A House Full Of Weird

In other news that's unrelated to Independence Day, last night I got the chance to go to a midnight movie that wasn't Rocky Horror for the first time in a long time. (And no, the midnight screenings of summer blockbusters don't count.) The movie in question was House, a 1977 haunted house movie from Japan. When I hear that title, I immediately think of either the awesome '80s movie with William Katt and George Wendt or Hugh Laurie's drug-addicted doctor. But nope, this House has nothing to do with those Houses.

I'd actually never heard of this movie until I saw the poster for it outside the Kentucky Theater last week. So I looked up the trailer on YouTube, and it looked way too friggin' weird. But I figured I'd give it a shot anyway, and yeah, I was right. It is weird. It's nonsensical, bizarre, and generally does not abide by any sort of standard storytelling rules. This is quite literally the most surreal movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

I can't even begin to properly describe this movie, mainly because I'm still not sure what I saw. House had to have been made by a filmmaker who either exists on a completely separate plane of existence from normal humans like me, or has taken so many drugs that it would scare even Raoul Duke. I'm not sure I can even assign it a star rating like I usually do, because I think it's beyond that sort of thing. The movie is just there. I'm not sure what I saw and I'm not sure whether or not I liked it, but I can tell you this: I've seen absolutely nothing like it before.

And I doubt I ever will again.