A brief introduction
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HOUSE (1977) marks the feature-film debut of director Nobuhiko Obayashi and stands today as one of the most distinctive works of late twentieth-century Japanese cinema. It is a film that blends tropes of Western cinema and traditional Japanese folklore into a kaleidoscopic whirlwind, where absurdity rises at a frenetic pace and the borders between comedy, horror, memory, and fantasy dissolve into pure spectacled chaos.
The film follows a group of schoolgirls who accompany their friend Gorgeous on a visit to her aunt’s remote countryside home. The sweet, youthful adventure turns sour when the girls are quickly consumed one-by-one, in shockingly absurd ways, by the house itself, as animated by the aunt’s unresolved grief.
But simple description of the film's story offers little understanding to the true nature of its viewing experience. HOUSE is an audiovisual rollercoaster that often sidesteps its own narrative in favor of cinematic play. The mood of the film rapidly bounces between polarities of sincerity and absurdity, accompanied by dreamlike, or perhaps nightmarish, visuals.
Each shot is soaked in vibrant, saturated colors; painted mattes create fantastically artificial backdrops; abrupt switches to animation and visually obvious chroma key effects reject any foundation in reality. Its eclectic, playfully bizarre aesthetics are often too easily relegated to the labels of “psychedelic” or “trippy.” But examination of the film’s historical context and director Obayashi’s personal artistic lineage reveals a much richer logic behind its strangeness, one grounded in decades of experimentation, love for cinema, and cultural memory.
The path to HOUSE began with the shifting terrain of the 1970s Japanese film industry. As television became a dominant medium and foreign blockbusters captured global audiences, major studios like the Toho Company faced an identity crisis. Their traditional formulas were no longer drawing viewers. In a move that echoed the very same impulses that had sparked the Japanese New Wave in the late 1950s, Toho sought to revitalize its offerings by taking a risk on unconventional talent. Instead of relying on established directors, the studio looked outward for innovation and experimentation that might re-energize the domestic market.
They found their unlikely candidate in Nobuhiko Obayashi, a prolific director of television commercials known for his frenetic editing, pop-art sensibilities, and experimental shorts. Toho tasked him with conceptualizing a horror film that could rival the success of Steven Spielberg's JAWS. True to the very same outward-looking philosophy that had led Toho to him in the first place, Obayashi turned to an unexpected collaborator: his eleven-year-old daughter, Chigumi. Her childhood fears, including pianos that bite, mirrors that consume, houses that hunger, and of course, watermelons, became the raw material for the project. Obayashi and screenwriter Chiho Katsura shaped these ideas into a screenplay that Toho vice-president Isao Matsuoka approved after only three hours of deliberation.
With this freedom, Obayashi infused HOUSE with the full range of his influences: the eerie compositional traditions of Japanese folklore as seen in films like Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan; the playful fragmentation and bright pop-art palettes of the French New Wave; and the experimental editing techniques he had honed in advertising. The result is a film that appears chaotic on the surface but is, in fact, a concentrated expression of Obayashi’s lifelong love for cinema.
Understanding this historical and personal context transforms HOUSE from a curious cult oddity into a vivid vignette of a filmmaker and an industry searching for new cinematic possibilities. It stands not merely as a horror-comedy but as a manifesto of what cinema can be when unbound by convention.
The Heritage of Kwaidan and Japanese Folklore
To understand the visual imagination behind House, it is essential to examine how the film draws from both traditional Japanese folklore and earlier cinematic interpretations of the supernatural. The term kwaidan (怪談) refers to classical tales of haunting spirits and ghostly visitations, a body of storytelling that has shaped Japanese conceptions of the uncanny for centuries. Director Masaki Kobayashi brought several of these narratives to the screen in Kwaidan (1964), a film that stands as one of the most influential treatments of supernatural folklore in Japanese cinema. Although Kwaidan and HOUSE differ radically in tempo, their visual strategies reveal notable points of connection. Kobayashi’s film is distinguished by its elaborate hand-crafted sets and its highly stylized presentation of the eerie and otherworldly. These techniques created a visual vocabulary for cinematic ghost stories that Obayashi later reworked, intensified, and adapted to his own distinct sensibility.
The Woman of the Snow, Kwaidan (1964)
The Woman of the Snow, Kwaidan (1964)
Both films use color as a tool for emotional distortion rather than realism. Kwaidan presents skies painted in unnatural hues, with swirling clouds of red, blue, or purple, and vibrantly saturated scenes that suggest a world governed by psychological rather than physical logic. In HOUSE, scenes display similar chromatic intensity, shifting suddenly between colors in ways that destabilize the viewer’s sense of place and mood. The comparison reveals a shared trust in heightened artifice as a way to access the supernatural.
HOUSE (1977)
Specific visual motifs also echo across both films. Kwaidan features turbulent water tinted with blood, oversized disembodied eyes that hover with quiet menace, and terrifying spiritual reflections. HOUSE reinterprets each of these images with greater speed and intensity.
Above: Hoichi the Earless, Kwaidan (1964)
Below: HOUSE (1977)
Above: The Woman of the Snow, Kwaidan (1964)
Below: HOUSE (1977)
Above: In a Cup of Tea, Kwaidan (1964)
Below: HOUSE (1977)
Watermelon as it appears in Hoichi the Earless, Kwaidan (1964).
Watermelon in HOUSE (1977).
Even HOUSE's strange fixation on watermelon bears uncanny resemblance to shots from Kwaidan, further revealing a thread of direct visual inspiration and homage.
These visual correspondences also tie directly to older Japanese folklore. Tales of yōkai (apparations) often describe body parts that act independently and spirits that inhabit household objects.
A nukekubi yōkai as it appears in Bakemono no e (化物之繪, "Illustrations of Supernatural Creatures"), a form of kwaidan monster whose detached head is able to fly around.
Mac's disembodied head attacks Fantasy in HOUSE (1977).
By drawing from the from the deeper reservoir of folkloric imagery and the painterly language of Kwaidan, Obayashi formed a vivid visual vocabulary that defines the distinctive look of HOUSE while still acknowledging the traditions that informed it.
Tsukumogami as illustrated in Shinpan bakemono zukushi (新板化物つくし, "A New Collection of Monsters"), a term used for tools or objects that are said to have acquired spirit.
Melody is eaten by a possessed piano in HOUSE (1977).
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