Toho’s HOUSE Coming to Criterion DVD and Blu-ray

DVD and Blu-ray cover art for The Criterion Collection’s upcoming release of director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s cult classic horror film HOUSE.
Photo courtesy of Image Entertainment. © 1977 Toho Co., Ltd.

Source: Image Entertainment
Official Movie Site: janusfilms.com/house, criterion.com/house
Special Thanks to Marsha Altmark

Seven teenage girls are trapped in a hungry haunted house. Photo courtesy of
Janus Films. © 1977 Toho Co., Ltd.

The Criterion Collection is proud to present Toho’s stunningly bizarre horror movie HOUSE (Hausu, 1977) on Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, this is a must have for any Japanese cult horror film fan.

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable movie HOUSE? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of SCOOBY-DOO as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions. Equal parts absurd and nightmarish, HOUSE might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Or perhaps the mind of a child: the director fashioned the script after the eccentric musings of his eleven-year-old daughter, then employed all the tricks in his analog arsenal (mattes, animation, and collage) to make them a visually astonishing, raucous reality. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.

HOUSE will be released on October 26th, 2010. Both the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray are now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

For anyone who’d like to see HOUSE on the big screen, the film is also still in limited theatrical release in the United States. Check the movie’s official site for a list of theaters and playdates.

Auntie (Yoko Minamida) has sinister plans for her niece
and friends. Photo courtesy of Janus Films. © 1977
Toho Co., Ltd.

HOUSE (Hausu)

Country: Japan
Release Year: 1977
Running Time: 88 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Language: Japanese with English Subtitles

From The Criterion Collection
Release Date: October 26, 2010
DVD (1 Disc) SRP: $29.95
Blu-Ray (1 Disc) SRP: $39.95

Disc Features
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
• Constructing a HOUSE, a new video piece featuring interviews with director Nobuhiko Obayashi, story scenarist and daughter of the director Chigumi Obayashi, and screenwriter Chiho Katsura
• EMOTION, a 1966 experimental film by Obayashi
• New video appreciation by director Ti West (HOUSE OF THE DEVIL)
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• An essay by film critic Chuck Stephens

For more information on HOUSE please see the earlier coverage here on SciFi Japan: