House (1977)

What the somersaulting pink pythons was that??

I just wanted to review this movie cause I've never seen it, heard a bit about it, and wanted to see what it's all about. What I got was a film so batshit crazy it makes Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas a sobering and as real a movie you can get without it being Schindler's List! How do I talk about it? Other than attempt to dissect and better understand the movie by describing the madness on screen? Well, apparently this movie was the director's first attempt in feature length film production and many of the ideas came from nightmares and other horrorshow ideas of his young daughter and that's fine. There is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from childhood fears. But I don't have a flippin' clue where the rest of the movie's ideas came from. It takes the very simple concept of travellers entering a spooky haunted house to unparalleled new avenues and directions, with the actual style of editing and camera shooting like it was made more for a music video than a film, quite good actors especially since none of them had previous acting experience, and effects so experimental and not quite the greatest looking that I question if somebody slipped PCP in my drink and none of this is really happening. It certainly made me question if the production team had some high power blotter acid on set. It's such a visually interesting movie with stuff I've never even dreamed of seeing in a movie. It's pretty amazing. So amazing it's actually part of the Criterion Collection with it's library consisting of impressive, distinguished, and culturally cultivated films that had some impact and significance on the genre and film itself. I mean the effects are interesting if nothing else, the movie has a unique style to the point where the actual characters don't have names. I am not kidding, the group of girls who go this haunted house do not have names. Now in horror movies, specifically slasher movies you can label each character as part of a group, you got the pretty girl, the nerd, the meathead, the joker, and son on. No, no, no, no this is a whooole other level!  The characters names ARE their attributes, with names like Gorgeous, Fantasy, Professor, and Kung-Fu. I couldn't make this up if I tried. I am sad I lack the imagination to make this stuff up! I honestly really like all the girls, specifically Professor and Kung-Fu but what even are these names?? It's like Suspiria in terms of plot yet somehow makes even less sense, at least in Suspiria there was a reason to explain everything. Not here! I'd even take the, "And then I woke up." ending, at least it would explain the absurd nightmare events. And yeah the horror moments are sometimes horrific but other times it's so absurd and it makes me laugh in huge bursts. There's also a surprising amount of nudity that I wasn't expecting but really I've seen it all by now. Can I recommend it? I don't even know. The only way I could is if you are on some serious pain meds and you're being as weird and bizzare as the movie. Which I might be on very soon. So by all means knock yourself out or don't, but I will give props to Criterion for bringing this movie to my attention. I'm sure I'll watch it again. Tune in next time for The Dead Don't Die.