House

Not all films are like dreams, but House is one of them. It looks like it was edited by a kid who was high on sugar and had a god complex while drawing in a psychedelic book. Trying to explain the plot is a trap. Yes, "Gorgeous" does take her six friends to her aunt's country house. Each friend is named after a personality trait. They do get eaten by the house. But that description doesn't discuss the flying severed heads, the kung fu fighting logs, the demon piano that eats a girl, or the blood sprays that smell like melons. House is weird because Nobuhiko Obayashi used to make experimental TV commercials, which he then turned into a "maximalist" film language that makes the movie feel like a moving collage. One of the most confusing things about the movie is that it doesn't use depth in any way and instead uses abstract, flat images. Obayashi didn't try to make the house look like a real place; instead, he made it look like a pop-art picture that is slowly melting. This gives it a "storybook" feel that makes the sudden violent episodes feel even stranger. The editing and pace of the movie make this "fever dream" feeling even stronger by breaking the flow of the story all the time. The film doesn't follow the usual rules of continuity because it cuts quickly, freezes frames suddenly, and uses stylistic transitions like iris or heart-shaped wipes. At any given time, a rough animation or a superimposition could pop into the frame, putting a character's face on top of a spinning melon or a grandfather clock that eats people. The way the pictures are stacked makes the screen feel crowded and suffocating, like the movie is being scratched, painted, and torn apart right in front of the viewers' eyes. It’s a fever dream about the trauma of war disguised as a supernatural comedy. It is a film that hates the concept of "normality" and "subtlety." Pure, unadulterated, technicolor chaos. 5/5.