How did you get started in the film business? When I was making 8mm and 16mm films inde- pendently, I was also writing stories. I entered university in Tokyo and began screening these stories on white canvases in galleries. I was rec- ognized as a “film artist,” and started making commercials to fund my own projects. At the time, commercials were unique in that they could be one- to three-minute shorts that offered film- makers a lot of freedom, paid a lot more than filmmaking and generally allowed us to have fun making the kind of films we wanted to make. I had a blast making commercials with people like David Niven, Kirk Douglas, Charles Bronson, Sofia Loren, Catherine Deneuve and Ringo Starr. After a while, I was finally able to make my debut fea- ture.


You supposedly got the idea for House from your daughter. Is this true? Yes, that’s true. The story is based on an idea from my [then] eleven-year-old daughter, Chigumi. The producer at Toho Studios who I worked with on my commercials asked me for an idea for a movie, so I thought of my daughter’s idea – this was sort of a joke, since only Toho- contracted directors made Toho films at the time. My daughter came up with it one day when she had just taken a bath. While she was combing her hair in front of the mirror, she said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if my reflection came out to eat me?” From that one comment, I made a story about seven girls who were eaten by a house. ... Eirin [the Japanese Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee] praised the film by saying it was like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Won- derland. They didn’t seem to be fazed by the grotesque horror scenes.


How did such an unusual film finally go into production? Toho was very happy with the idea, but it wasn’t green-lit because there was no director at Toho who could helm the picture. (“This script is in- comprehensible,” they said.) Over the next two years, I approached people I had met through the commercial industry with ways to adapt House – as a novel, a shonen or shojo manga [boys or girls comic], even as some department store merchandise and a soundtrack record. (Inciden- tally, many of the people who were cheering for the project had seen my indie flick, Emotion: Af- ternoon Legend – The Dracula I Glimpsed, which is on the Criterion disc’s extras.) I was planning on making it a multimedia thing, but then a radio dramatization of House I did became a huge hit. Toho finally green-lit the film upon hearing of the success of the radio drama, and they made a special exception to hire me outside of the studio when the union agreed to my employment. I be- came the director and producer of the film, and shooting finished in about two months.


What type of film did you set out to make? The movies – and art – of the time were aiming for realism, so I aimed to make a dream-like movie. Even here, I was thinking of a throwback to something more classical, so I made it a Gothic romance. The Toho people couldn’t understand the film at all but they told me to make it so that


there was no way they could understand it. I think that was a smart decision. ... [They] asked me not to make a Japanese movie, but a movie that was a commercial for the movies. House is, in this way, my love letter to the cinema.


What was the target audience? It initially seems like a kids’ film, but then becomes way too violent and sexual. Movies can make children extend themselves be- yond their capabilities, but also can make adults feel like children again. I believe movies make you think about humanity and the world in these various ways, so I never think of a target audi- ence when I make my films. Target audiences are also a commercial imperative, so I’m not inter- ested in them at all.


There are many genres that mix in House – how did you classify the film when you first made it? I wanted to put everything that I loved about movies into House, so for me, the genre of the film is “A Movie.” Rather than thinking of it as a fantasy or horror movie, I wanted to make a movie that wasn’t “Japanese.” In other words, I created the “Nobuhiko Obayashi” genre. “Obayashi movies: You’ll either love ’em or ignore ’em!” That’s how my films are thought of even today.


Was House inspired by any horror or fantasy films? Or any manga? I’ve always loved Dracula and Frankenstein. Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses is also a film that I especially love, and Emotion is an homage to Vadim’s work. I also like old Japanese bakeneko [ghost cat] movies.


I take it you really like cats, given their role in House? Yes, I do. [Laughs] When I was a kid, our cat gave birth to sextuplets on top of my stomach. I was sleeping at the time, and I rolled over on my side and squashed one. Even a cat’s life is a story.


What sorts of films are you interested in making today? I’ve experienced war, and from a young age I had the mindset, like many others, of being pre- pared to die at any time. I was probably able to purely internalize this mindset even better since I was a child. Because of my experiences, I’d like to continue thinking about the meanings of war and peace.


What project are you working on now? I’m writing a story about the relationship be- tween a woman who has been traumatized by war and can no longer stomach even the sight of fireworks, and a pyrotechnist who wants to collect all the explosives in the world for a huge fireworks show, with the idea that if he does, war will disappear. I think the strongest way to build towards a future of peace is to communi- cate the pain of war to younger generations who have never experienced it. But I’m a filmmaker, so this desire ends up being expressed in movies like House.


Build It And They Will Come: (top to bottom) The film’s surreal use of gore, the infamous cat spews grue, live-action and animation mix, and Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) bleeds.


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