House (Japanese: ハウス, Hepburn: Hausu) is a 1977 Japanese comedy horror film directed and produced by Nobuhiko Obayashi. It is about a schoolgirl traveling with her six friends 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. It stars mostly amateur actors, with only Kimiko Ikegami and Yōko Minamida having any notable previous acting experience. The musical score was performed by the rock band Godiego.
In Tokyo, a teenage girl known as Gorgeous, so called for her beauty, has plans for a summer vacation with her widowed father, a wealthy film composer who has been away in Italy on business. When he returns home, he surprises Gorgeous by announcing he has married a woman named Ryoko Ema. Distraught, Gorgeous goes to her bedroom and writes a letter to her aunt, asking if she can visit her for the summer instead. Her aunt replies and allows her to come. Gorgeous invites her six friends: Prof, who is highly academic and very good at problem-solving; Melody, who has an affinity for music; Kung Fu, who is athletic and especially skilled at kung fu; Mac, who has a big appetite; Sweet, who is bubbly and gentle; and Fantasy, who is a constant daydreamer.
House is a deeply psychedelic suspense thriller. In watching it we enter a confined and childlike world of psychological terror. The seven girls who feature in the film are aspects of a single personality, moving back through memories and trauma. Far Out described it as "a psychedelic trip like no other, featuring a flurry of animation, surreal violence and enigmatic Japanese energy [...] Obayashi suffuses his world with a mix of vivid hand-drawn animation and surreal cinematic choices to take the viewer on a dance of phantasmagorical absurdity."
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