Foreign Film Critique – Anastacia Tennant

1) Title of Film: Hausu (House)

2) Year of release: 1977

3) Language of original film: Japanese

4) Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi

5) Actors:

Kimiko Ikegami – Gorgeous / Oshare

Miki Jinbo – KunnFu

Kumiko Ohba – Fantasy

Ai Matsubara – Gari / Prof

Mieko Sato – Mac

Eriko Tanaka – Melody

Masayo Miyako – Sweet

Kiyohiko Ozaki – Keisuke Togo

6) Give a brief plot summary

Oshare (Gorgeous) was looking forward to going on a vacation with her father until she discovered that
his new girlfriend was going to be tagging along because she was hurt by her father finding new love.
Oshare’s mother had passed 8 years ago and she felt as though he was betraying her and her late
mother. Thus, she made other plans with her friends from school (who were so very cleverly named
alongside traits that each girl has -- KunFuu (strong and has wonderful reflexes), Sweet (enjoys
cleaning, very nice girl in general), Fantasy (loves to take pictures, daydreams often), Mac
(eats a lot), Gari/Prof (incredibly intelligent), and Melody (a musician)) for the summer. Oshare
decided to take her friends with her on a trip to her aunt’s house, and the tables quickly turn to a series
of strange and unexplainable events. Little do the girls know, Oshare’s aunt is actually deceased and the
house is haunted. Each girl disappears one by one. At first, they don’t believe it’s actually happening, but
sooner rather than later, they realize what is going on and try to find ways to escape the evil
happenings.

7) Analyze the social and philosophical issues the film addresses.

There are several social and philosophical issues that are present in this film, many of which may go
right over the potentially targeted audience of this film. I would say that this film was targeted toward
late teens and early adults. This is primarily because of the graphics used and the way that the movie is
pieced together. The movie is set up in a way where it kind of hides the underlying messages that it
comes to prove, whether intentional or not. For those who analyze film intensively, I think that it may
have been easier to pick up on what the biggest issues were throughout the film.

One issue evident throughout a very small portion of the beginning of the film, and perhaps toward the
end is one that I mention several times throughout my writing on this film – that of war. This is one
minor detail that ultimately leads to many of the girls being murdered. The aunt is envious that the girls
have the opportunity to fall in love with any young man at the tip of their fingers but angry that they
have not taken advantage of said opportunity. This is due to her love dying in World War II. To think
about this issue more in depth, there is so much more to war than women being depressed after their
love dies in war, and I would say that that’s a pretty big issue. War imposes so much harm on millions of
lives daily across the world. Death, destruction of villages and homes, and more. While the war was a
solid 30 seconds or less of the film, it is still a social issue that is mentioned in the film and it is
something that we don’t always think about in depth. We tend to have the mythical mode of thinking
set forward.

The other big issue and the one that lies in every crack and crevice of this film that I picked up on was
that of feminism and femininity being showcased throughout the movie. This seemed to be the other
thing that ultimately leads to many of the girls' deaths, and the lack of feminist-centrism is the reason
that one girl survived the traps and intense pain that these girls face throughout the film. Her survival
was entirely based on the fact that she had a particular fascination with a man (her teacher.) The movie
goes to point out that women are oppressed on a day to day basis because they don’t fit under the
guidelines that are set by men. However, toward the end of the movie, it contradicts its own feminism in
the sense that it demands its actresses to showcase their nude bodies for minimal sexual thrills. Then
again, this just reinforces the idea that women are oppressed in many ways – and being sexual objects is
a major contributor to this oppression on a daily basis. This film highlights the fact that men are rarely if
ever, satisfied by seeing a woman embrace who she is, and on top of that, being fully clothed. I think
that the men who watch this film ought to recognize any pleasure given from seeing the suffering
women nude.

Regardless – this film speaks volumes on many social issues, regardless of the way it is done.

8) What is your response to the message of the film?

I love the underlying message of the film that many may have missed while watching it. I may even be
misinterpreting the message of the film, but I will discuss what I got from it. I believe that this crazy
horror film explores femininity on a different level. It does this by not only having almost the entirety of
the cast be women who all clearly love and care about each other and are proud to be the women that
they are, but additionally because each girl ultimately meets her demise because they do not fit the
mold that society says they ought to fit into. In one way, society demanded or highly recommended that
young women be married at the time that the film was supposed to take place (this was also a part in
why they died because Gorgeous’ aunt was never able to marry her love as he died in World War II – so
it was envy that they were able to live happy lives, and anger that they were not taking advantage of
being able to find love during said happy lives), but in another way as well. It seems to be what they are
passionate about that ultimately kills them. It is clear that if they are not what a man would want them
to be or do what a man would want them to do, they meet their demise. To be more clear, let’s look at
the girls’ interests and the way that each dies or survives.
Mac loves snacking, cooking, and all things relative to food. She presents herself in a rather casual and
relatively tomboyish way. She was killed when she set a watermelon in a well to cool it down, which left
only her head.

Kung Fu has a major interest and experience within martial arts. She faces all the challenges that are put
at her feet from the house with no present fear. She dies when she steps away from her few remaining
friends to take on a challenge just a bit too big to face on her own.

Sweet enjoys rather childish activities and toys despite the way she fits into society’s mold by her
enjoyment of cleaning. She is devoured by the house when she is distracted by a little doll in an isolated
room rather than finishing her tasks.

Prof is incredibly smart and comes very close to having complete understanding of why her friends are
being murdered. She passes when she tries to control Shiro, using Gorgeous’ aunt’s diary.

Fantasy daydreams often and lives in a fantasy world – she adores her teacher immensely. This
fascination with the man seems to be what allowed her to survive.

Melody has a lot of musical talent and is particularly very talented at the piano. She is murdered by the
piano piece by piece. It starts by biting off her fingers and slowly eats her alive.

Gorgeous is the center of the film – she showcases her femininity more than her friends do. So far as she
reapplies her makeup before seeing her aunt for the first time in several years. Her feminine stance in
life is what causes her to be transformed back into the traditional idealized Japanese woman, all the way
down to the traditional clothing and beyond.

9) What cultural differences did you notice in the film (philosophical outlook, humor,

architecture, customs, clothes, cities, weather, food, music, dancing, lifestyles, etc.)? What did

you learn about history, economics or politics?

I noticed quite a bit of cultural differences throughout the film. While many of them were quite minor
and not very noticeable, they do add up to be a lot. For starters, the architecture is certainly one to be
mentioned within a film about a house. The doors that led to the backyard area with the well were
beautiful and very different from our traditional French door style in the US. They were square shaped
sliding doors with a sort of cross-stitch done with wood in them. A couple of other things I noticed were
not only within the architecture but how things had been set up throughout the house. It was not laid
out like every house you would see in a film made in the US. I loved that. Another difference was seen in
the clothing that they wear. There were a couple of dresses that I noticed that had very traditional
Japanese print that was paisley-esque. There was also a woman on the bus that the group of girls took
who was wearing a beautiful Kimono, which is certainly different from casual US attire. Additionally,
while it may not be traditional or normal Japanese culture to take a group of your girlfriends to your
aunt’s house for the summer to rebel against your father – that is certainly not something that I have
noticed happening within my peers. (Haha) There is not a lot of mention of history, economics, or
politics at all. However, there is something to be said about the brief mention of the war in the early
beginning of the film which does bring up a small portion of history in Japan.
10) What techniques did the filmmaker use that were different from what you see in the films you

normally watch?

This film was incredibly unique to those that I typically watch. That ought to say a lot, due to the fact
that Hausu is a horror movie and I am an absolute horror fanatic. To be specific, the lighting was very
flashy and assisted the way that certain things were highlighted throughout the movie. Very
impressively done, especially for a movie made in 1977. The effects that they used on the cat
throughout the movie and on the aunt to make it more and more evident that something was off about
them was especially interesting to me. Not to mention, the soundtrack was wonderful for this film. The
intense moments were intense not only because of the action that was taking place in the movie itself,
but also especially because of the music. I love the psychedelic vibes that the music/soundtrack assisted
in adding to the movie as well. Everything that was put into the movie was unique to horror movies that
I typically watch.

11) Discuss how what you saw in the film relates to one of the assigned readings or class

discussions we have had.

This relates to more than one class discussion/reading that we have had, some in little or smaller ways
than others. At the beginning of the film, the girls were talking about Oshare’s auntie that they were
going to visit. Oshare was hyping up the love story between her aunt and uncle and eventually got to the
unfortunate temporary downfall of their love story when her uncle received his draft letter for the war
that was going on at the time. The worry and hurt that her aunt had to constantly go through whilst
wondering if her love was going to make it back home alive and in one piece was evident in the 15 or
fewer seconds that it was discussed in the film. It made me think about our experiences of war unit and
all of the experiences that people who are in the country that a war is going on in and those who fight in
it have to go through. Additionally, the few times that friends and their influence on happiness have
been mentioned in our happiness unit were especially reflected in this movie due to how much these
girls clearly care about each other.

12) Why do you think I assign an international film?

I think that you assigned an international film for many reasons – one being that most of the class likely
doesn’t regularly watch foreign films and there is so much to be appreciated and learned from these
films that we may or may not regularly see in films that are made in the US. Additionally, it opens us up
to see films that may not even cross our minds otherwise – which again brings me back to the idea that
we have so much to learn and appreciate from these films.