"Hausu" at Subway Cinema's Asian Film Fest in NYC

Subway Cinema's Asian Film Festival in NYC has always been one of my favorite places to catch hard-to-find horror flicks from the other side of the globe. In past years I've caught The Happiness of the Katakuris, the utterly batshit puppet horror movie Marronnier (complete with the director, who speaks no English, taking Q&A via a Godzilla puppet in a Yankees uniform who could only say "Thankyouverymaaaaach!") and midair-sex opus The Eternal Evil of Asia.


This year the fest is really outdoing itself by screening one of the most influential and utterly bizarre Asian horror movies ever, Obayashi's 1977 haunted house experiment, Hausu.

Co-written and conceived by Obayashi's 11-year-old daughter (no joke), this candy-colored feverdream of a film takes a bunch of teenage girls and plops them into a mansion on a hill that is inhabited by a sort of wicked stepmother and her laser-shooting evil white cat. Over the course of the film the ladies are dispatched in an array of increasingly creative ways, including being eaten by a piano.


We became a bit obsessed with House a few years back and eventually tracked down a bootleg, but the quality is pretty bad and it would be awesome to see the film projected from an original master (even digitally, as it will be this Thursday in NYC), since the visuals in the film are so jaw-droppingly unique. If you've never heard of the movie, do yourself a favor and find it!

Here's the trailer, to whet yer whistles. And big thanks to Abby for the tip!!