House

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Part of our The Way of the Sword Film Talk Series!

Travel with Ryan Ferguson to Japan as he continues his explorations into the hidden corners of a rich film culture, featuring rarely screened cult classics and enough WTF-strangeness to keep you coming back for more!

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie House (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available in North America, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.

Presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

Ryan Ferguson

Ryan Ferguson is a film programmer and musician based in Hamilton, ON. He was the lead programmer of the AGH Film Festival between 2014 and 2021 and is the former Curator of Film at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Japanese historical and contemporary filmmaking is Ryan’s primary area of interest, and ‘The Way of the Sword’ is part of a series of film programs he is developing to provide more exposure to the lesser-seen corners of Japanese cinema.

Showtimes:

• October 12 @ 8:00 pm
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