"She eats unmarried young girls. It is the only time she can wear her wedding gown."

Boy, have I got a crazy-ass movie to tell you about this week.  I don't even think I can do it justice in describing it.

This week's Thursday Thriller is House.

Do not confuse this 1977 Nobohiko Obayashi film with the 1985 Steve Miner film House, which starred George Wendt, or its even more outlandish sequel House II: The Second Story starring John Ratzenberger. Also, it has nothing to do with the popular American TV series that ran from 2004-2012 and starred Hugh Laurie.

This movie attains a level of weirdness only the Japanese seem capable of.

Summer vacation is coming up for seven school girls who are all named for their most obvious personality feature. Melody (Eriko Tanaka) loves to play music; Fantasy (Kumiko Ohba) is always daydreaming; Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo) kicks ass, and so on. Six of them are going to stay with their teacher Mr. Togo (Kiyohiko Ozaki) at his sister's inn, while Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) has plans to go on a trip with her father, a famous composer of film scores.

Daddy Kogarishi (Saho Sasazawa) has to ruin it by getting married. Gorgeous feels like her father is just trying to replace her mother. To be fair, when he introduces her, he says, "This is your new mother."

She refuses to travel with her mother and stepfather and catches up with her friends just as Mr. Togo announces he has to cancel their highly questionable itinerary. Instead, Gorgeous invites the gang to stay with her old spinster Auntie (Yoko Minamida).

Shortly after their arrival, the hungry girl Mac (Mieko Sato) goes missing. Then a severed head appears out of the well and bites Fantasy on the ass and vomits. No one believes her because she's Fantasy. Auntie is some kind of cannibal, but also the house is an extension of her as well or something. The piano eats Melody while she's playing, but her fingers hang around to dance on the keys. There is a fluffy white cat, and every time its eyes shimmer something crazy happens.

I won't spoil the third act, mostly because I hate to spoil movies, but at least partly because I'm not sure what the fuck I just watched. Kung Fu lives up to her nickname and kicks things. Blood splatters.

Stylistically, I would have to say the movie is like a live-action anime. It's balls-trippy and has a repetitive lullaby-like score. It has flashy moments that may trigger seizures, so epileptics beware.

House streams on FilmStruck.