Last Friday, I went with my friend Mariam to a screening of House, or Hausu in Japanese, that was put on by the Campus Events Commission. Before I get into the details, just let me tell you that this screening was probably definitely the most entertaining free CEC event that I have been to.

Ok, here it goes.

Mariam and I had spent our fridays like we both normally do, with her doing homework and me doing TV watching. We planned to dine around six so that we had enough time to get good seats for the movie. Sidenote: the dining hall was serving freaking vegan ratatouille pizzas on Friday night. They were so delicious, and Mariam, who is vegan for the quarter, was happy that De Neve could accommodate her diet (she mostly can only eat salad and krinkle cut fries).

We got to Ackerman at around 7:45 and sat around for 15 minutes waiting for the movie to start. During that time we talked about how neither of  us really knew anything about the movie other than the fact that it was Japanese and had a picture of a cat on the film poster.

Finally, it was 8 o’ clock and we were going to get some answers. Would there be subtitles? What was this cat about?

The movie started out at a Japanese girls school on the verge of summer break. The girls (a group of seven friends) chatted excitedly about their plans – to visit one of the girl’s aunts. Already, we could tell that the movie was going to be extremely silly. There were giggles abound, both onscreen and in the audience, as the seven girls introduced themselves. Their names seemed to have been assigned to them based on personality – like a funny female, Japanese version of the seven dwarves. The main girl (whose aunt everyone was to visit) was named Gorgeous and her friends were Sweet, Mac, Fantasy, Prof, Melody, and Kung Fu.

When they finally got to the aunt’s house, the true nature of the film became apparent. It wasn’t about these cute Japanese girls who liked to laugh, it was about the aunt! The aunt turned out to be a ghost! And not just any ghost, but a ghost that ate girls. So the mood of the film quickly turned from silly, goofy to scary, what-the-heck-that-piano-just-ate-Melody’s-fingers.

Needless to say, Mariam and I were thoroughly freaked out – but in a super good way.

After the movie, we went back to her dorm to hang out and bother her roommates with a really convoluted retelling of the story. We made sure to let them know about the cat that was on the poster (it turned out to be a ghost thing, too, and at one point it bled so much that the entire house was filled with blood (again what-the-heck)).

I definitely need to watch it again before I can even begin to understand any aspect of the story or what the heck was going on when Gorgeous was supposedly dead but then alive (was she a ghost, too???).

I recommend it. And I recommend CEC!