflict.
Speaker 3: Now, the seven main girls are sort of an ensemble
Speaker 3: of heroes, but I'd say I'd also say there are
Speaker 3: sort of two main protagonists of the movie, and that
Speaker 3: is gorgeous. But also her best friend Fantasy.
Speaker 2: Fantasy. Yeah, Fantasy is very key. Komiko Oba born nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty plays this role. I'm also a huge fan of
Speaker 2: kung fu. I thought Mickey Jimbo born nineteen sixty was
Speaker 2: great in this Big Fu.
Speaker 3: You're so cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she is so cool, and she can kick ghosts.
Speaker 3: She can, she does. In fact, she can kick ghosts
Speaker 3: even without her head attached to her body.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, yeah, it's an ensemble, and all the girls
Speaker 2: are great.
Speaker 3: They're all wonderful.
Speaker 2: I love their caricatures. It's fabulous. Yeah, but again, most
Speaker 2: of them didn't have a lot of acting experience.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 2: The most established actor in the whole mix is the
Speaker 2: actor playing the Auntie who they are visiting, often credited
Speaker 2: as Auntie Carrie House, so I guess her last name
Speaker 2: is House anyway, played by Yoko Minamieda. She lived nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty three through two thousand and nine, a Japanese actress
Speaker 2: best known for this film, at least internationally, but with
Speaker 2: credits going back to nineteen fifty two. So she was
Speaker 2: a very established actor, but at the time, according to
Speaker 2: the director, had trouble getting work in cinema befitting her
Speaker 2: status and her talent. Again, so like cinema seemed to
Speaker 2: be down at the time in Japan. So but it
Speaker 2: was still it was a big deal that she took
Speaker 2: this role, not only because she had such she was
Speaker 2: an established star, but also it was key that she
Speaker 2: took the role of an older woman, according to Obyashi,
Speaker 2: because in Japanese cinema, certainly at the time and maybe
Speaker 2: still this is still the case, there was no going
Speaker 2: back for an actor or actress once you took an
Speaker 2: older person's role. Apparently it was This wasn't even necessarily
Speaker 2: like a double standard for women, as men also couldn't
Speaker 2: keep playing younger characters as they aged.
Speaker 3: If like they had taken a role previously in which
Speaker 3: it was acknowledged they were playing an older character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like once you take that older lady role, it's
Speaker 2: like that's it. Now you play old ladies. There's no
Speaker 2: sort of like midpoint where you can kind of play
Speaker 2: both roles. But I have to say she's tremendous. Inness Oh,
Speaker 2: she's so good, she's the best. Yes, there's a really
Speaker 2: great scene where she's eating some food. I don't remember
Speaker 2: what she's she's munching on something and then just kind
Speaker 2: of like pops her mouth open and Yeah, she has
Speaker 2: an eyeball that lives in her mouth and she kind
Speaker 2: of looks around at people with it and then closes
Speaker 2: her mouth like te Yeah, there are times where she
Speaker 2: breaks the fourth wall, and I mean you just kind
Speaker 2: of expect her to crowd to the television at you
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's great.
Speaker 2: And really, the only other like main actor I would
Speaker 2: want to mention is is the cat and or cats.
Speaker 2: We don't know how many cats play Blanche. You know,
Speaker 2: often you have multiple cats in a role. But really,
Speaker 2: for the most part, I was just struck by what
Speaker 2: a great feline performance this is. Feline actors are notoriously
Speaker 2: difficult to work with, and even in the best of
Speaker 2: cat related movies, often look like they really would prefer
Speaker 2: to be out out of the shot and are more
Speaker 2: interested in in like scurrying off screen.
Speaker 3: We were looking at some of those Blowfeld shots where
Speaker 3: the cat looks like it's it's trying to be somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a lot of that. Obviously, working with
Speaker 2: cats is difficult, but there are plenty of shots in
Speaker 2: this film where yeah, it's like Blanche just looks like
Speaker 2: she's completely at ease. Here beautiful cat too, absolutely beautiful
Speaker 2: white cat.
Speaker 3: Very fluffy love Blanche. Hey you didn't mention him, but there.
Speaker 3: You also had a credit note for the guy who
Speaker 3: like operates the Ramen stand.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the guy credited as Ramen Trucker is a
Speaker 2: trucker trucker. Yeah, okay, so maybe I don't know if
Speaker 2: this is the I'm not sure exactly where he shows
Speaker 2: up that This is a guy named Shiochi Heroes who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen Eighteeneen through nineteen ninety just a bit player
Speaker 2: in a one time stunt man. But he played King
Speaker 2: Kong in nineteen sixty three. He's King Kong versus Godzilla.
Speaker 3: So he's the guy you don't there's a scene where
Speaker 3: mister Togo, he's supposed to be coming to He doesn't
Speaker 3: know that they're in trouble, but he they're waiting, the
Speaker 3: girls are waiting for him to come to the rescue
Speaker 3: at the house, and then we cut away to him
Speaker 3: and he's like at a ramen cart eating ramen. And
Speaker 3: this is the guy I guess operating the ramen cart.
Speaker 3: I believe so, yeah, and we see him like stuff
Speaker 3: a huge mass of noodles into his mouth and then
Speaker 3: grin at the camera with the noodles in his mouth.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, now come into the music. The music
Speaker 2: is important in house A's say. Kobyashi has the composer credit.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twenty one, Japanese
Speaker 2: composer and occasional actor. And in fact he is in
Speaker 2: this acting as well as the watermelon salesman.
Speaker 3: That is an insanely weird role to go to somebody
Speaker 3: who's not primarily an actor like that is a weird,
Speaker 3: weird role.
Speaker 2: It is very memorable. Apparently it took some convincing to
Speaker 2: bring him onto the project, but Obyashi was insistent that look,
Speaker 2: a ghost story needs the sweetest, most beautiful music in
Speaker 2: order to land properly, and that's why I need you
Speaker 2: on the picture. And he was like, okay, okay, I'll
Speaker 2: do it. I also want to act in it. I'll
Speaker 2: do it, but then he was like, you know, you
Speaker 2: really need some youthful energy in this as well. So
Speaker 2: it's like, I'll work on these themes and all, but
Speaker 2: I think you should also bring in this Japanese rock
Speaker 2: band so that they can like recreate some of these
Speaker 2: themes and breathe additional life into the picture. And that
Speaker 2: is where the rock band Godaigo comes into the picture here.
Speaker 2: So this is a Japanese rock band and I believe
Speaker 2: named after the ninety sixth Emperor of Japan. They were
Speaker 2: mostly active in the seventies and eighties, but I think
Speaker 2: are still around to varying degrees, like I see him
Speaker 2: doing press and all. They were notable for supplying the
Speaker 2: music for the Japanese TV series Monkey and that this,
Speaker 2: by the way, is the Japanese TV adaptation of the
Speaker 2: Chinese novel Journey into the West that I think. Actually
Speaker 2: it also got some air outside of Japan, like I
Speaker 2: think I've read that it aired in Australia, for example,
Speaker 2: So a lot of people even outside of Japan have
Speaker 2: fond memories of this show. And also I believe there
Speaker 2: is a scene in the movie where we see the
Speaker 2: band just hanging around there's like five of them, and
Speaker 2: two of them I think two of them are Americans.
Speaker 3: Hmm, okay, I vaguely recalled this happening, but I don't
Speaker 3: remember when the movie it is. Maybe it'll be in
Speaker 3: my plot notes here.
Speaker 2: I think it might be in one of those sort
Speaker 2: of Sesame Street esque sequences where we see this kind
Speaker 2: of like idealistic town. Okay, yeah, anyway, these are the
Speaker 2: folks involved in the music, and the music in House
Speaker 2: is absolutely bonkers, bordering on and seemingly just intentionally irritating
Speaker 2: at times even bordering on madness and yeah, and other
Speaker 2: times just super sweet or happy, go lucky or loaded
Speaker 2: with this kind of resilient seventies hippie vibes, you know,
Speaker 2: like like the hippie dream is degraded, but the music
Speaker 2: is really insistent that it's still going.
Speaker 3: There are like pop rock anthems that feel very strange
Speaker 3: for the for what's going on with the scene. There
Speaker 3: is a main theme that I assume was composed by Kobayashi.
Speaker 3: I don't know for sure, but the main house theme
Speaker 3: that just plays over and over and over in all
Speaker 3: these different ways, and that you know, the dun Dun Dun, done,
Speaker 3: it like takes on a kind of evil magic of
Speaker 3: its own. It's like the it's like the music is
Speaker 3: in some way responsible for the wicked magic that is
Speaker 3: taking place on screen.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and on that note, let's get into the wicked
Speaker 2: magic of House.
Speaker 3: I love the animated title at the beginning, so there's like,
Speaker 3: of course we get the Toho logo, but then there's
Speaker 3: like a blue box on a black background with pink
Speaker 3: and green text inside it that says a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ob Yashi says that this was key because he
Speaker 2: had to remind everyone that this is the essence of cinema.
Speaker 2: You can't dismiss it. This is a movie.
Speaker 3: I admit it. I admit it.
Speaker 2: It's a movie. But it's kind of telling because I think,
Speaker 2: like some of the critics were like, this is not
Speaker 2: a movie. This is just a series of commercials, this
Speaker 2: is this is excrement. And so like even from the
Speaker 2: get go, he's like, this is a movie. I believe
Speaker 2: in the vision.
Speaker 3: So after it says a movie, we see some like
Speaker 3: little white blobs jiggling like jello in space, and then
Speaker 3: the little white jello smudges turn into letters that spell
Speaker 3: House in English, and then the letters pop and a
Speaker 3: voice comes on and says.
Speaker 2: Howse Obyashi also stresses that giving a Japanese film a
Speaker 2: foreign language title, which is the case here, like the
Speaker 2: Japanese title for House is house. He says this simply
Speaker 2: was not done at the time. It was really kind
Speaker 2: of taboo, and so he had to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was wondering what the cultural significance is of
Speaker 3: using English specifically. Now. I know, in say, if it's
Speaker 3: an English language movie, you might have a title in
Speaker 3: another language that signals something. For example, I think of
Speaker 3: a horror movie called Oculus. You know, that's like a
Speaker 3: Latin title that I don't know. Something about using Latin
Speaker 3: in your title suggests kind of antiquity, something that is
Speaker 3: ancient and maybe kind of foreign and scary. I don't
Speaker 3: know what the connotations of using English specifically in your
Speaker 3: title would be here. But when I first saw the movie,
Speaker 3: I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 2: I didn't either, But yeah, he points out, Yeah, people
Speaker 2: hated this idea, so you shouldn't do it. This isn't done.
Speaker 2: But like I say, he bucks those trends. So he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call it house, but we're not done with
Speaker 2: the credit sequence keeps getting more amazing, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then you've got like the white jello house, and
Speaker 3: then the O in house grows teeth and turns red,
Speaker 3: and then a woman screams. Then the teeth turn into
Speaker 3: red lipstick lips, and then the lipstick lips open to
Speaker 3: reveal shark teeth and an eyeball in the back of
Speaker 3: the throat, and then a piano starts blinking on the soundtrack,
Speaker 3: and then the o lips bite down on they bite
Speaker 3: down on something, and then they spit out a severed
Speaker 3: human hand, and then we finally cut to the action.
Speaker 3: And what we see at first is a woman filmed
Speaker 3: behind what looks like a green filter, and she's wearing
Speaker 3: a white sheet like a hooded cloak, and she is
Speaker 3: surrounded by what looks like beakers and glass chemistry equipment,
Speaker 3: but also candles in ornate holders, so it's a very
Speaker 3: weird shot. And then in a reverse shot, we see
Speaker 3: a girl in school uniform taking her photo. She gives
Speaker 3: a thumbs up, she says okay, and then the girl
Speaker 3: in the photo throws off her cloak and walks to
Speaker 3: the window of the room and we sort of zoom
Speaker 3: out of the frame within the picture to just be
Speaker 3: to just see one picture now. And this other girl
Speaker 3: is also in school uniform, so she had like a
Speaker 3: costume on. And these two of our main characters, I
Speaker 3: would say the two most important of our characters, Gorgeous
Speaker 3: and Fantasy. Gorgeous was the one who was posing in
Speaker 3: the photo with the cloak over her head, and Fantasy
Speaker 3: was the one taking the photo. And they're talking about
Speaker 3: how summer vacation is coming up, and Gorgeous is going
Speaker 3: to spend summer vacation at the fabulous villa owned by
Speaker 3: her fabulous dad, which is in Kauizawa. And I looked
Speaker 3: this up because I didn't know. Kauwizawa is a mountain
Speaker 3: resort town that has long been a popular summer travel
Speaker 3: destination in Japan and for international visitors as well. Seems
Speaker 3: like it's kind of a beautiful forested mountain environment that
Speaker 3: gets like a nice cool weather in the summer, and
Speaker 3: like people travel from all over to go there. We
Speaker 3: also learned that Gorgeous's father has been away in Italy
Speaker 3: and he is supposed to be coming back tomorrow. A
Speaker 3: later scene reveals that Gorgeous's father is a film composer,
Speaker 3: and that he is a rich and successful film composer
Speaker 3: and he's been away working for somebody named Leoni, who
Speaker 3: says that her father's music is better than Morricone's. So
Speaker 3: I guess they're saying he's working for Sergio Leoni.
Speaker 2: All right, sounds good, I'll buy it.
Speaker 3: I wonder what went into that decision why anyway, let's see. Oh,
Speaker 3: but we also learned that So Gorgeous is going to
Speaker 3: the villa and Fantasy and their other five friends, the
Speaker 3: six girls together are going to go to some kind
Speaker 3: of camp for the summer. They're going to a camp
Speaker 3: by the seaside that is run by the sister of
Speaker 3: their teacher, mister Togo. So it's mister Togo's sisters in
Speaker 3: kind of complicated yeah, but ultimately unimportant, right because they
Speaker 3: don't go there. So Gorgeous and Fantasy are best friends
Speaker 3: and they kind of tease each other. Fantasy Gorgeous teases
Speaker 3: Fantasy for having a crush on mister Togo. Fantasy teases
Speaker 3: Gorgeous for looking like a witch in a horror movie
Speaker 3: when she was dressed up in the in the cloak
Speaker 3: in the picture. They have a conversation with their Jim teacher,
Speaker 3: who is apparently getting married to mister Togo. I think, yes, yes, Okay.
Speaker 3: Then there's kind of a montage of Fantasy and Gorgeous
Speaker 3: being best friends. There are a lot of montages in
Speaker 3: this movie. Now, while this movie represents a lot of
Speaker 3: kind of lighthearted scenes of you know, just like teenagers
Speaker 3: being friends, there it also represents I think a lot
Speaker 3: of the like dark side and frustration of being a
Speaker 3: young person. And so there's a scene where like Gorgeous
Speaker 3: goes home to meet her father and he's home earlier
Speaker 3: than expected, so at first she's very happy to see him.
Speaker 3: It seems they have a good relationship. But we learned
Speaker 3: that Gorgeous' mom died eight years ago, and today her
Speaker 3: father has some news he needs to share. A woman
Speaker 3: enters the frame at the house in a flowing white
Speaker 3: dress with a silk scarf blowing in the breeze, and
Speaker 3: her presence feels very almost ethereal. There's kind of a
Speaker 3: diaphanous quality to the way she's represented on film whenever
Speaker 3: we see her. And this character is named Rioko Emma,
Speaker 3: and the father informs Gorgeous that she is going to
Speaker 3: be your mom. Now, and he says several things to
Speaker 3: kind of try to soften the news. I guess he's like,
Speaker 3: she's surprisingly good at cooking and other things too. You
Speaker 3: won't have to mend my shirts anymore. But we can
Speaker 3: just see that is like not the kind of appeal
Speaker 3: that Gorgeous wants to hear. Gorgeous is hurt by this
Speaker 3: because it seems that she hasn't really properly grieved for
Speaker 3: her mother's death, even though it was a long time ago,
Speaker 3: and she's not ready to accept a new member of
Speaker 3: the family. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this portion of the film reminds me a little
Speaker 2: bit of what we'd get later in Jim Henson's Labyrinth,
Speaker 2: you know, with Sarah and sort of you know, the
Speaker 2: young woman's angst and so forth, And I imagine you
Speaker 2: see that in a lot of other movies as well.
Speaker 2: But the other thing, the main thing I want to
Speaker 2: stress is that I think it's essential to note that
Speaker 2: this is, in many respects the most normal part of
Speaker 2: the film.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: This is the real world set up to the speculative
Speaker 2: elements to come. So it would be the most boring
Speaker 2: part of your average cookie cutter horror movie, and yet
Speaker 2: in house it's full of experimentals and varied film techniques.
Speaker 2: I especially love the shooting through a kind of what
Speaker 2: is it like a glass mirror lattice work?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very weird. And also I would say it
Speaker 3: is strange in how fearless it is in depicting the
Speaker 3: intense emotions of a teenager. So like, after this interaction
Speaker 3: where she has this bad reaction to meeting Rioko Gorgeous,
Speaker 3: goes back to her room, which is crazy by the way,
Speaker 3: it has like purple walls with huge flowers painted all
Speaker 3: over them, and she like, you know, she's got a
Speaker 3: piano in her room. Uh, and she and she weirdly
Speaker 3: like suddenly seems very at peace in her room, despite
Speaker 3: having just run away from this family news that caused
Speaker 3: her so much distress. But then she is acting kind
Speaker 3: of like silly and dreamy, and she speaks to a
Speaker 3: framed portrait of her mom and goes through a box
Speaker 3: of old family photos, remembering like good times with her
Speaker 3: father when he was proud of her, when she like
Speaker 3: wanted a sports competition, and then she's just shown drawing
Speaker 3: x's over her dad's face in the photos and saying,
Speaker 3: I'll bully dad. I hate him. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a time of intense emotions.
Speaker 3: But also in the sequence she remembers her mom, she
Speaker 3: remembers her in a bridal costume, similar to how she
Speaker 3: cloaked herself in the in the Chemistry Lab photo earlier. Actually,
Speaker 3: and in she sees sort of a picture of her
Speaker 3: mother with her auntie, and she says, I wonder how
Speaker 3: auntie is. The antie in the photo is somehow kind
Speaker 3: of animated even though she's in a still photograph and
Speaker 3: she is holding a white cat.
Speaker 2: Oh, that'll be important.
Speaker 3: Also here we should mention just that the presence of
Speaker 3: music in this movie does not feel like no, I
Speaker 3: mean all movie. Most movies have music, but the presence
Speaker 3: of music in this movie does not feel normal. There's
Speaker 3: kind of a constant soundtrack playing running under nearly every
Speaker 3: scene that makes everything feel like a montage or a
Speaker 3: flashback or something.
Speaker 2: That's a great point. And then there are choices made
Speaker 2: later on, like visually stylistically that also give you that
Speaker 2: feel like is this the present? Is this the past?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Now, next at school we meet our gang of
Speaker 3: student heroines, and again they're each named for something about them.
Speaker 3: Again they are Gorgeous, her best friend Fantasy who's always daydreaming,
Speaker 3: prof who wears glasses, is a nerd. She's logical, she
Speaker 3: has a book, Melody who's holding a guitar and loves music,
Speaker 3: Mac who loves food and is shown with a donut,
Speaker 3: Sweet who is very nice and friendly. And kung Fu,
Speaker 3: who is the jock and does martial arts. When we
Speaker 3: first meet her, she like jumps up and karate chops
Speaker 3: of volleyball that is flying toward the group, and everybody says,
Speaker 3: you're so cool, kung Fu. Also, when we first meet them,
Speaker 3: it's just a weird scene. They're like they're in a
Speaker 3: school courtyard and there are just bubbles floating through the air. Also,
Speaker 3: there is a fountain in the school courtyard with a
Speaker 3: copy of the Venus de Milo in the middle of it,
Speaker 3: like the armless you know venus just there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So they're talking about how they're all about to go
Speaker 3: on vacation to the you know, the seaside inn of
Speaker 3: mister Togo's sister for ten days, and they're bummed because
Speaker 3: Gorgeous can't go with them. She's going to the country
Speaker 3: with her dad instead. But mister Togo shows up in
Speaker 3: this weird tiny car, and he's like, bad news is
Speaker 3: going to have a baby. We cannot go vacationing by
Speaker 3: the sea. But I was just thinking, did he not
Speaker 3: know this was going to happen?
Speaker 2: I know it didn't get a lot of advanced notice
Speaker 2: from the sister.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah. And the girls bully mister Togo for this.
Speaker 3: I think, he says, don't bully me, But there's a
Speaker 3: new plan. Gorgeous suggests that they all come to her
Speaker 3: auntie's house in her mom's old hometown, And so we
Speaker 3: see Gorgeous writing a letter to her aunt informing her
Speaker 3: that all of her friends are coming, and she says,
Speaker 3: I know we've only met once. Please don't think I'm strange.
Speaker 3: Is the aunt going to think you're strange? Gorgeous, I
Speaker 3: don't know this aunt. Yeah, but she says, you know,
Speaker 3: she wants to spend time with her aunt like she
Speaker 3: used to spend with her mom. Somewhere around here, she
Speaker 3: just happens to run into a fluffy white cat, and
Speaker 3: she says, cute kitty, where are you from?
Speaker 2: And instantly adopts the cat.
Speaker 3: The cat is part of the crew, yes, and named
Speaker 3: it Blanche, so Blanche is the name of the white cat.
Speaker 3: We see it sitting on top of the mailbox outside
Speaker 3: Gorgeous's apartment, and she gets a letter back from her
Speaker 3: aunt saying, oh, yes, come see me and bring all
Speaker 3: your friends. So we know Gorgeous is going to go
Speaker 3: visit her aunt and take all her friends with her.
Speaker 3: And we also hear get a scene of Rioko, Gorgeous's
Speaker 3: dad's new wife, announcing her plan to go later go
Speaker 3: after Gorgeous and her friends go to the aunt's house.
Speaker 3: She's going to go there and meet her so that
Speaker 3: she can get to know her and talk to her
Speaker 3: one on one. She says, this is my first trial
Speaker 3: in becoming her mother. And again she's got this scarf
Speaker 3: on her neck blowing in the wind in a way
Speaker 3: that makes it I don't know, it just looks kind
Speaker 3: of doomed or vulnerable somehow, like someone's it's suggesting like
Speaker 3: a grabbing of her by the neck or something. Yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 3: And then the very next scene we get is so
Speaker 3: off the wall. It is this crazy musical number outside
Speaker 3: a cobbler's workshop. There's a guy working on shoes with
Speaker 3: a pipe and a cap. There's a young lady in
Speaker 3: the leather apron. This is the director's daughter. There's a
Speaker 3: donkey in the background or maybe a miniature pony. Uh
Speaker 3: and uh yeah, it's just nuts. So, like mister Togo
Speaker 3: comes down to this scene, but like falls down the
Speaker 3: stairs and gets a metal bucket stuck on his butt
Speaker 3: and announces he will have to go to the hospital
Speaker 3: for his butt bucket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this scene is Yeah, it has strong sesame street vibes,
Speaker 2: and then it goes into just utter ridiculous slapstick territory.
Speaker 2: It's in many ways, yeah, out of keeping with the
Speaker 2: tone so far, but also perfectly in line with the
Speaker 2: tone of house. Yep, it's hard to describe.
Speaker 3: There's a child drumming on mister Togo's bucket while he's
Speaker 3: on the phone.
Speaker 2: This would seem to be aggravating the condition or I
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm relieving it. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: So without mister I guess mister Togo was gonna accompany
Speaker 3: them somehow, I didn't fully understand this, and he was
Speaker 3: gonna be chaperone. Okay, he's going to chaperone this trip
Speaker 3: to the ant's house, I guess. But so instead they
Speaker 3: have to go without him. So the girls are at
Speaker 3: a train station and they're getting on the train and
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, who are all these cowboys and rock stars?
Speaker 3: Or actually no, they don't comment on it. I'm just wondering.
Speaker 3: There's Yeah, the train is full of Oh maybe this
Speaker 3: is where we see Godaigo. I don't know. But there
Speaker 3: are cowboys, there are nuns, there are sailors. The train
Speaker 3: is full of all different kinds. Oh el Topo's on there.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, yeah, it's like this vision of I
Speaker 2: don't know, like a very non conformist Japanese society. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, like why they're cowboys getting
Speaker 2: off these trains.
Speaker 3: And blanches on the train too. They let cats on
Speaker 3: this train. Somebody while they're traveling with the cats just
Speaker 3: happens to say, any old cat can open a door,
Speaker 3: only a witch cat can close the door.
Speaker 2: And that'll be key. And also, if you haven't guessed already,
Speaker 2: this is definitely a witch cat.
Speaker 3: Now Here we get some backstory that's very important to
Speaker 3: the film, but I want to stress how strange the
Speaker 3: delivery of this character information is so gorgeous. Starts explaining
Speaker 3: to her friends that her aunt and her mother they
Speaker 3: were sisters and they loved each other very much, and
Speaker 3: Gorgeous once traveled with her mother to meet her aunt
Speaker 3: when she was six, but she hasn't seen her since.
Speaker 3: And then like a film strip starts, and again I
Speaker 3: want to say, there's no way I could identify that
Speaker 3: they could be watching a film strip on the train,
Speaker 3: But we're watching a film strip with like CPIA tones,
Speaker 3: and it's like the girls are watching it too, and
Speaker 3: they're sort of riffing on what happens in the film.
Speaker 3: So as we see this stuff, I guess Gorgeous narrates,
Speaker 3: I think, or somebody narrates A long time ago, Japan
Speaker 3: was in a big war. This is Auntie's house, her
Speaker 3: late father was a doctor. This is my grandma, This
Speaker 3: is my mom. Isn't she cute? And then one says
Speaker 3: she looks like you? And then we see the ant
Speaker 3: and her fiance, and her fiance is a very dashing
Speaker 3: young man. One of the friends calls out he's so handsome.
Speaker 3: They say he was a doctor and he was going
Speaker 3: to run the local hospital. And the friends asked, you
Speaker 3: mean they didn't get married, and she says, no, they
Speaker 3: couldn't get married because of the war. So we learned
Speaker 3: that her auntie's fiance gets drafted to serve in World
Speaker 3: War two, but he makes a pinky promise that he
Speaker 3: will come back, and she promises to wait for him,
Speaker 3: and we see the auntie and her fiance kiss and
Speaker 3: then he has to go away to war, and then
Speaker 3: the film burns up and someone shouts a kiss of fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's such a strange and wonderful energy to this
Speaker 2: part of the film, with the optimistic and youthful responses
Speaker 2: to this story they're being presented with and the way
Speaker 2: they're riffing on it, so you know, it's they're amazing
Speaker 2: and they're to be envied because they see mostly the
Speaker 2: beauty and the romance in this story and they feel
Speaker 2: it intensely and they're not you know, it's not like
Speaker 2: they don't understand the tragedy, but and they're not getting
Speaker 2: the tragedy, but they can't fully understand it, and or
Speaker 2: their understanding of the tragedy is overpowered by their youthful
Speaker 2: enthusiasm for the romantic elements of the tale.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, that's exactly right. But then the backstory
Speaker 3: goes on. So after the Kiss of Fire, we learned
Speaker 3: that her fiance never returns from the war, we see
Speaker 3: him revealed sitting in an almost comical looking in how
Speaker 3: strange it is he's like shown sitting in the cockpit
Speaker 3: of a crashing airplane, just expressionless as the airplane goes down.
Speaker 3: And then we later see after the war, Gorgeous's mom
Speaker 3: marrying her father, posing for the photo that we saw earlier,
Speaker 3: So she's in her wedding garments and the auntie is
Speaker 3: beside her holding her white cat, looking unhappy and unfulfilled.
Speaker 3: After this, Gorgeous explains that her aunt has been living
Speaker 3: alone in the house for many years and that she
Speaker 3: gives piano lessons to the neighbors for money. And then
Speaker 3: somehow suddenly they are on a bus instead of a train,
Speaker 3: just a abrupt transition. The bus stops, the girls get off,
Speaker 3: and they are in a cartoon landscape. So they cross
Speaker 3: these different types of backgrounds, a valley with mountains, a
Speaker 3: cable bridge spanning a wide, rocky stream. There's a path
Speaker 3: through a forest where Sweet says she's afraid of ghosts.
Speaker 3: Prof says ghosts don't exist, and Kung Fu implies that
Speaker 3: she will use martial arts on any ghosts that appear.
Speaker 3: Perfect also through this whole track, Mac is just relentlessly
Speaker 3: announcing the consumption of food, just yelling like, yummy, this
Speaker 3: tastes good. One of the last things before they get
Speaker 3: to the house is the watermelon vendor scene, which is tremendous.
Speaker 3: They come across like a watermelon stand and they remove
Speaker 3: a watermelon from the shelf of the stand, and then
Speaker 3: behind the watermelon is the face of the vendor which
Speaker 3: is shaped which is very round and shaped like a watermelon,
Speaker 3: making this bizarre expression, and then he comes out and
Speaker 3: acts bizarre at them. I don't know how to Rob,
Speaker 3: how would you describe this encounter.
Speaker 2: It's mad cap for sure, and I guess it is
Speaker 2: worth noting that at heart this is a very This
Speaker 2: is certainly a hard trope. Like this is the guy
Speaker 2: that on the way to the haunted place, whose role
Speaker 2: is to either say don't you go to that haunted
Speaker 2: place or as we see here commenting after the kids
Speaker 2: have gone, I can't believe they're going to that haunted place.
Speaker 2: He fulfills that role while also being this wacky character
Speaker 2: who is selling watermelons.
Speaker 3: So the girls go on up to the house and
Speaker 3: it's on top of a hill with walls grown over
Speaker 3: by vines. They're owls diving around in the middle of
Speaker 3: the day, and the gates creak open for them. Blanche
Speaker 3: runs inside and Gorgeous's aunt greets them. She is seated
Speaker 3: in a wheelchair, her hair has turned white, and she
Speaker 3: wears these cool Ringo Star sunglasses and she's holding the
Speaker 3: cat now. And I just want to point out it's
Speaker 3: like the girls, as far as I could tell, there
Speaker 3: was no point at which they question this cat magic.
Speaker 3: Oh Blanche, the cat was Auntie's cat, and it came
Speaker 3: to fetch Gorgeous in the city. And now they're all here,
Speaker 3: and that's just not remarked upon.
Speaker 2: No, they just roll with it completely. This is the
Speaker 2: cat who lives here. I don't know where the cat
Speaker 2: that traveled with us went. This is Blanche.
Speaker 3: Also, one of them tries to take a picture, and
Speaker 3: Blanch the cat shoots green rays out of her eyes.
Speaker 3: This will not be the last time Blanche shoots green
Speaker 3: laser laser beams out of her eyes. But it makes
Speaker 3: the camera fly in the air and smash on the ground,
Speaker 3: and one of the girls yells sexy.
Speaker 2: I need to point out that even when Blanche is
Speaker 2: not necessarily on screen, even when Blanche is not necessarily
Speaker 2: doing that creepy green eye sparkle thing. We often just
Speaker 2: get random meals in the soundtrack of the film, which
Speaker 2: just keeps you on edge and like somehow keeps the
Speaker 2: weirdness level up. No matter what's happening, you're just gonna
Speaker 2: get some random mews in there and eventually musical meals.
Speaker 3: That's all right, like now mix of the thing. Yeah, yeah. Also,
Speaker 3: I should mention even though they didn't buy a watermelon
Speaker 3: from the watermelon stand in the previous scene, suddenly Mac
Speaker 3: shows up with a huge watermelon and her friends accuse
Speaker 3: her of stealing it, which she denies.
Speaker 2: She's like, I paid for it, and I trust Mac.
Speaker 2: I don't think Mac would steal.
Speaker 3: I don't think Mac would steal. She paid for it.
Speaker 3: She's got some watermelon money in her wallet specifically for
Speaker 3: an occasion like this. So they go inside the house
Speaker 3: and they learned that Antie can make her lights come
Speaker 3: on by talking to them. That's cool mm hm, And
Speaker 3: they're like sort of having a they're getting a tour
Speaker 3: of the place, and the chandelier attacks them. It drops
Speaker 3: crystal shards that impale a lizard on the floor, and
Speaker 3: then it starts to drop a more crystal shards, but
Speaker 3: Kung Fu flies in the air and attacks the shards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Blanche eats one of the lizards.
Speaker 3: Okay, and then Melody the musical friend is told about
Speaker 3: a grand piano in the house and she goes to play,
Speaker 3: but like when she gets to it's strapped with cobwebs.
Speaker 3: They remark that there are so many pictures of the
Speaker 3: cat in the house.
Speaker 2: And there are indeed so many pictures of the cat.
Speaker 2: It's a constant delight to see all of the Blanche
Speaker 2: are the Blanche iconography, as well as the various incarnations
Speaker 2: of this cat in this house.
Speaker 3: There's so many weird things in the house that we
Speaker 3: can't even We're going to reach a point where we're
Speaker 3: going to have to stop doing a sort of one
Speaker 3: of this minute plot recap and get just focus on
Speaker 3: some specific things. But like one thing is they find
Speaker 3: a skeleton in the house and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: grandfather used to treat patients in this room.
Speaker 2: Will this skeleton eventually dance randomly of its own power? Yes,
Speaker 2: it will.
Speaker 3: Perhaps, Yeah, and Anti explains how she used to give
Speaker 3: piano lessons, but you know, nobody comes here anymore, so
Speaker 3: she's been very lonely all these years. But now that
Speaker 3: she has all these girls in the house, she is
Speaker 3: very glad. Something a little ominous about the way in
Speaker 3: which she expresses her gladness. So they decide to help
Speaker 3: Antie out around the house, and they split up the jobs.
Speaker 3: Of course, Mac is going to do the cooking, and
Speaker 3: Sweet offers to do the cleaning. There is a moment
Speaker 3: in here where they're like moving around the house and
Speaker 3: somebody gets a cat thrown at them from off screen.
Speaker 3: I think it's Antie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the cat quote unquote jumps into Antie's lap,
Speaker 2: But clearly there was somebody just out of the shot
Speaker 2: gently throwing the cat into her lap.
Speaker 3: Just riding around getting cats thrown at her, talking to
Speaker 3: her appliances and furniture. At some point, we learn that
Speaker 3: Mac wants to chill the watermelon in the fridge, but
Speaker 3: the fridge doesn't work, so Antie suggests they put it
Speaker 3: down the well, which they do, and just randomly somewhere
Speaker 3: around here, Auntie looks at Mac and says, Mac, you
Speaker 3: sure look tasty now there. This is just one place
Speaker 3: to mention I could have said it earlier. I could
Speaker 3: have said it at any point. There is a very
Speaker 3: chaotic editing and transition style to this movie. The rhythm
Speaker 3: of cuts and the way one shot transitions to another,
Speaker 3: these things do not feel normal for Japanese cinema, or
Speaker 3: for any cinema that I know of, So I don't
Speaker 3: think it's a cultural thing. I think it is a
Speaker 3: unique to house thing. Just one example among many many
Speaker 3: weird things. There are sudden cross dissolves, you know where,
Speaker 3: like so it'll kind of like fade out and then
Speaker 3: fade back in on something on the screen, And normally
Speaker 3: in a movie that indicates a transition forward in time,
Speaker 3: but here the movie uses cross dissolves when the action
Speaker 3: seems to be totally continuous, same time and place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the many things that makes viewing
Speaker 2: this film feel very psychedelic. It feels like some sort
Speaker 2: of sort of an altered experience.
Speaker 3: It's violating like terms of cinematic storytelling that you don't
Speaker 3: even normally think of, that you wouldn't usually notice our norms,
Speaker 3: and like you only notice them once somebody does them
Speaker 3: differently than they're usually done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I say, he's all about bucking the trends
Speaker 2: and same way he can do to irritate Kurosawa.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're about to get to a scene, the
Speaker 3: watermelon head scene, which I think a lot of critics
Speaker 3: and film historians people who celebrate this movie have sort
Speaker 3: of noted as a transition point in the film that
Speaker 3: like things take on, just that things just get different
Speaker 3: starting at what's about to happen. And so I think
Speaker 3: this should also be the point where we stop trying
Speaker 3: to recount what happens just moment by moment, because it
Speaker 3: would be crazy and impossible to do here. But to begin,
Speaker 3: we're going to talk about the watermelon head scene. So
Speaker 3: after supper Mack disappears, she says she's going to go
Speaker 3: get the watermelon out of the well, and she doesn't
Speaker 3: come back after a while, and so Fantasy goes to
Speaker 3: look for her, and out in the garden by the well,
Speaker 3: there's a beautiful multicolor sunset. There's soft focus on the camera,
Speaker 3: like we are within a day dream, which kind of
Speaker 3: makes sense because this is Fantasy going to do this.
Speaker 3: She daydreams a lot, though it's strange because this is
Speaker 3: definitely really happening. So it's almost like even Fantasy's regular
Speaker 3: life is like a day dream. You know, it's using
Speaker 3: the cinematic conventions of showing a dream.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we're in a really nice yogurt commercial
Speaker 2: or something, you.
Speaker 3: Know, exactly, yeah. Yeah. And so Fantasy starts pulling up
Speaker 3: the watermelon from the well. It's tied to a rope
Speaker 3: and she retrieves it and it's you know, it's a
Speaker 3: round thing. But then she turns it over and realizes, oh,
Speaker 3: this is not a watermelon. It's Max's head and Mac
Speaker 3: now has sort of blue skin like a vampire and
Speaker 3: I think fangs.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and it's alive or undead or something,
Speaker 2: and it's it's hot. Horrifye. It's quite frightening. And the
Speaker 2: build up to it has been exceptional, like everything's just
Speaker 2: super sweet again, yogurt commercial, yogurt commercial, and then just
Speaker 2: absolute horror.
Speaker 3: The head talks and then it starts flying around in
Speaker 3: the air, and then it bites Fantasy on the butt,
Speaker 3: and then it vomits blood and then it goes back
Speaker 3: down in the well. Excellent, what a roller coaster. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Fantasy goes back and reports what happened, and her
Speaker 3: friends go to see the head, but when they get there,
Speaker 3: there is no head to be found. It's only a
Speaker 3: regular old watermelon, which they decide to eat. Also, Auntie
Speaker 3: is here and she like she stands up right out
Speaker 3: of her wheelchair and explains, you girls gave me energy
Speaker 3: and then grins into the camera while eating a slice
Speaker 3: of watermelon. Also, this is the scene where she sort
Speaker 3: of shows off to Fantasy and I think nobody else
Speaker 3: that she does have a third eyeball inside her mouth.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, all's a wonderfully creepy sequence.
Speaker 3: So there's all kinds of just like little little vignettes
Speaker 3: of the various characters getting freaked out by stuff. So
Speaker 3: like Sweet is cleaning the floors as she gets lured
Speaker 3: to a room with a doll that has green laser
Speaker 3: eyes like Blanch does, and it whispers her name. Gorgeous
Speaker 3: is taking a bath and she gets creeped on by
Speaker 3: like wet black hair that comes up from some unknown
Speaker 3: creature out of the water. It's horrifying. Kung Fu, in
Speaker 3: a much funnier sequence, is attacked by flying wooden logs
Speaker 3: like she's splitting wood, and then the logs start attacking
Speaker 3: her and she defeats them with karate chops. Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: one point here where Auntie says She's like one time
Speaker 3: I was excited to go to a restaurant in town,
Speaker 3: and now I'm excited like that again. And then she
Speaker 3: climbs inside the refrigerator and disappears.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this sequence is so creepy. It's shot
Speaker 2: in a way in such a way that the other
Speaker 2: characters in the room with her don't see her suddenly
Speaker 2: go into the refrigerator, but we do. And then I
Speaker 2: think she re emerges in the foreground of the shot
Speaker 2: and may break the fourth wall here. I can't recall specifically,
Speaker 2: but she does break the fourth wall at various points
Speaker 2: as if to say like, yeah, it's me Auntie, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna eat these kids.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, dancing with the skeleton, eating a severed hand,
Speaker 3: dropping a fried fish into a fishbowl, and it comes
Speaker 3: back to life. I think we see her dancing in
Speaker 3: the rafters of the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's also a sequence where Melody the musical friend goes
Speaker 3: to play the piano again, and she of course plays
Speaker 3: the house theme, you know, the Maybe we can get
Speaker 3: a little sample of that, because you've got to know
Speaker 3: what it sounds like sometime around here, while like you know,
Speaker 3: Melody's playing the piano and stuff, Gorgeous sort of what
Speaker 3: would you say, happens to her? She kind of gets
Speaker 3: possessed by the house. She's like looking in the mirror
Speaker 3: and she starts putting on her aunt's makeup, and she
Speaker 3: sees herself as her aunt with fangs and like like
Speaker 3: she's looking in a mirror, and the mirror shatters, and
Speaker 3: then Gorgeous's actual face shatters, revealing animated fire inside. I
Speaker 3: think the ghosts have taken her over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's another fabulous sequence. This one I think was
Speaker 2: inspired by just the director's daughter saying, Hey, what if
Speaker 2: my reflection attacked me, wouldn't that be scary? And of
Speaker 2: course they've taken that and applied you know, the ghost
Speaker 2: story logic to it, and yeah, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 3: Somewhere around here is also the scene we talked about
Speaker 3: earlier where their friend's sweet she's been cleaning the house up.
Speaker 3: She gets attacked by falling pillows and sentient mattresses from
Speaker 3: heaven and seemingly killed and then also maybe transformed into
Speaker 3: a large doll by the evil possessed mattresses. There's one
Speaker 3: part around here where somebody Togo, a mister Togo, their
Speaker 3: teacher as like a prince on a white horse. They're like,
Speaker 3: he's coming, he'll be here, He's gonna save us. But
Speaker 3: it's so funny every time they're like these repeated cuts
Speaker 3: back to whatever mister Togo is doing. I think he
Speaker 3: is trying to find them, but he never does. They
Speaker 3: show him like stuck in traffic in this incredibly tiny
Speaker 3: like what is this car of his? Is it like
Speaker 3: some kind of dune buggy or.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, he's he's trying to find them.
Speaker 2: He's having no luck, and spoiler is eventually turned into
Speaker 2: a pile of bananas.
Speaker 3: God, that's a crazy scene. Well, okay, we should just
Speaker 3: say what happens in that scene. Then this is a
Speaker 3: little bit later, so we're jumping around in time. But
Speaker 3: eventually mister Togo he stops for Rama and he's Raman
Speaker 3: at this Roman card. We see him driving around in
Speaker 3: the woods at night like a complete bumpkin, just trying
Speaker 3: to like find the house and being like, there's no
Speaker 3: house here, And then I guess he eventually does get
Speaker 3: close because he meets the water vendor which we know
Speaker 3: is just down the hill from the house. Mister Togo
Speaker 3: goes up to the watermelon vendor and says, do you
Speaker 3: know where the house is? The house? Watermelon Vendor says
Speaker 3: the girls they were eaten. Do you like watermelons? Mister
Speaker 3: Togo says no, watermelon vendor says what. Then he says, bananas.
Speaker 3: Watermelon Vendor collapses into a pile of bones, his skull
Speaker 3: floats and then emids smoke, and then mister Togo runs
Speaker 3: away screaming banana, banana. And then later it is revealed
Speaker 3: that by the morning he has transformed into a pile
Speaker 3: of bananas inside his car.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is what happens, and I don't know what
Speaker 2: it means how it really factors into the rest of
Speaker 2: the plot, but I guess defies to say he was
Speaker 2: unsuccessful in being the white Night for the Smithie.
Speaker 3: Now, all this while the girls are trapped in the house.
Speaker 3: They try to escape, but they've been like locked in.
Speaker 3: They try to call for help, but there's just like
Speaker 3: weird stuff going on on the phone. Melody is attacked
Speaker 3: by the piano while playing it, so she's like playing
Speaker 3: the house theme, and then the piano suddenly bites all
Speaker 3: of her fingers off, and then it proceeds to eat
Speaker 3: her whole body in this mind rending cartoon musical number
Speaker 3: where the piano is like chomping on her and there
Speaker 3: are like various human organs and body parts just sticking
Speaker 3: out all over it, like you know, like a leg
Speaker 3: hanging out of a monster's mouth. And then Melody is
Speaker 3: also still laughing as she is being devoured.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely delirious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gorgeous now sort of possessed by the evil ghost
Speaker 3: Magic of the House. Is dressed up like a pale bride.
Speaker 3: In fact, I think she's supposed to look like her mother.
Speaker 3: She's sort of become her mother in a way, but
Speaker 3: she's also become her aunt, and we see her sort
Speaker 3: of moving around accompanied by Prof and Kung Fu. At
Speaker 3: some point here, Prof gets absorbed by reading this book
Speaker 3: that I think is the ant's diary. It's a book
Speaker 3: that contains lore, and through reading this book, Prof will
Speaker 3: get more of the backstory that explains what happened at
Speaker 3: the house. Oh but meanwhile she's Prof is like looking
Speaker 3: at this book and just yelling like unscientific, illogical. At
Speaker 3: the same time, Kung Fu is staring into this giant
Speaker 3: steampunk grandfather clock and sees an undead version of Sweet
Speaker 3: inside it, and the clock is reeking rivulets of blood
Speaker 3: down its glass front.
Speaker 2: This is probably a good point, Is any to mention
Speaker 2: that Obyashi again was the head of special effects on
Speaker 2: this film and said in the interview that like, they
Speaker 2: actually could have used Toho's in house special effects people,
Speaker 2: who were quite good, you know, they'd worked on various
Speaker 2: pictures Godzilla movies and so forth. But he said they
Speaker 2: didn't want to go that route because they didn't want
Speaker 2: the special effects to be too believable, Like they needed
Speaker 2: to have a certain unreality to them, and I guess
Speaker 2: even an enhanced unreality.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, I mean the clock scene looks very
Speaker 3: frightening and looks great. There are other parts that don't
Speaker 3: look realistic at all, but I love the style. There
Speaker 3: is one part where after Melody gets eaten by the piano,
Speaker 3: we just see severed, bloody, disembodied fingers playing the piano
Speaker 3: and still playing the house theme.
Speaker 2: Except Mew style. Right is this when it starts being
Speaker 2: like a meal? Oh?
Speaker 3: I think that's right. Yeah, yeah. Oh. We learn more
Speaker 3: from the Diary of Gorgeous's aunt. We learned that, you know,
Speaker 3: she was waiting for her fiance to come home from
Speaker 3: the war in denial that he had died. And she
Speaker 3: mentions that all of the young girls in the town
Speaker 3: are gone now and she is all alone. And then suddenly,
Speaker 3: while they're like reading this learning about it, a giant
Speaker 3: head bursts into the room with them, and it is
Speaker 3: the head of Gorgeous and she says, I'm in my
Speaker 3: aunt's world now, and then she morphs into a giant
Speaker 3: pair of lips, and one of the girls yells huge lip,
Speaker 3: and the lips revealed that Auntie actually died many years ago,
Speaker 3: and she became after she died, and she became a jealous,
Speaker 3: vengeful ghost. I think the idea is she she so
Speaker 3: longed for her fiance, she wanted to marry him and
Speaker 3: couldn't accept that he had died in the war. So
Speaker 3: now instead she is this vengeful ghost that eats all
Speaker 3: of the unmarried girls who come to her house. So
Speaker 3: I think the suggestion is this may have been what
Speaker 3: happened to all of the girls in town who were
Speaker 3: getting piano lessons one by one. Yeah, And she says
Speaker 3: that when she eats them is the only time that
Speaker 3: she can wear her bridle gown, and then she says,
Speaker 3: now it's your turn, just let me eat you.
Speaker 2: So yes, at this point, like the poster art has
Speaker 2: come true that the promise is fulfilled. House is a
Speaker 2: house that eats people.
Speaker 3: So there's a bunch more stuff that happens. The girls
Speaker 3: are attacked by various flying household objects. I do you
Speaker 3: want to emphasize the house theme and how much it
Speaker 3: is like just the objects one would find in a
Speaker 3: domestic residence are all turned evil in the movie. Everything
Speaker 3: that would be in a house, appliances, furniture, just household
Speaker 3: items are all now monsters that attack the girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we've talked about this on stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind before. Some of these ideas about house
Speaker 2: significantly old household objects can kind of become animated and
Speaker 2: so forth. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So while they're being attacked by the house, prof
Speaker 3: at some point realizes that in order to escape, they
Speaker 3: must destroy Blanch the Cat, or perhaps destroy an image
Speaker 3: of an image of Blanch the Cat which is on
Speaker 3: the wall. And so Kung Fu is like, right, got
Speaker 3: my orders, and she tries to carry out this attack
Speaker 3: on the image of the cat, but she is in
Speaker 3: turn attacked by an overhead lamp, which latches onto her
Speaker 3: skull and electrocutes her, and then like the lamp seems
Speaker 3: to suck Kung Fu into a psychic vortex where she
Speaker 3: perceives floating, rotating body parts and hears the voices of
Speaker 3: her dead friends. But somehow she snaps out of this
Speaker 3: vortex and the upper half of her body seems to
Speaker 3: have been destroyed, but her disembodied legs fly out of
Speaker 3: the lamp and kick the image of the cat on
Speaker 3: the wall, which vomits blood and freaks out and leaps
Speaker 3: up in pain, which in turn causes Gorgeous to gush
Speaker 3: blood and scream like a vampire doust in holy water.
Speaker 2: And when the cat leaps up, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: animated lightning cat. It's really all this has to be
Speaker 2: seen to be understood. We can describe it to you,
Speaker 2: but you just have to experience it. It's even crazier
Speaker 2: than we made it sound here. It's also like, yes,
Speaker 2: there's lots of blood going on here, but it's also
Speaker 2: and it is gory. But I don't want to like
Speaker 2: oversell that and say, like, oh, this is just a
Speaker 2: real Gorefest. It's not because it's so weird and there
Speaker 2: is this unreality to the effects. It exists in its
Speaker 2: own demands.
Speaker 3: It's hard to describe what comes next. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of like there's like cat images vomiting blood. Lots of
Speaker 3: things vomiting blood. People drowning in blood. Yeah, floating on blood, floating,
Speaker 3: There's there's all this blood. And then finally it seems
Speaker 3: that all of the girls are devoured by the house
Speaker 3: and that Gorgeous is something altered. She is somehow merged
Speaker 3: with Auntie and whatever comfort you know, she offers to
Speaker 3: her friends is a prelude to eating your soul. So
Speaker 3: they weird to understand that all of the girls are
Speaker 3: have their souls eaten by the house. But then, oh man,
Speaker 3: the movie has such a stinger. The next day, Remember
Speaker 3: remember Gorgeous's new step mom, Rioko. Yeah, she's scarf. Yeah,
Speaker 3: with the scarf she's driving through the country or scarf
Speaker 3: blowing in the wind. She said she was going to
Speaker 3: go to the house to uh, to catch up with Gorgeous,
Speaker 3: you know, to get to know her. Uh. And she
Speaker 3: comes to no, wait maybe she wait, do we learn
Speaker 3: whether she and the father had actually gotten married yet
Speaker 3: I think maybe they had not. I think they were
Speaker 3: going to get married.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is still like she's like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go patch things up with her, you know, beforehand.
Speaker 3: Yes, So she's driving through the country, she finds the house.
Speaker 3: She walks by the watermelon stand where we see mister
Speaker 3: Togo has turned into bananas, and then she goes up
Speaker 3: to the ants house. This bittersweet kind of beatlesy pop
Speaker 3: song is playing. She wanders through the garden and it's
Speaker 3: very dreamlike and ethereal, and she meets Gorgeous at the
Speaker 3: house and is invited inside, and she asks Gorgeous, where
Speaker 3: are your friends, And Gorgeous says they're still sleeping, but
Speaker 3: they'll be up soon when they're hungry. They get up
Speaker 3: when they're hungry, and then Rioko bursts into flames.
Speaker 2: Amazing, just absolutely amazing, like legitimately creepy and amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh and then there's like a monologue at the end
Speaker 3: which I feel like I should just relate. I don't
Speaker 3: see exactly how it connects, but it says, even after
Speaker 3: the flesh perishes, one can live in the hearts of others,
Speaker 3: together with the feelings one has for them. Therefore, the
Speaker 3: story of love must be told many times so that
Speaker 3: the spirits of lovers may live forever, forever, the one
Speaker 3: thing that never perishes. The only promise is love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't fully understand here. It reminds me a
Speaker 2: little bit of the how on the nineties Outer Limits.
Speaker 2: You'll have the narration voice come on at the end,
Speaker 2: and some things up in ways that sometimes feel a
Speaker 2: little disconnected from what you just watched. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe something's lost in translation here, or maybe it is,
Speaker 2: like so much of this film intended to be a
Speaker 2: bit off kilter. It intended to make you scratch your head.
Speaker 3: So that's how again. Truly one of the weirdest films
Speaker 3: ever made, widely recognized as such, and I have to
Speaker 3: concur with that opinion. It is there's not really anything
Speaker 3: like it.
Speaker 2: Agreed, it is a masterpiece. This is a masterpiece of
Speaker 2: weird cinema. Highly recommend it again. Luckily, it's pretty easy
Speaker 2: to get your hands on if you're interested in watching it,
Speaker 2: and it's definitely worth watching it. I mean, have it
Speaker 2: on in the background if nothing else, but I think
Speaker 2: you'll be sucked in. It's hard to casually watch this movie.
Speaker 2: I watched it by myself and I kept catching myself
Speaker 2: like making faces, you know, like my jaw literally dropping
Speaker 2: at some of the sequences.
Speaker 3: It's like a dream that a cat had about being
Speaker 3: a human.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might be. It's as good of an explanation
Speaker 2: as any. Well, there you have it, House. It's great
Speaker 2: to have finally discussed this film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: I felt like it was faded to happen at some
Speaker 2: point or another, and we hadn't covered a Japanese film
Speaker 2: and a spell there, so it was good to cover
Speaker 2: another one here. Obviously, we'd love to hear from everyone
Speaker 2: out there. Do you have thoughts on House, memories of
Speaker 2: seeing it for the first time, hearing about it for
Speaker 2: the first time. Write in. We would love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. As always, will remind you that Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core
Speaker 2: episodes and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. Go to letterbox dot com. That's
Speaker 2: l E T T e r Box d dot com.
Speaker 2: Look us up. Our username is weird House. We have
Speaker 2: all the movies we've covered listed there, and sometimes you
Speaker 2: can get a peek ahead at what's coming up next. Also, hey,
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Speaker 3: Here's thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
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