I treated myself out to watch Ugetsu Story and House at the : J-Horror (or Japanese Horror).
Ugetsu story takes place during Japan’s civil war. A lowly potter with a wife and child takes to the city to seek his fortune. He’s enchanted by a beautiful lady who turns out to be a ghost but is able to pull himself away and return home after a long time. His wife greets him, cooks for him, and mends his clothes… but the potter finds out the next day that he is alone with his son… his wife was a ghost.
I was especially eager to see how the end would turn out because the concept of a man being greeted and cared for by a ghost wife/lover upon arriving from his war-time exploits is also used in the 80s anime : Windaria AKA Once Upon a Time (Harmony Gold). Windaria ended similarly. The male protagonist comes home after ending his duties as a double agent and is greeted by his fiancè only to find out she’s just about to fly off into the floating ship of heaven. That’s the first anime that really moved me.
The Ugetsu Story wasn’t as moving as Windaria (or scary for that matter), but I believe it would have been for audiences in 1953.
“House” on the other hand is completely WHACKED. A movie made for audiences in 1977, it clearly blossoms with so much groovy disco mojo that after I could have died from diabetes. You have the chirpy Sailor Moonish grade school girls. You have upbeat music in practically every scene. Right from the get-go I was hoping against hope that the bubbly razzle dazzle vibe would be used as a foil or contrast to the horror later in the movie.
Alas, it was for naught.
Apparently the House is a low budget film with its painted backgrounds, pow and crunch
effects straight out of The Yellow Submarine, cherry juice blood, and enough surrealism to shame Parker Lewis and Ally Mcbeal.
It felt a lot like Shake Rattle and Roll (our very own bagets comedy/horror feature in the Philippines). But House does have one thing going for it - pretty teenage Japanese girls. And as you probably well know - Japanese films don’t mind showing the beauty of their women’s flawless skin to the audiences below 18, to which I suppose was the movie’s target market. I enjoyed laughing nonetheless to the film’s ridiculous portrayal of teen horror.
