The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)
I know it sounds like a documentary about Trump Tower, or maybe 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but in fact
it is a Japanese samurai ghost story. Usual deal.
What, you've never seen one of those? Oh, OK, you've twisted my
arm and I'll tell you about it.
It begins with a scene set in 1840, near Kyoto. A bald-headed samurai warrior approaches a
house. Well, I guess he's a warrior, because he has a very large sword tucked
into that obi around his waist. You'd have to guess that he isn't a fisherman or
a farmer,
and he's probably not a chef because this was years before Benihana's. I ruled
out pirate. No parrot. He sees a beautiful woman in the doorway. He
enters. They engage in a courtship ritual, in which they sip some tea and
exchange glances. They then get on to the actual courtin', in which they
exchange more than glances and she sips her tea from the ol' samovar of love. Wink,
wink, nudge, nudge.
Another warrior approaches the same house. This guy must be a higher-ranking
bald-headed warrior, or at least a more prosperous one, because he has two swords tucked
into his sash. He looks at the paper walls and sees the silhouette of the lovers
embracing, and hoo-boy is he pissed off. We realize that it must be his house,
and the woman must be his wife.
He shows that those Ginsu swords can slice and dice
through walls, furniture ... even tin cans! Isn't that amazing?
Eventually he uses the swords to chop off the other guy's right
arm, and then his dick, and so forth, until the other guy looks like the Black
Knight in that Monty Python movie. Mr. Two Swords then slices and dices his
wife. For his grand finale, the disgraced warrior kneels down and commits
hara-kiri (the film's term, not mine).
Already we have learned two valuable lessons for our next assignment in Japan:
1. If you are a horny one-sword guy, do not choose the wife of a two-sword guy
for your ceremonial lust ritual. For maximum safety, you might choose the wife
of a pillow manufacturer, or at most a Swiss Army Knife guy.
2. If you are going to have sex in a Japanese house with paper walls, and you just don't
want to extinguish the lamps, be sure to place those lamps between you and the
walls, or you will be entertaining the entire neighborhood with a xxx-rated
shadow puppet show starring Admiral Winky-san.
The film then picks up the main story in 1982, when the real estate agent for
that house finally finds a tenant - the unsuspecting American family of a
writer. "Wow, honey, what a deal. It's a twelve bedroom house on a hillside with
an elaborate garden, and it's only three dollars a month. And everyone said
Japan was so expensive." Of course, the prospective Japanese renters can
read the sign and avoid the
邪悪な家. The Japanese know that the sign means "house
where evil dwells," but the Americans can't read Japanese, so the real estate
guy translates it into English as "future site of McDonald's", and the Americans
are none the wiser.
Of course, the house is now inhabited by the ghost of the three
Japanese people who died there in 1840. Amazingly, the three of them get along
just fine now in the afterlife, and really seem to enjoy their post-death
entertainment, which consists of playing evil pranks on the new people who enter
the house. Their powers basically consist of the ancient ceremonial "Froggy
Gremlin" ritual, which is called in Japan "plucking the magic twanger." (Rough
translation.) For you younger readers,
Froggy was a little dickens from the Buster Brown kiddie
show. He would always pop up in a puff of smoke, seemingly from nowhere, to
plant words into a lecturer's head through subliminal suggestion, words which
the lecturer would then repeat without thinking. When the kids would laugh at
what the serious lecturer conceived to be a somber moment, it would suddenly
dawn on him what he had just said.
Example:
Professor (seriously): "And little Dwight was a good boy who
always listened to his parents, did his homework, and ate his spinach, and grew
up to be ..."
Froggy: " ... a total jerk."
Professor: " ... a total jerk. (Kids laughing.) No, no,
wait ... why did I say that?"
I used to find this hilarious when I was little. Come to think of
it, I still laughed twenty years later when some comic (Albert Brooks??) turned
it into a comedy piece with Froggy Gremlin using his powers on Richard Nixon,
forcing Nixon to tell the truth inadvertently.
Anyway, these three Japanese ghosts have the same subliminal
suggestion power as Froggy. The director shows them superimposing themselves
upon the living, at which point the ghosts are exercising some mind control.
Example:
Wife (unpossessed): "Honey, why didn't Alex ever get married?"
Husband: "He's picky. I guess he never found anyone who satisfied
him."
Wife (now possessed): "I'll bet I could satisfy him ...
(now unpossessed again) ... wait ... why did I say that?"
Well, you can guess that their marriage is going to get a little
rocky after a few dozen exchanges like that. Of course, it will inevitably
result in her sampling Alex's own bald-headed warrior. (Hey, how often do you
get to see a 50ish Doug McClure naked?) Eventually it will result in a
closing sequence which is a re-creation of the opening sequence, except that the
fight is between Edward Albert and Doug McClure, who are in turn being possessed
by the two Japanese ghost-warriors.
This film has some very good moments, especially in the opening
scene. It also has some beautiful photography. Unfortunately, it has two
elements which kill it as a ghost story:
1. Unintentional laughs. Some elements of the ghosts' behavior
provoke giggles rather than scares; Doug McClure looks downright silly in the
scenes where he is possessed and has to perform martial arts maneuvers; a scene with
giant mumbling crabs is just ridiculous; in a family dinner scene a possessed
Edward Albert makes his daughter drink soup with a ghost face in it - "C'mon,
eat your soup for daddy."
2. Ultra-slow pacing.
Since the audience is forced to wait too long between the scares,
and since half of the scares come out silly rather than frightening, the film
just doesn't work. On the other hand, my overall impression of the film is not what I
expected from the cellar-dwelling 3.4 rating at IMDb. As I watched this, I
didn't feel that I was watching a terrible, cheesy movie, but rather one that
was a regrettable failure, because it could have been a good genre flick with
just a little more thought put into it. (I suppose I wasn't the only one who
felt that way because Ju-on: The Grudge is based on a very similar premise.) The opening scene is quite effective,
and the Americans' arrival in Japan is workmanlike, but then the whole film
collapses like a house of evil cards. In other words, it's a ghost story that
seems pretty damned good until the ghosts show up!
Nudity
Susan George (1,
2,
3)
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