House

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House

1977

1h 27m

Mystery & Thriller

Comedy

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Watchlist

Watchlist

Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

90%

Tomatometer

42 Reviews

78%

Popcornmeter

2,500+ Ratings

In an effort to avoid spending time with her father and his creepy new lover, young Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) resolves to visit her aunt's remote mansion. With six of her closest friends in tow, including the musically inclined Melody (Eriko Tanaka) and the geeky Prof (Ai Matsubara), Gorgeous arrives at the estate, where supernatural events occur almost immediately. A severed head takes flight, household appliances come to life and a portrait of a cat seems to contain an evil spirit.

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Critics Consensus

House is a gleefully demented collage of grand guginol guffaws and bizarre sequences.

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Scott Tobias

AV Club

09/27/2022

House seems born out of restlessness and contempt for the status quo; it’s one of those movies that doubles as a piece of film criticism, intent on exposing and exploding all the tiresome clichés that commercial cinema constantly recycles.

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Carrie Rickey

Philadelphia Inquirer

09/27/2022

3/4

Too absurd to be genuinely terrifying, yet too nightmarish to be merely comic, "House" seems like it was beamed to Earth from another planet.

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John Monaghan

Detroit Free Press

09/27/2022

3/4

A silly, surreal cross of Japanese horror, anime and just plain weirdness, this 1977 fever dream of styles makes you wonder: How did this ever get made?

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Brian Bisesi

Horror Movie Club Podcast

Oct 22

3.5/5

House's biggest strength and weakness is that it is utterly disorienting which can be very engaging for the viewer but can also keep you from being grounded in the film.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

10/20/2024

3/4

A gonzo horror flick that surely must have influenced Sam Raimi as he prepped The Evil Dead.

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Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

10/31/2023

FIVE STARS

Visually and viscerally stunning from start to finish, “House” is much more than a mere masterpiece.

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Matthew A

@iWupp Jun 28

To this day I have yet to watch another film that comes close to the insanity of this film. The entirety of this film feels like a dream that you can't wake up from. It's as if the editor and director took LSD and decided to use every method possible to create a hallucinogenic dream world. To do this they use a plethora of editing techniques including rapid cuts, random vignettes, whip pans, animation, double exposed shots, and color overlays. And even the simplest of scenes are done in a dreamlike manner that grips the viewer. Whether it be a conversation with the camera whip panning between the actress's or a train ride suddenly turning into a psychedelic animated sequence. I've never seen a crew throw everything they have at one film like this. Again, a lot of it is owed to the editing but you also can't ignore the beautiful backdrops and skies used to create the atmosphere. Do they look fake at times? Review continued on Letterboxd - @iWup

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Jeremy B.

@Cubs_N_Bears1978 May 31

No. WTH did I just watch?!

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Joshua H

@RT44825951 May 19

House is a crazy ride that will have you entertained all the way through

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Manda R.

@oatmeal Feb 19

Masterpiece. Weird and disturbing and cool and funny. It’s like watching living art.

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Giovanni C.

@heathermason Feb 2

This movie was very strange and not really engaging. The story is very simple: a group of Japanese schoolgirls spend their summer at one of the girl’s aunt’s house where strange things happen. It got so weird and nonsensical that it was just boring to watch. I see how people can enjoy this but it just wasn’t for me.

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Jack F

@MovieFan111 Nov 17

Not many people know about this movie. And that's probably a good thing. I did not like it. I mean, was it supposed to be scary, funny, something in between? Free on the Internet Archive.

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Nobuhiko Ôbayashi

Director

Kimiko Ikegami

Oshare

Ai Matsubara

Gari

Miki Jinbo

Kunfû

Eriko Tanaka

Merodii

Kiyohiko Ozaki

Keisuke Togo

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Synopsis

In an effort to avoid spending time with her father and his creepy new lover, young Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) resolves to visit her aunt's remote mansion. With six of her closest friends in tow, including the musically inclined Melody (Eriko Tanaka) and the geeky Prof (Ai Matsubara), Gorgeous arrives at the estate, where supernatural events occur almost immediately. A severed head takes flight, household appliances come to life and a portrait of a cat seems to contain an evil spirit.

Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Producer: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, Yorihiko Yamada
Screenwriter: Chiho Katsura
Production Co: Toho Company Ltd.
Genre: Mystery & Thriller, Comedy
Original Language: Japanese
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 29, 2011
Runtime: 1h 27m