Day 25: House (1977)

Day 25 of Calloween Movie Month

Content warnings: cheesy looking 70s movie gore, cannibalism, child harm, child death, war, flashing images, shaky cam

Recommended?: Yes

Spoilers and discussion of many of the mentioned topics below. You have been warned.

They weren't lying. There was a house in this movie.



House follows Gorgeous and her six friends, Prof, Mac, Fantasy, Melody, Kung Fu, and Sweet, to her aunt's house in an attempt to reconnect with her family. But there's more to her aunt and the house she inhabits than meets the eye.

House is the kind of film that feels sort of impossible to talk about. It's a rumination on the trauma of losing your friends to war after the Hiroshima bombing. It's also a movie where a girl gets eaten alive by an evil piano. It perfectly encapsulates how scary and dangerous it feels to grow up. There's also a scene where a watermelon farmer gets so upset a guy likes bananas that he explodes into a skeleton and dies. It understands the feeling of adolescence and youth, especially those moments that feel average when they're happening but make you cry to look back on when you know you'll never have them again. It's also a movie that has a character named Kung Fu.

This film is, as you've most likely heard, genuinely insane. Except it's not. Insanity implies wild and unplanned behavior. Running nude through the busiest street of New York without a care for the police tailing behind you. That's insanity.

This film however is so specific and calculated that calling it that feels like a lie. Every single frame was so perfectly pieced together to bring the most genuine emotional reactions from the audience. Did you think it was scary? Funny? Stupid? Heartwarming? Whatever it made you feel, it did make you feel something. And it was strong enough for you to notice it.

I've never seen someone put to film the feeling of a childhood dream. Not a nightmare, but a dream. One where certainly, horrible violent things happen, but it doesn't really shake you. The kind you're not entirely sure was even a dream at all, despite the absurdity of it.

Every piece of this is astonishing. Effortlessly switching between live action, stop motion, 2D animation, practical gore effects, early greenscreen. Actors in gorgeous sets that are made to crumble on top of them. Mixing its highly stylized visuals, its down to earth performances, its lighthearted and occasionally beautiful score, it's eccentric characters, and most importantly its youthful optimism and adult cynicism, House creates an identity all its own.

This film throws whatever it can at the wall to see what sticks. And they knew all of it would, because it's all covered in syrupy prop blood and half eaten candy.