What 1977 Japanese cult film is a surreal horror about a schoolgirl in a haunted house? House is the answer.
House, known in Japan as Hausu, follows a schoolgirl named Gorgeous who travels with six friends to her ailing aunt’s country home. Once they arrive, the house turns against them through supernatural attacks involving furniture, household objects, a piano, and even the building itself. The girls are picked off in bizarre and often deliberately cartoonish ways.
Directed and produced by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, House blends haunted-house horror with comedy, psychedelic imagery, hand-drawn animation, abrupt editing, and deliberately artificial effects. The screenplay was written by Chiho Katsura, while ideas from Ōbayashi’s young daughter Chigumi helped shape the film’s strange imagery and childlike logic.
Toho originally wanted a Japanese film inspired by the success of Jaws, but the project remained stalled for two years because no director wanted to take it on. Ōbayashi continued promoting the idea until he was allowed to direct it himself. Although critics initially responded negatively, House became a box-office success in Japan and later gained international cult status for its fearless, surreal style. It is a comedy horror film, not a conventional realistic ghost story.