Hausu is an exercise in awesome, a queen of kitsch foriegn cinema. I first saw this in a movie theater, so I got to experience the film in its full beautiful colorful glory.
Basic premise is the main character is a young girl grapples with the loss of her mother, the addition of her new stepmother, and decides to go with her schoolmates on a summer trip to her distant aunt's house. What these girls do not know about the aunt and her home is what makes the story.
But I think what makes the movie is the fucking hilarious characters like some real-time Sailor Moon (on acid) meets Abbot and Costello (on acid). *
*Note: unfortunately, whilst I have never actually done acid, I like to speculate that this movie is exactly what it would be like. What this also translates to is: I have a lot of trouble imagining that sober people created this film. But maybe that's just me.
Case in point severed head of girl biting the ass of other girl at random point in the film which will be explained during the film but not really.
This is the beauty of some films...many of them foreign because we Americans like to have everything tidily explained n wrapped up. Maybe that's a mean generalization, but maybe my generalization is true. This isn't artful, gorgeous hole-in-the-story ambiguity we get in movies like 'Antichrist', but it is a horror movie that is all about going along for the ride and enjoying the trip...whatever it is you are tripping on be it your own unique brain chemistry or a can of rubber cement.
I would recommend this movie as a must see even though I'm not planning on giving it a super high score. The plot is really dumb, not gonna lie. The characters are a step above mental retardation. And I imagine the effect was more scooby-doo than fear-inducing. But there you have it, in spite of my well-crafted scoring system, we have a kick ass movie that everyone who enjoys the variations of the field of horror films should SEEEEE!
It's visually gorgeous, ridiculously funny, a self-parody probably (?) The music is laughable with it's own flare of late seventies ballad gold embedded in parts of the film. The characters are cartoons, and if you can deal with that and not expect depth or explanations of what you are seeing, this movie may also earn its place as one of your own favorite horror flicks. Think of it as a cross between scooby doo, a bubble gum commercial, and an art film.
After a year off writing horror reviews in lieu of doing more interesting stuff we have returned to our previously scheduled program, with a few changes. We at Betty Bloodletter simply did not have the time to review stuff...so now the backlog is intense. To fit in the sheer amount of awesomeness that needs to be seen by our adoring horror loving public, we may shorten our reviews, but will try to keep them equally offensive riveting! But blogging, no matter how interesting, fun and awesome the product is, is still admittedly a ginormous waste of unpaid time. And there's nothing Betty Bloodletter hates more than wasting time. Except romantic comedies. So, again for your amusement, here's a cornucopia of other wastes of time...entitled...
A CORNUCOPIA OF VARIOUS WASTES OF TIME. ................by Betty Bloodletter
Because nothing turns you on more than hours of creeping up to read the ignorant bumper sticker on the car in front of you.
Yeah! Why live a real life when you can live a thousand vicarious ones!
Overly-padded men strut back and forth for hours over a hundred yards of boring.
Children. Enough said.
I get a buzz putting children next to cigarette butts. 5 seconds well spent.
There IS a reason for the first four letters. Have YOU figured it out?
Kill yourself with chemicals!
Your boring status is wasting my precious time. Nobody wants to hear about your amazing time at the Blink 182 concert.
Hipsters. Waste of time, oxygen, blood, and caring.
