HOUSE Print

Farmer selling watermelons: The girls were... eaten. Farmer selling watermelons: They were eaten!... Delicious. Oshare: Fanta, you're fantasizing! Oshare: The girls will wake up... when they are hungry. Farmer selling watermelons: Do you like watermelons? Keisuke Tougou-sensei: No! I like bananas! Farmer selling watermelons: Bananas? Keisuke Tougou-sensei: Ah! Bananas! Bananas everywhere! Keisuke Tougou-sensei: Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Suîto: You're so cool, Kung Fu. Kunfû: I'm sorry, Sweet. from ‘HOUSE’ (1977) Starring Kimiko Ikegami (A Chaos of Flowers), Miki Jinbo (The Possessed), Mieko Satô, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, and Kumiko Ohba (Bashment). Story by Chigumi Obayashi (The Visitor in the Eye). Screenplay by Chiho Katsura (The Deserted City). Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi (Turning Point). House (Japanese: ハウス, Hepburn: Hausu) is a 1977 Japanese comedy horror film directed and produced by Nobuhiko Obayashi. The film stars mostly amateur actors with only Kimiko Ikegami and Yōko Minamida having any notable previous acting experience. The film is about a schoolgirl traveling with her six classmates 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. The film company Toho approached Obayashi with the suggestion to make a film like Jaws. Influenced by ideas from his daughter Chigumi, Obayashi developed ideas for a script that was written by Chiho Katsura. After the script was green-lit, the film was put on hold for two years as no director at Toho wanted to direct it. Obayashi promoted the film during this time period until the studio allowed him to direct it himself. The film was a box office hit in Japan but received negative reviews from critics. Housereceived a wide release in 2009 and 2010 in North America, where it received more favorable reviews. Following the success of the American film Jaws, a proposition came from the Toho film studio for Nobuhiko Obayashi to develop a similar script. To find inspiration for the story, Obayashi discussed ideas with his pre-teen daughter Chigumi Obayashi. Nobuhiko sought her ideas, believing that adults "only think about things they understand ... everything stays on that boring human level" while "children can come up with things that can't be explained". Several of Chigumi's ideas were included in House such as a reflection in a mirror attacking the viewer, a watermelon being pulled out of a well appearing like a human head, and a house that eats girls. Other themes Chigumi suggested drew upon her own childhood fears. These fears included a pile of futons falling on her that felt like a monster attacking her, a large loud clock at her grandparents home, and getting her fingers caught in between her piano keys. Nobuhiko shared these story ideas with screenwriter Chiho Katsura. These ideas reminded Katsura of a short story by Walter de la Mare about an old woman who is visited by her granddaughters who then puts them in a trunk. Obayashi incorporated themes of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the script. Obayashi was born in Hiroshima and lost all his childhood friends from these bombings. Obayashi applied these themes with the plot element of a woman's ghost waiting for her lover's return from World War II. The woman's bitterness about the war turns her into an evil spirit that devours the girls who were unaffected by the bombings. Obayashi and Katsura had worked previously on a script titled Hanagatami before being assigned to House, which made the screenwriting process easy for both of them. Obayashi titled the script House as he felt that a foreign title for a Japanese film would be "taboo”. Source: Wikipedia