Editorials
[Let’s Get Weird] Hausu (A.K.A. House)
“Let’s Get Weird” is a new series that is written by Jon Dobyns of electronic group Twitch The Ripper. In it, he reviews and shares his thoughts on some of the lesser known horror classics. Be sure to pick up TTR’s new album Colorblind on iTunes.
It can be quite the chore looking for a film that is demented, bizarre and without a detour from the story path, just for the sake of shock value. An uncanny, natural flow is hard to maintain. How does it occur in a cluster-fuck of bold, brazen images that can cause epileptic seizures? You would also hope that somewhere out there, there is still something so bewildering that even the wildest dreamers wouldn’t be able to whip it up. So if you are yearning for something a little more to expand your visual palette, let’s take a trip across the Pacific for the ultimate kids-in-a-haunted house story.
Calling Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s 1977 landmark, House (not to be confused with the 1986 William Kat classic), a masterpiece would be an understatement. It is a visual spectacle you won’t believe until you experience it.
Criterion describes House as “an episode of Scooby-Doo directed by Mario Bava.” As a Mario Bava fan-boy myself ([I even named our rehearsal studio the Bava Room), I think that just might be as accurate a description as you can get. From the brilliant effects and vivid colors, to the extremely bizarre dream-like sequences (similar to scenes in Lisa and The Devil) and obscure time warping, Bava’s influence is all over this as much as Hitchcock’s is in his own work. This unsettling psychedelic circus makes viewers question their sanity in this actual boundary pusher.
In the film we find seven classmates (Gorgeous, Fantasy, Professor, Mac, Melody, Kung-FU and Sweet) going on a summer vacation together to visit Gorgeous’ Aunt. Upset with her father over his new girlfriend, Gorgeous writes a letter to her aunt letting her know she will be spending the summer at the aunt’s house by the sea. She will be accompanied by friends from school with whom she is dying to get reacquainted. During the trip to her aunt’s house, Gorgeous tells stories to her friends about her aunt’s past and a longing for a forever-love. Beautiful sceneries appear to be painted and washed all through the sky and mountains. Dream-like sequences occur during storytelling with an old school projection filter and stop motion effects.
Greeting the school girls in a wheelchair, the aunt holds her white witch cat, and the visual spectacle of ridiculous animation and abstract cinematography begins. As they all begin to become acquainted with Gorgeous’ relative, the classmates take a tour around their new summer home. In an almost comedic, slapstick fashion that is typical of Japanese pop culture of this era, the shenanigans begin with light-hearted fun, including dancing with skeletons.
Before too long, it is nearly dinner time and Fantasy tries to fish out a watermelon from the refrigerator well. Instead of a melon, though, she pulls out Mac’s decapitated head. The scene unfolds in front of a surreal sunset worthy of a Bob Ross painting. Mac’s head flies through the air calling out Fantasy’s name and attacking her. As her cries carry from outdoors to inside the house, Gorgeous’ aunt and friends come to investigate only to find a watermelon. But blaming Fantasy’s warped imagination was just a…well, you know. Inside the house they devour the juicy melon, as the aunt opens her mouth and shows an eyeball once or twice to Fantasy. The melon shakes and whines for Fantasy, leaving us in a bizarro “did that really just happen?” state, as the other girls think nothing of the disappearance.
As the night progresses and the aunt retires to her bedroom, the group discovers more mayhem which is caused by suspected witchcraft. As she overhears from another room a voice saying, “any cat can open a door, but only a witch cat can close a door,” Sweet notices that Blanche, the white cat, has shut the door behind her. A theme of green animated twinkles shines in the cat’s eyes as mattresses begin falling, slamming into Sweet in a back-and-forth motion as the house whisks her away from this world.
The girls begin getting picked off one by one as the piano scene takes the cake in this colorful, chaotic display of dismemberment. Melody uses her musical talents in order to calm her friends, who are panicked by these frightening occurrences. She plays a tune (or I should say the musical theme of the movie, over and over again), and she repeats the melodic line in the living room as the piano’s keys begin to light up and come to life in yet another animation sequence. The piano renders Melody fingerless as she chomps away at the keys. It then comes alive in an-over–the-top blaze of fury, eating and spitting out Melody’s body parts in a cartoonish manner. Quick spurts of yellow, red and blue animated zigzags are spat out causing the pandemonium to intensify. Through it all, Melody’s dismembered digits continue to play the refrain on their own. With legs, arms and a torso flying around, this unbelievably loud, bright, and fast piece veritably screams 70s Japanese pop culture, and continues to shine brightly to the present day.
Upstairs, away from the disorder, Gorgeous realizes her mission in coming to her aunt’s house. A vengeful soul capable of living on after death through some form of metempsychosis, her aunt is ready to inhabit a new body. With Gorgeous signed on to a new state of being, she stares in a mirror watching dream sequences of her aunt and mother, enticing her to join them on the other side. Creepy animation unfolds as pieces of her face peel off and break like fragile molds. Eerie flames burn from underneath while Gorgeous prepares to attack all of her friends. Slamming all the doors and windows shut, she traps them inside the house. The film doesn’t miss a beat after her aunt’s death, as Gorgeous learns that she must eat all who are unmarried in order to satisfy or silence her yearning for a forever love.
While the spirits of the house take revenge on the remaining girls, trippy art house graphics, clip art and flying blood-soaked appendages take over in a catastrophic event. Cat pictures spew blood, filling up the house with a messy river that should please gore-hound fanatics. Ôbayashi pulls out all the stops in a climatic, rich and flashy violent shine.
House is a film that needs a shelf of its own. In no way can it be perfectly described in all its visual glory. Words are truly inadequate to do it justice. The film is atypical – not like The Old Dark House or The Haunting, but not as abstract or pretentious as earlier Cronenberg/Lynch films. Despite including all the usual Bava-isms, and regardless of his knack for staining the surreal on film, it’s still amazing that he could have dreamt up such imagery. There is something so charming about the look of this homegrown experiment in colorful chaos that it stands on its own level of madness. Although House was released more than 30 years ago, it remains as fresh as ever.
Visually limitless.
Editorials
‘Bloodstone: Subspecies II’ Revisited: A Bigger, Bolder Follow-Up to Full Moon’s Vampire Cult Classic
Horror sequels are a peculiar thing. In most cases, follow-ups to scary movies tend to retread the same formula with different victims and more over-the-top scares. This is because audiences tend to be more interested in the antagonists of these pictures than anything else, with even main characters becoming disposable when the time comes to produce a sequel.
That’s why some of the most memorable horror sequels are the ones that actually manage to hold onto interesting survivors from previous films while also pushing the story forward instead of having the same thing happen again to a different group of people. From Scream 2 to Dream Warriors (and arguably even The Exorcist III: Legion), there are quite a few of these innovative sequels to go around.
However, if there’s one franchise that deserves more attention when discussing bigger and better continuations that make the most of episodic filmmaking, it has to be Ted Nicolaou’s Subspecies.
The Full Moon classic spawned an indie horror icon, but bizarre sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II is even more beloved than its predecessor.
Building a Bigger Vampire Saga
While the film itself takes place almost immediately after the events of the first movie, Bloodstone only entered production a couple of years after the release of the original as both Charles Band and Nicolaou weighed the pros and cons of returning to Romania to continue the series. In an effort to maximize efficiency, the team decided to invest in a trilogy where parts II and III, now fully written by Nicolaou, would be filmed simultaneously over the course of a single grueling shoot.
Much like the first Subspecies, Bloodstone’s low budget meant that the filmmakers once again had to cut corners and re-use as many of their resources as possible. Thankfully, the process was much easier this time around as Nicolaou, with the help of Romanian cinematographer Vlad Paunescu and his wife Oana, became more acquainted with local customs and made new friends. Shooting abroad still came with its own unique set of challenges due to a lack of translators and the occasional safety concerns, but the crew managed to make things work by filming things guerrilla-style and setting up shop in abandoned caves and real medieval ruins.
The director’s newfound contacts, coupled with the relative success of the first movie, meant that he was basically given free rein over an assortment of shooting locations usually considered off-limits for indie horror. That’s why Bloodstone features insanely ambitious lighting and effects work even during scenes shot in the middle of a bustling Bucharest. The filmmakers went so far as to project Radu’s Nosferatu-like shadows over local monuments as if he were a Romanian boogeyman, an idea that was actually encouraged by local cinephiles.
In fact, many of the more elaborate scenes here had originally been planned for the first movie before being discarded due to the lack of available resources. It was only with the support of Romanian fans and filmmakers that Bloodstone was able to give Radu a chance to be even more menacing the second time around.
Michelle’s Transformation Takes Center Stage
However, when it came to the American part of the crew, not everyone was able or willing to return for another round of Romanian adventuring. That’s why Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) is unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the film while the role of Michelle had to be recast. Denice Duff took over for Laura Mae Tate, with the character now being joined by her sister, Rebecca, played by Melanie Shatner (yes, that Shatner).
In the finished film, we follow Michelle as she awakens to her new life as a vampire and discovers that Radu has murdered her lover. Struggling with grief and her newfound bloodlust, Michelle contacts her sister overseas, with Rebecca soon travelling to Romania on an ill-advised rescue mission. Meanwhile, Radu (Anders Hove) reaches out to his undead Mummy (Pamela Gordon, underneath heavy layers of impressive makeup effects) and promises to deliver her the coveted Bloodstone artifact while also making Michelle his eternal consort.
Revisiting the movie, I was impressed with how introspective this story is when compared to the original. The sequel assumes that you’re already familiar with the previously established characters, so the story wastes no time in exploring the immediate aftermath of the previous film’s events. From Michelle’s reluctant transformation into a creature of the night to Radu’s obvious mommy issues, Nicolaou is way more interested in pushing these characters into new and uncharted territory rather than recycling existing plot points.
Practical Effects and Gothic Atmosphere Still Impress
Yet, much like the first film, it’s Romania itself that makes the movie worth watching. The ruins of Castle Vladislav are even more majestic now, and visiting the moody streets of Bucharest with its surprisingly punk-rock nightlife made for a nice change of pace when compared to the original film’s quiet village setting. Once again, the abundance of interesting locations makes the movie feel much more expensive than it really is, with the filmmakers surrounding our characters with a living, breathing environment that would be impossible to recreate in a studio.
The increased freedom also allowed Nicolaou to flex his filmmaking muscles and tackle more ambitious blocking/composition in the sequel. The low budget and tropey script mean that the visuals don’t always work, but it’s consistently clear that this neo-expressionist style could only come from a passionate team attempting to pay homage to the shadowy horror classics of yesteryear. If the retro atmosphere isn’t enough for you, there’s enough practical gore here to satisfy even the most demanding of horror hounds!
Radu himself is also far more interesting now that Hove is more comfortable working alongside an international crew, with the actor having gone on record explaining that, while he spent more time drinking vodka than working while shooting the first movie, the sequel was a much more creatively satisfying experience for everyone involved. The character’s relationship with his abusive Mummy is also a highlight of the expanded mythology, especially since the practical effects that bring her to life are just as freaky now as they were back in ’93.
My only real gripe with the horror elements of the picture comes from the glaring absence of the diminutive stop-motion minions from the first film, though I guess the surprisingly entertaining addition of Professor Popescu (Michael Denish) and his archeological antics mostly make up for that.
Bloodstone: Subspecies II is obviously the middle chapter of a trilogy, with the ending feeling a lot less definitive than its predecessor as several plot threads are left to dangle in the wind, but I appreciate how the flick explores new ground while remaining faithful to nearly all the ideas that made the original such a good time. While I don’t think it’s as big of an improvement over the first movie as some fans make it out to be, Bloodstone is definitely worth revisiting if you’re a fan of old-fashioned vampire yarns.
Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion to this initial trilogy, Bloodlust: Subspecies III!
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