House (1977)
Bizarre is too paltry a word to describe the insanity that is House. Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s cult horror-comedy sends a group of young girls to an old house in the countryside owned by one of their decrepit aunts. There they discover evil spirits, disembodied heads, carnivorous pianos and one very naughty cat. Before it was available as a Criterion release, House traveled the U.S. as a midnight movie. Nashville designer Sam Smith (who also played drums for pop-rocker Ben Folds) put together this mad, bright orange poster for the film’s run at his hometown’s Belcourt theater. “I used the first idea that came to me after watching a screener of the film — Blanche the cat’s psycho-screaming mug — and adapted it to stand alone as a symbol of the uncanny and over-the-top assault that our midnight-movie audience was in for,” wrote Smith. Eventually, Janus Films (the movie’s distributor) and the Criterion Collection both adopted the striking image for posters and DVD cases. There’s just something about this that says, “Watch me or I will eat you.”
