Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House has the perfect origin story for a cult classic. As the story goes, Obayashi was asked by the Japanese studio Toho to make a film similar to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. In answer to that, he took inspiration from his young daughter Chigumi’s fears and his own childhood trauma from witnessing the bombing of Hiroshima, and produced a feline-themed, haunted-house acid trip with a blues-rock soundtrack to match. Like most haunted-house movies, in House, the domestic sphere is the site of terror, but it’s one of a singular few in which the furniture literally eats its victims alive. The film languished for years after its 1977 release, before being dusted off at Kim’s Video and given fan-created subtitles. One of the revamp’s first theatrical screenings was through the Belcourt’s Midnight Movies series — and this week, it returns as part of the theater’s Milestones of the Last Quarter Century Series. Poster artist Sam Smith (aka Sam’s Myth) introduces Saturday’s showing, which also features a pop-up from Press Play Video.
May 28 & 30 at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
