October 17th, 2011

Director Nobohiko Obayashi’s horror film/fever dream features 7 teenaged girls visiting the aunt of one in her haunted house in the Japanese countryside.  One by one the titular house consumes them all in increasingly bizarre fashion.  It should be noted that our “research” informs us that the majority of the plot was developed by Obayashi repeatedly asking his pre-teen daughter “and then what happens?”  As the film defies the Cavalcade’s standard methods of review, we armed Tom with a 12 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and locked him in a room with the film.

All we found were empty beer cans and this review…
0:00 – 4 beers in, ready to watch Hausu
-totally wrote “bears” at first

1:00 – Well it’s Criterion…this must be a brilliant foreign film
-Oh, Hausu means “House”
-aaaand the title card just ate its own eyeball

2:00 – In Japan, flashbacks are green?
-pictures are red
-oooo, sailor scouts!
-“Fantasy” is her name?

3:00 – Even in Japan, the female gym teachers are gay
-“arranged marriage“ = beard

4:00 – Yeah, she’s envious of their impending summer vacation and not that two teen girls are skipping, hand in hand
-who can defy gravity?
-and have watched too much Laverne and Shirley.
-as the red sun of Krypton quietly sets on Japan

5:00 – Talking’s not a souvenir of a fun vacation
-soooo much random piano music
-”I’m so glad we decided to build our home in front of a matte painting.”

6:00 – Fee fie foe fum, I smell an evil stepmom
-“earlier” when we were talking one minute ago?

7:00 – I love flashbacks in the one set they built

8:00 – She totally just “Wonder Womaned” into a new outfit!

9:00 – Damn right you hate him for moving on with his life after 8 years of mourning your mother’s death and marrying a new hot chick

10:00 – “Gorgeous” is a name?
-“Melody”
-“Kung Fu”
-“Prof”
-“Sweet”
-“Mac”
-Thank God all of their names are descriptive, my racist brain would not have understood their real names.

11:00 – And they all have one identifiable character trait!
-that dude’s driving a dune buggy like a normal car
-I had no idea Japan had a Hazzard Prefecture

12:00 – I want you to be my surrogate mommy, Auntie.
-you don’t mind, right?

13:00 – Mysterious random response letter? Check!

14:00 – Seriously, they could only afford one set for the house, and they built the backyard patio?
-and shot the scenes through the windows…

15:00 – Now them’s some jolly shoemakers…
-Togo’s been transported to a world where Benny Hill controls physics!

16:00 – That bucket is still stuck on his ass.  May want to see a doctor about that.
-why is he singing in English?

17:00 – Trains are so much bigger in Japan
-her cat got her own ticket
-and we’ve gone cartoon

18:00 – Why do Japanese girls always drop acid on long train rides?
-Sepia  = flashback now…

19:00 – Flappers and Samurai coexisted at the same time
-just like Jesus and Dinosaurs….
-are they watching the flashback, too?
-old school = his plane is going down but he’s so nonchalant

20:00 – And now we’ve gone purple
-I’ve often thought of mushroom clouds like cotton candy
-that cat is totally in on it!
-whatever it is…
-And now, beer #5

21:00 – America = scary is unpaved roads
-Japan = scary is rope bridges over 6 story gorges
-winner? Japan
-doomed-Mouseketeer roll call!

22:00 – Seriously, these girls are wandering into an lsd-fueled nightmare and are completely okay with their impending doom
-RUN! It’s the Watermelon Man!

23:00 – He said it!  WE HAVE A TITLE!
-why are his pit stains blood stains?

24:00 – It’s the Addams Family house!

25:00 – Director sure does love his fish-eye lenses
-that cat has telekinesis!

27:00 – Why aren’t they scared of the witch and her witchy powers?
-wtf?
-that chandelier attacked them!
-and no on cares.
-the Japanese are so laid back

29:00 – Can you be a crazy cat lady with only one cat?
-that song’s not getting old at all….

30:00 – It is a big clock….

31:00 – Everyone’s so jolly…..

32:00 – The cupboard shoots rats….
-how could you lose a watermelon in a well?
-she’s going to eat them!

33:00 – Wait, bath?  I thought they were cooking?

-why don’t more cooking shows take place in bathrooms?

-nope, cooking

35:00 – That’s not a watermelon!  It’s Mac’s head?
-how is she not freaking out?
-Where did the puke come from?
-she’s got no body!

36:00 – These girls are not helping

37:00 – Auntie’s not eating watermelon, she’s eating Mac’s soul!
-and that’s an eyeball in her mouth…that tracks with her own eyes….

38:00 – Goddammit, if the girls want to take a bath together, you let them!
-Soooo single…

41:00 – There’s hair growing out of the water…
-the cicadas ARE noisy

42:00 – Attack of the sentient logs!
-good thing Kung Fu knows Kung Fu
-You’ll see Mac IN HELL!

43:00 – She just went in the refidgerator and is now upstairs….
-OH MY GOD SHE SEES ME!
-she’s dancing with the skeleton
-this is now Troma’s version of Peewee’s Playhouse

44:00 – Alright, halfway through. You can do this, O’Reilly!
-More cat pictures of the one cat that is totally the bad guy.  I’m shocked. Shocked I say…

47:00 – There’s a dancing skeleton behind you!
-well, why wouldn’t it be a full moon?

48:00 – I don’t remember growing fangs…..

49:00 -That’s a bleeding mirror
-Girl, your face is falling off!
-and you’re on fire?

50:00 – The piano’s going all Simon on her…

51:00 – My god, she’s being attacked by Futons.  FUTONS!

53:00 – The disco jazz music of death!

54:00 – Yes, you will all disappear.  Get out of the damn house!
-God in Heaven, the movie’s being invaded by Far From the Madding
Crowd…..

56:00 – Mr. Togo can’t save you now!
-Stop moving intermittently!
57:00 – I’ll call for help….with the oldest phone on the planet…that’s already on hold
… with Hell…shit…
-Her aunt is eating you one by one!  That’s why you should be scared!
59:00 – Gorgeous is juggling souls in the Swamp of the Damned
-and here comes the Electric Mayhem to the rescue
60:00 – Not even Kung Fu’s Kung Fu can break down the door?
-wait, you’re going to try to use reason to figure this out?
-That’s madness!
61:00- Why are they not freaked out by finding the body parts of their best friends?
63:00 – And that’s a girl in Kabuki Make-up.  They’re officially screwed.
-Hello, Beer #6
-how does no one notice the dancing skeleton?
64:00 – Yes, your fingers are gone.
-the piano is eating Melody!
-and the goldfish watch, nonchalantly unimpressed
65:00 – Wow, that girl is just a mess of parts
-and yet she seems okay with it
66:00 – Goddammit, what is going on?
-That clock is bleeding…green blood
-why am I shocked at this point?
67:00 – The fingers are playing piano by themselves…and keeping the beat fairly well…
68:00- WHO THE FUCK IS THAT GUY?

69:00 – Dammit, Togo, girls are dying!  Get your dune-buggy-driving-ass in gear!
-that song will not stop playing

70:00 – That’s a giant head….
-They’re being attacked by The Rocky Horror Picture Show lips!

71:00 – Whelp, everything’s officially gone to hell now…
-Kung Fu’s going to Kung Fu her way out of this!

73:00 – I’m so confused I could cry right now….
-This is what happens with the Japanese remake Suspiria…

74:00 – Kung Fu is being lamped to death while Prof and Fantasy are being sucked into Toontown.  What in God’s name are they putting in PBR these days?
-They’re all just a sea of parts now.
-HA! I told you it was the cat!

75:00 – And every piece of furniture is now bleeding… the cat’s blood

77:00 – Bananas! The one weakness of the watermelon vendor!
-And, there goes Prof

78:00 – The nudity is a little late in the game, but any port in a storm of “I don’t even know what anymore.”
-I can see where James Cameron stole the ending of Titanic now

79:00 – So, Gorgeous was her Aunt who was her Cat?

80:00 – How is there always wind blowing on the stepmom?

81:00 – Of course MR. Togo has been transformed into a pile of bananas in the next morning.

82:00 – GODDAMMIT WHAT IS GOING ON?
-Because you’ll be eaten!  That’s why you don’t want to move into this house!

83:00 – How is this movie still going?

84:00 – I swear, this has turned into the Japanese version of the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video

85:00 – She ate them all!  That’s where her friends are!
-They’re going to eat you next!

86:00 – Don’t try to justify what you did!  You’re a terrible person! I don’t care how awesome you look in slo-mo with the wind machine blowing!

87:00 – Goddamn you, Hausu.  Goddamn you to hell!

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