House (1977)

House (NR)

A group of 7 overly cheerful and cliche-ridden young women take their Summer vacation at the house of a reclusive Aunt in the Japanese countryside.  What they find there, and how many drugs the someone must have slipped you and the filmmakers, is Nobuhiko Obayashi's cult masterpiece of horror, HOUSE.

A rare bird indeed, House is an arthouse splatter flick, a psychedelic comedy, a post-WWII-Hiroshima-catharsis and a surreal Japanese folk-fairy tale all rolled into one (pass it to the right).  Conceived with the help of the director's young daughter, the picture captures an artistic beauty of youthful imagination, while the adults throw every technical camera trick and special effect in a mad-dash for effectiveness.  You will never know what is going to happen next, and it keeps happening at such a rapid pace you can barely keep up.  Meanwhile the lovely surreal sets and obviously-on-purpose painted backdrops (produced on Toho's soundstage) are inhabited by a gaggle of spritely amateur actresses with heavy tropes for characterization.  There's the tough one, the smart one, the fat one, the pretty one, etc.  Another character is the music, featuring both orchestrated and 70s-rock'n'roll.  The soundtrack adds another layer of insanity and cheer to the proceedings that one can almost feel David Lynch bobbing his head in time to the beat.

Wholly original, wholly unique, and yet vaguely reminiscent of what a Japanese Jordowosky and Monty Python collaboration might have been (if you like your Holy Mountain holding hands with Sam Raimi in a girl's school uniform with just a dash of Dali, this is the film for you).  House is a colorful masterwork of genre bending ingenuity that was mostly unknown in the U.S. until it's rerelease to surprised Western audiences in 2010.

If you don't like it, then leave and don't let the shōji doors hit you on the way out!

9 Pianos that Eat People out of 10 (GREAT)

The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

The Incredibly Melting Man (R) - Review

"You're gonna melt just like a grilled cheese sandwich..."

Steve, an astronaut on a doomed mission in space is exposed to unknown radiation through the rings of Saturn and unsurprisingly to us the viewer upon returning to Earth he begins to melt.  What is surprising is that his condition leads him to attack and eat anyone he drippingly meets, and that my friends encompasses the whole of the plot.  Originally scripted as a black comedy parody of 1950s & 60s monster movies (for sure the atrocious Monster-A-Go-Go), supposedly the producers cut out most of the intended humor to make it more marketable as a horror movie in the exact vein as Go-Go, ie. cheap, nonsensical and plodding.  However misaligned the film may be by film critics and MST3K, Rick Baker's early make up FX are astonishing and the cinematography strangely fascinating with true moments of brilliance.  With some truly bizarre scripting and editorial decisions, where luckily some of the humor went un-macheted (including a fun bit with a charming elderly couple in a lemon grove), The Incredible Melting Man is a typical midnight BMovie with more talent hiding in it's little sludgey finger than the likes of Bill Rebane could ever secrete.  It's a sloppy, revolting mess... and thats not just custard dripping from Steve's eye talking.

5.5 Slo Motion Nurses out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)

Sorcerer (1977)

Sorcerer (PG) - Review

"Trundle In the Jungle"

A former mafioso is on the lam in South America, murder and incarceration keep him from returning home to America.  The town he lives in is filled with birds of his feather, 3 fellow exiles with shady pasts from different lands, each looking over their shoulders for the long arm of justice.  When an oil well deep in the jungle catches fire and Corporate America comes with the promise of vast wealth and hero status for anyone courageous (or greedy) enough to drive a truck full of highly unstable nitrogylcerin through impassable jungles, mountains and swamps to snuff out the conflagration, well hot damn you have yourself a 1970s hardcore action film!

A remake of the highly regarded french film Wages of Fear, Sorcerer stars Roy Schnieder and is directed by William Friedkin (both of The French Connection fame).  The movie is a tense Sunday drive over rickety suspension bridges and fraught with 8 foot potholes.  The tension between the men is also palpable as they compete for the prize and suspect each other of treachery.  The questing antihero Schneider also have a deadly load of dirty consciences along for the ride that we are frequently reminded of.  They are all hoping for redemption amid the impassable, for a life of value as they recklessly risk them, a suicide run spiked with Nature's fury.  Sorcerer has a terrifically made tension that must eventually snap.

The majority of the movie is running on the fumes of the French New Wave period and doesn't quite reach its destination.  Character motivations and longevity remain a mystery, how this movie ever got made and out of that real jungle alive another.  The scope is just a little too big for the film to grasp a safe handhold, its a marathon of adrenaline that wears down filmmakers and audience alike.

7 Flashbacks out of 10 (GOOD)