House Hausu
(DVD Video) 

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1977.

Special features: Trailer (2 min.); Émotion [featurette] (40 min.); Constructing a "House" [featurette] (46 min.); "House" appraisal [featurette] (4 min.); booklet includes the essay "The Housemaidens" by Chuck Stephens.

Cinematography, Yoshitaka Sakamoto ; production design, Kazuo Satsuya ; music, Asei Kobayashi, Mickie Yoshino ; songs performed by Godiego ; editor, Ogawa Nobuo.

Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ōba, Ai Matsubara, Mieko Sato, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Saho Sasazawa, Asei Kobayashi, Mitoshi Ishigami, Tomokazu Miura, Fumi Dan, Godiego, Haruko Wanibuchi, Yoko Minamida.

Tokyo teenager Gorgeous is upset with her long-widowed father - he wants to marry his new girlfriend Ryoko. Seriously miffed, Gorgeous hits the road to visit her aunt in the country, bringing along her best girlfriends Sweet, Melody, Fantasy, Prof, Mac, and Kung Fu. The titular house belongs to the wheelchair bound aunt, whose large white cat has been immortalized in artwork throughout. Things soon start to go very badly for the teenagers. While there are pinwheeling body parts, there are also bits of homage to avant-garde cinema, Looney Tunes cartoons, schlock Italian horror, chop-socky martial arts - all in a dreamlike, phantasmagoria of brightly colored Seventies-era kitsch. This is hardly to everyone's tastes, but it is old-school Japanese insanity of the very best kind.

MPAA rating: Not rated.

DVD; Region 1, NTSC; Dolby Digital mono; full screen presentation, preserving the 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the original theatrical exhibition.

In Japanese with optional subtitles in English.

Winner, 1978 Blue Ribbon Award, Best New Director--Nobuhiko Ôbayashi.