Hausu (1977)

12 out of 14 people found the following review useful.

Phantasmagorical + English Subtitled DVD, 8 March 2007

Author: VideoKidVsTheVoid from Springdale, Arkansas

In the hands of experimental Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi, the tale of seven "unmarried" young high-school girls who, during a school break, travel to a spooky, remote hilltop house to visit the reclusive, mysterious Aunt of one of their fold only to be consumed one at a time by the Ghost-House/Aunt in increasingly novel ways, is escalated into a spastic, phantasmagorical confetti burst of avant-garde techniques and tonalities. Not a minute goes by without some kind of imaginative and spirited experimental visual manipulation or interjection; from kaleidoscopic color schemes, to frame and time altering collage montage, to wild, high-concept mixed media integration (animation, mattes, props, sets, etc), to mini-movie injections (lovingly parodying/mimicking everything from silent film stylistics, to romantic fantasies to obligatory action scenes). Any and all workings of the film form are here incorporatedly warped; from imagery and editing to music and sound to content and presentation. Even the sketches of characters and their respective performances by the actors are hemmed in time with the overall off-the-wall configuration. (Example: Each girl is intentionally drawn with their stock personalities (the musician, the over-weight eater, the athlete, etc) novelly paraded in gleeful iconic irreverence.) The moods and tones of the film are equally melodic in their own discordant tangential way; seamlessly walking the line between comedy, horror and the deadpan aloof. It all adds up to a whole lot of fun. Where else could you see a girl eaten by a piano, an upright Bear helping cook dinner at a roadside noodle-stand or a man turned into a pile of bananas because he doesn't like melons!? With all its packed in candy-colored confections and novel door prizes, "Hausu" is a cinematic surprise party all in one...just add you.

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The Real Runaways: KROQ, Teen Movies and Cheap Tacos | Features | The L Magazine - New York City's Local Event and Arts & Culture Guide

When Cherie Currie sang "California you're so nice/California you're paradise," the irony in her voice—all that petulant Valley Girl boredom and indifference—reflected a new cultural mood in Los Angeles. While hot rods, bikinis, and tasty waves abounded in the songs of the Runaways, just as they had in the music of the Beach Boys, Currie's detachment implied that the idyll Brian Wilson had been crooning over was anything but real.

One of the great achievements of The Runaways, Floria Sigismondi's new film about the legendary band, is to evoke that particular paradise—the real one, that is—in fine detail. Southern California in the mid-1970s was evolving, and as the Runaways' raw sound presaged, it was time for the mellow country-rock vibe then dominating the Sunset Strip music scene (think Jackson Browne, The Eagles, and the rest of that Topanga Canyon crap) to move over for the polymorphous perversity of glam and punk.

In her review last week of The Runaways, the LA Weekly's Karina Longworth described the Los Angeles of this period as "dystopic." (I think she meant dystopian.) And yet as compared to the overdeveloped, smog-choked collection of exurbs it is today, I can assure you as someone who was there that the Southern California of that era was, in its own fashion, so nice. To give you a sense of what I mean, here are some key things to look for in the film.

The grass is never green. Nevermind the cruddy condition of the Hollywood(land) sign, one of the few clichés Sigismondi resorts to. The dry, patchy, yellow lawns out front of the movie's working-class tract homes are a much better indicator of a paradise fraying. There were historic droughts in Southern California in the 1970s, to be sure, but the truth—as anyone who has seen Chinatown knows—is that water has always been a rare commodity in Los Angeles, and in those less affluent neighborhoods of the city this is what front yards often look like.

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