Tuesday, October 26, 2010

OUT TODAY ON DVD: HOUSE!

Our buddy Brendan Ninness reminded me this morning on Facebook of some exciting pre-Halloween news... HOUSE by Nobuhiko Obayashi comes out on Criterion DVD today in America!



I've blogged previously about this this masterpiece of goofy surreal horror-- one of my alltime favorite films. This official and lush DVD include the following notables:
  • Constructing a “House,” a new video piece featuring interviews with director Nobuhiko Obayashi, story scenarist and daughter of the filmmaker Chigumi Obayashi, and screenwriter Chiho Katsura

  • Emotion, a 1966 experimental film by Obayashi

  • New video appreciation by director Ti West (House of the Devil)

  • New and improved English subtitle translation

  • PLUS: An essay by critic Chuck Stephens

The main piece of awesomeness is simply having HOUSE available on a non-VCD, non-fan translated rip-- but I'm pretty stoked to see the interview with Obayashi and his daughter(!) along with a DVD-quality of his short film Emotion. For folks interested in learning more, Criterion posted a great interview with Janus Films’ Brian Belovarac about the process of "discovering" and releasing the film for English-speaking audiences.


11 comments:

Sophia Foster-Dimino said...

Thanks for the reminder! I will do my best to try and find a copy before Halloween. I consider it my duty to show this film to those who have not seen it, and it's a perfect Halloween film!

Plus, those criterion-quality special features look fantastic. Not sure about the "new and improved subtitle translation" as that was part of the original charm for me, but oh well :B

Anonymous said...

It´s being release on Blue-ray as well, isn´t it?

Ryan S said...

@anon: Yep! That's a bit too fancy for me, but if you go that way then have at it

Pearce said...

Best release this year, can't wait!

RSS said...

For years I've heard nothing but praise and love for this movie from everyone I've ever known to have seen it. It was screened in my state the other night, but sadly, I couldn't make the drive. Now I will finally be able to judge for myself and decide if anything so talked about could actually live up to the hype :p

Ryan S said...

@RSS: I know what you mean--- but i think it will still deliver, no joke.

I saw the movie for the first time with very little information (except my buddy Evan telling me it was insane and trippy) so I was really shocked by it. Hope you have fun!

Anonymous said...

It seems to be available now of off Netflix.

Toras said...

I was lucky enough to see this during its Nashville premier last summer, from which the Criterion art for the DVD and shirt was taken.

Absolutely fantastic romp through psychedelic and genuinely hilarious horror.

Yukiko Forever! said...

I hope the subs are as good as the one's I saw in theaters. I saw it in Nashville (a 2-2.5 hour drive, haha) last year when I found out about the movie here and then shortly thereafter torrented the movie to find that the subs were good but not near as funny as the official/theater subtitles. I know torrent subtitles aren't much but just the fact that they will be different while the theater subs were so perfect makes me a little worried.

This has become one of my top two movies. The other being Drunken Master with Jackie Chan XD.

Ryan S said...

@yukiko: Hasn't been confirmed (i didnt get the dvd yesterday like I planned, will do tomorrow!) but I have a strong feeling the DVD will share the recent theatre version's subtitles. That showing was run by JANUS and this DVD is from Criterion, so I would assume it's one and the same :)

Yukiko Forever! said...

Whew! Great then! The names of the girls were perfect in the theater one! I need to buy this as soon as I get paid!