One of the great, nearly-lost weird movies of all time is Nobuhiko Obayashi's HOUSE (aka HAUSU), a horror movie/teen film/motion picture freak-out from 1977. Based on a story idea by the director's 7-year-old daughter, it's...well, it's better if you just watch the trailer.

Loved for a long time, written about extensively (especially in Pete Tombs' book Mondo Macabro) it was screened this past weekend on the IFC Channel and hopefully made some new fans, but in general HOUSE has languished in obscurity in the West with no Region 1 DVD available. There's no reason this movie should be so unknown in the United States: Marc Walkow of Outcast Cinema cajoled Criterion into picking up the rights years ago and they've been sitting on an nice-looking HD master for a long time. HOUSE is just one of a number of Asian movies that ultra-Eurocentric Criterion has acquired over the years but never released, a situation that has frustrated numerous employees of the company. So if you want to encourage Criterion to open HOUSE and unleash that disc on the world, let them know. Now that they've got their barebones Eclipse line there's more of a chance than ever that they just might release it.

(More on HOUSE...including the trailer)

(Even more on HOUSE)

(Outcast Cinema on HOUSE)

(Read everything you can about HOUSE and see how it all ties together with Charles Bronson)