Criterion gives us House

The Criterion Collection on October 26th is unleashing Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House (HAUSU) from 1977. The film has never been released in the US and will be getting a nice set on Blu-ray and DVD with extras. Fangoria calls it “the strange saga of a group of schoolgirls whose outing at the country home of one of their aunts turns into a hallucinatory experience. The basic plot and some of the low-budget optical FX prefigure The Evil Dead, but this movie has a crazy tone all its own.”

The extras, you want? Here!

• “Constructing a HOUSE” documentary featuring interviews with Obayashi, his daughter Chigumi (who came up with the film’s story as a preteen!) and screenwriter Chiho Katsura

• Obayashi’s 1966 experimental film Emotion

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

• Theatrical trailer

• Essay by Chuck Stephens

All of that, plus the film in a restored hi-def digital transfer at 1.33:1, in monaural (uncompressed on the Blu-ray) Japanese with newly translated English subtitles.