Hausu

A poster by Sam Smith for Nobuhiko Obayahshi’s 1977 film House. A new 35mm print is currently making the rounds in the USA, courtesy of Janus. Here is a list of screenings.

From the NY Times review:

The yelps you’ll hear and possibly emit, though, will be of surprise and delight, not terror. “House,” which turns on a misbegotten, increasingly violent trip taken by seven teenage girls, is not in the least scary, despite its body count and gore. If the hairs on your neck snap to attention, it will be only because of Mr. Obayashi’s flamboyant visual style, his comic flights of fancy and genre manipulations. This might be about a haunted house, but it’s the film that is more truly possessed: in one scene a piano bites off the fingers of a musician tickling its keys; in another a severed head tries to take a bite out of a girl’s rear, snapping at the derrière as if it were an apple. Later a roomful of futons goes on the attack.

View the trailer here.