#87: House
Part of the Top 150 Films series
How does one describe the full experience of House in 150 words? Plot synopsis only goes so far: a schoolgirl and her six classmates travel to her ailing aunt’s country home, where they come face to face with supernatural events as the girls are, one by one, devoured by the home. So far, so “normal”. Cognitive dissonance, however, is a mild reaction to actually watching Obayashi’s bugfuck vision, that started off as a Japanese film studio’s response to the runaway success of Jaws. If there’s anything House is not, it’s Jaws. Knowingly camp with its kitschy special effects, and freakishly terrifying with its non-sequiturs into random acts of violence, House is as pure as cinema gets (or at least uses every facet at the medium’s disposal, including the proverbial kitchen sink). Go in cold and be wowed by the exuberance, the terror, and the best white cat since Blofeld’s pet.
