CUFF: Hausu

rare Japanese film hits Calgary

By Cody Stuart

Oh, to be Japanese. To bask in the knowledge that you used to watch all those wacky game shows long before they caught on and got all tired on American TV. To comprehend fads so bizarre that others fly nearly around the world just to get a peek. To have roots in a culture so strangely opposed to itself, like some sort of metaphorical Godzilla film, with tradition (Godzilla) and innovation (we'll say Mothra) engaged in some bizarre battle for supremacy.

When watching Hausu, the 1977 film from the prolific Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi, it's pretty sure you're witnessing not only something special, but something that never (and I mean never) would or even could have been filmed on this side of the rising sun. Although attempting to fully encapsulate the film in a simple synopsis would be as futile as a single man mounting a banzai charge against an entire battalion of well-armed soldiers, at its basest elements, the story is a sort of fucked-up take on Agatha Christie's oft-referenced Ten Little Indians, although it's safe to say that ol' Mrs. Christie never dreamt of her victims being dispatched of by a man-eating piano, or by killer bedsheets.

"House is by far probably the most psychedelic, mind-tripping film I have seen. I watch a lot of films. I am not quite sure how else to describe it, but know that this can only be experienced first hand," says Brenda Lieberman, co-founder of the Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF). CUFF are co-presenting a special one-time only screening of the film with the Calgary Cinematheque October 29 at The Plaza, "Melding the really wacky-out-there film from Japan that CUFF audiences have grown to love, with the older titles that the Cinematheque screens."

The film, which (BANZAI!) follows a group of teenage girls (Oshare, Fanta, Kung Fu, Oshare, Mac - short for sto"mac"h - and Melody) as they pay a visit to Oshare's dead mother's sister (aka: her aunt) at her house (aka: Hausu) in the country, has not been shown in theatres since its original release. However, a newly remastered print has been doing the rounds on the festival circuit as of late.

Although in its day the film was about as stylistically unique as you can possibly get, Hausu now appears as the half-breed mongrel child of a night of depraved cinematic lovemaking, with H.R. Pufnstuf, Quentin Tarantino, Billy Van (look it up), George Lucas and Douglas Sirk all contributing some of their seed to the mélange. All the while the film is, as mentioned, a take on one of the oldest formulas in the horror business, as one unsuspecting victim at a time is picked off. Only in this particular film, it's done in a manner that leaves you feeling like you dug something up out of your strange uncle's backyard, eaten it, and are now experiencing the wonderful yet not altogether comforting hallucinogenic aftereffects.

The Calgary Cinematheque & The Calgary Underground Film Festival are co-presenting Hausu as a fundraiser at the Plaza (Calgary) October 29 at 9:15pm. Tickets are $10 ($1 off to CUFF, Cinematheque & CJSW Members).