B MOVIE BLOCKBUSTERS: THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS
BACK OF THE VHS BLURB:
Years ago in Japan, a samurai catches his lady getting her freak on with another man bun, and the result is death. Years later an American couple and their child move into the same house where this tragedy occurred, and they find the ghosts are still lurking. Using Casper like ghost tactics, the ghosts haunt the new couple with angry soup and spider crabs that make samurai noises. Terror continues until the end in this exploitation...kabuki...samurai...haunted house...horror.
So...WTF did I just watch?
MOVIE: The House Where Evil Dwells
YEAR: 1982
DIRECTOR: Kevin Connor
CAST: Edward Albert, Susan George, Doug McClure, Mako Hattori, Tsuiyuki Sasaki, Toshiya Maruyama, Amy Barrett
B-MOVIE HIGHLIGHTS:
Samurais? Ghosts? Ghost samurai? Fuck yes. Before I need to restore my honor, lets get into this. This film starts out in 1840, in Kyoto, where a badass samurai is coming home from his daily samurai job. When he gets home, it goes all episode of Cops on us. The samurai, Shigero (Tsuiyuki Sasaki), finds his wife Otami (Mako Hattori) all wrapped up with Masanori (Toshiya Maruyuma) and goes full katana on everyone. He kills Otami and Masanori, then we get our classic samurai sepukku shot, and damn this movie has just fucking started!
Fast forward to present day 1980’s. American writer Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert) and his wife Laura (Susan George) and their 12 year old daughter Amy (Amy Barrett) are moving to Japan for Ted's writing job. Their diplomat friend Alex (Doug McClure) helps them to find a nice haunted house in Kyoto. As they begin their new lives in Japan, the ghosts of Shigero, Otami, and Masanori are there looking straight out of Casper. No joke. Like blue tinted, pale, eyes sunken in and black, with wavy effect and all. Superimposition to the max. The ghosts begin to cause poltergeist activity and slightly posses the new occupants to just do stupid shit like get mad or look at katanas longingly.
Stress from the new job seems to be driving a bit of a divide in Ted and Laura's relationship. That or the fact that these ghosts are starting to get a little more up close and personal. Some of the tactics used by the ghosts is, well, odd. One puts his ghost face in Amy's soup. Well, no one want's angry ghost samurai soup, so she says she won't have any. Ted is then possessed and tell's Amy she going to have that soup whether she likes it or not, and he literally force feeds her ghost samurai soup. Laura of course flips shit, because like what the actual fuck Ted.
Laura begins to turn to Alex, the convenient diplomat friend they have, and she begins to confide in him how rocky things have been at home. Well what do you fucking know? Looks like our ghosts are trying to recreate the details of their homicide/sepukko to move on from this world. I guess that's how you become unbound to this world as a ghost, just fuck someone else over. But as it goes, for the film, yes that is what you do. So now we got shit hitting the Japanese folding fan.
The ghosts become more aggressive, with Otami trying to drown Ted. DOESN'T FEEL SO GOOD, HUH TED? TOO MUCH LIQUID IN YOUR LUNGS BUDDY? Sorry, but seriously that soup scene makes Ted a super dick. The ghosts begin to go back to picking on Amy, but this time, we get just an amazing sequence. Shigero and Masanori take the form of giant spider crabs. Yeah. Not a mistake. GIANT SPIDER CRABS. Well, large spider crabs, and an army of smaller ones. They chase Amy, and this is the best shit ever, WHILE SHOUTING LIKE SAMURAIS. How fucking terrifying would giant crabs chasing you be, but then they are shouting like they are in a Kurosawa film the whole time? Anyway, Amy freaks the fuck out, runs up a tree and promptly falls out of it.
Now here it gets a bit hard to understand. Amy falls and breaks her arm, so they send her away from her parents back to America. Why? Why was she like deported instead of treated at a Japanese hospital? Well, because we are getting close to the end so I guess Amy doesn't need to be around for the carnage coming up, but still, makes no sense.
So Ted gets a monk who is familiar with the ghosts to try to exorcise them. He does in a fucking weird Zen way, where he like walks the ghosts out of the house and closes the door. That's it. All they got to do is not open the door. Well that's when Laura decides it’s a good time to tell Ted about her affair with Alex, and that Alex is on his way. Well, fuck. Ted goes apeshit and grabs a katana, and Alex shows up in time to let himself and the ghosts back in. Everyone gets possessed. All in for the end. Ted and Alex, due to samurai possession, are fighting like samurais and ninjas and still looking white as fuck as they do. Laura has become a blonde geisha essentially and watches from the shadows. Ted gets the upper hand, grabs another katana and decapitates Alex scissor-style, in true ghost samurai fashion. Laura rushes him and gets impaled and then Ted finds himself on his knees and it’s sepukku time. The samurai ghosts leave to their true afterlife after successfully fucking other people over, and Amy is still probably on a flight home and she is now an orphan. Classy.
Well this movie was fantastic. I was riveted the whole time in awe and confusion. When it comes to ghost samurai haunted house possession poltergeist movies from the eighties, this one really holds up. No need to pull out that katana, all honor still intact after this B-MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER.
Don’t want to miss anything on the site? Sign up for our newsletter HERE
Want more B Movie Blockbusters? Just search below:
