FILMS… The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)

#1980s #AllPosts

 

A ye olde Japanese cursed love triangle is mirrored in a (then) modern day horror…

 

Spooky happenings are seen, felt and heard in her haunted home as a happily married expat wife moves to Japan, and then begins an affair with a family friend.

 

Those 1840s ghosts…

The Hunter family

The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) – Official Trailer (HD), Scream Factory TV

 

Let’s return to Japan, five years in movie years after the sappy romance where Michael York as a Prince had a Roman Holiday (1953) themed holiday fling with a Japanese tour guide in Seven Nights in Japan (1977). We are now in the 1980s, and it’s just a year after Franco Nero as Cole graduated in Japan as a Ninja in Enter the Ninja (1981).

We are revisiting this Asian country again for The House Where Evil Dwells (1982). Additionally, It’s this Japanese setting for another movie from the filmography of the actress – who serendipitously played this Ninja’s on-screen love interest – Susan George. The House Where Evil Dwells is a Japanese-American film with a love triangle or two and both these romantic angles from the past and movie’s present are soon merged with horror.

The House Where Evil Dwells begins in what could be a stand alone movie. After we travel back to  Japan in 1840, it’s day / night as we see an idyllic hillside home in Kushiata near Kyoto, Japan. A pretty Japanese woman, Otami (Mako Hattori) invites a young man, Masanori (Toshiya Maruyama) in for what seems like an innocent cup of tea.

Otami gives this moustache-free young man a present of a cute wee ornament of a woman hugging a Devilish looking creature. (And it looks like the sort of thing a kid would buy in a charity shop for three quid, and then their family would be cursed forever in a 1970s horror film). Then after they have dinner together, there are meaningful looks of longing between these two. This romantic ambience continues as she plays a stringed instrument for him. Masanori gazes at her in love and it’s all very sweet.

They then give in to their mutual passion and kiss, undress and begin to make love. This romantic love story is seen both in the flesh and in silhouetted scenes as their shadows can be seen from outside the house. But these final telltale sexier silhouettes seal their fate moments later…

An older man, Shugoro (Shunji Sasaki) – sporting a handlebar moustache (I am mentioning this as this facial hair on these characters later appears relevant) – approaches the house and he hears her play. After watching these sexy silhouettes, Shugoro goes full-tilt ballistic and with his sword begins thrashing those paper-thin walls of the house to smithereens.

After he enters the house –  it’s now slow motion – the ornament is dropped to the floor. Shugoro attacks the young man with his sword and it’s revealed (albeit later) that Shugoro is Otami’s samurai husband! He lops off his wife’s lover’s arm and then beheads him. Shugoro then kills his wife who has been watching these gruesome events in fear (rather than running for her life). Finally, he plunges the sword into his chest killing himself. The ornament and scene of those untimely deaths in this house are seen covered in blood.

Flashforward to Japan, in the (film) present day in the early 1980s. A local American diplomat, a clean shaven, greying at the temples – yet kind of baby-faced – Alex Curtis (Doug McClure) meets the Fletcher family at the airport. The Fletchers are a family of three, American (with a foreshadowing handlebar moustache) Ted (Edward Albert), his wife Laura (Susan George) and their teenage daughter, Amy (Amy Barrett). Ted is a writer and photographer and has come to Japan to find work with a magazine.

This child actress naturally looks nothing like her on-screen parents. Amy Barrett is reminiscent of the first time we saw Adam Driver in Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens (2015). Many were shocked at his casting as the on-screen child of Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford. But we let him off as since that first impression, he’s proved himself as a bloody good actor. But I digress.

Anyway, the Fletcher parents are obviously still madly in love (and lust). It seems Alex is still looking for that special lady (as you do in 1970s movies, but this is the 1980s). Alex has found this family a supercheap (cue alarm bells) house in the country to rent.

Everyone in the Fletcher family is superhappy, even when they discover their new house is haunted. So instead of running for the hills – in what in hindsight would be the best thing to do but would make a very short and boring film – Alex and the family are driven in this diplomat’s car, through the woods to the Fletchers’ new home, with some gorgeously filmed scenes of this country.

A scene shows the car from above – in more appealing Japanese-themed cinematography – as they travel a country windy road. Immediately those who saw a similar scene which showed a family travelling by car to an isolated Colorado hotel by a windy road (or saw it in a cut scene from Blade Runner (1982)), and those subsequent spooky wintry happenings for the Torrances just two years earlier in The Shining (1980), are screaming don’t go there. This is especially, true when they see the now refurbished house which is recognisable from the house in those opening scenes.

At the house, Ted gallantly sweeps his wife of many years off her feet as if to carry her over the threshold, and it’s clear they are still so much in love. We have a tour of the renovated house and ooh and ah with them and alone, we marvel at the lack of Kensington Gore scarlet paint. There is a now peaceful ambience in the house.

The Fletchers are ominously transfixed by its beauty not knowing the events from 1840. We the audience are too as we are lulled into forgetting these happenings by the misleading Ken Thorne soundtrack. Alex has brought them all housewarming pressies, including a sword for Ted so they toast their happiness in this “dream house”.

Then at night, after a lamp goes on and off, Laura gets a wee bit freaked out. But manly Ted puts it down to a defective switch, so it’s nothing for her to worry her pretty little head about. as he switches it on and (damn it) it stays on.

After her husband holds her at her request (as this faulty light is a clearly traumatic event for her), they go to sleep. But when Ted wakes, he sees the three ghosts of the house past as the spooky spectres of Shugoro, Otami and Masanori are watching them in bed. But they disappear when he puts on the lamp…

The light from this lamp then wakes Laura, so what to do you can’t sleep (and when being haunted)… so the couple make love. This act is seen in too much detail for a film in the horror genre, as you feel you know this couple intimately by the end of it. This is a scene I assume to reinforce their love for each other from every angle.

The next day Ted is visited by a Japanese monk who tells them the house’s dark history (as seen and heard in those 1840 scenes). In a coincidental moment, Laura finds the blood-stained ornament and blows on it. The latter act seems to spread its evil intent throughout the house. The monk then ominously – and foreshadowing later events – says he’s just up the road if Ted needs him.

The sinister music begins after Laura shows Ted the statue, and then at times, she is possessed by Otami. In this dual state, Laura makes some sexually suggestive comments about Alex. After Otami leaves her body, Laura feels embarrassed about these comments, and Otami’s movements as she enters and then leaves Laura’s body in this scene are seen in some natty special effects.

Meanwhile, her husband sees Otami’s face as he goes through his daily work and leisure time. After taking photographs of this Japanese woman… he notices that she oddly doesn’t appear in the photo. Otami watches him work, and then at a work function, Otami repossesses Laura once again when Ted is busy schmoozing with potential work contacts. Laura then dances with Alex makes a pass at Alex and she leads him to the garden. There they snog like no tomorrow leading to a torrid, full-on affair.

While Ted is away on business, Otami appears to him again as his new colleagues arrange a prostitute for him. Later, after photographing some Japanese girls crab fishing, one girl turns into Otami and drags him under the water. Then Laura receives a call saying Ted is in hospital…

This original, quirky, spooky love story goes on to full-tilt terror for this then modern day family. Amy didn’t seem a relevant character up to her father’s hospital visit. She had been seen on-screen at a minimum and doing very little of importance. She was looked after to babysitters while her mother spent (sexy) time with Alex.

However, on reflection, Amy indirectly added to the shock factor when on appearances her loved-up mother – who still clearly loved her father – had an out-of-character affair with Alex. This affair when seen in Laura’s possession by Otami seemed to mirror those events with Otami and Masanori.

As Laura visits Ted in the hospital, Amy has a few unintentionally fun, but intentionally horrifying scenes which lead to her exit from this movie. Alone with her babysitter two monster size crabs and lots of wee hermit ones invade the house in droves and then attack her and her babysitter. This seemed a wee bit random, but I assume continued the crab theme after her father’s work trip to see crab fishing went awry.

Susan George’s character was a combination of a damsel in distress and a sultry sex symbol. As Laura, she has two very different scenes showing her sexual relationship with Albert and McClure. The first showed her love with her moustached husband, and the second of these was possessed by Otami and one where she clearly was attracted to this man without a moustache.

It was also surprising about the appearance of Otami as she appears constantly to the husband Ted, rather than the lover, Alex. However, this could possibly be a revenge thing. The mild mannered Ted is at times possessed by Shugoro, and this is seen again – in a scene reminiscent of The Shining – where he is angry at his child.

Here he was Amy for not finishing her dinner. This is after Amy gets upset after seeing the face of one of the male ghosts in her soup, her father then forces her to drink it. This change in her father’s behaviour was reminiscent of Burnt Offerings (1976) where in this horror, Oliver Reed’s character turns on his young son.

In a wee spoiler, in later scenes where the moustached Ted, finds out about her affair (which Laura ends herself) with the clean shaven Alex. In his reaction then life mirrors those events from the earlier century… with the Japanese moustached husband and clean shaven lover from the initial scenes.

Doug McClure showed a surprisingly sexy character than I’ve been used to seeing in his movies (to date). This was one of many films he made with the director, Kevin Connor. McClure had starred in many of this director’s Amicus movies, including At the Earth’s Core (1976) and The Land That Time Forgot (1974). I’m speculating he possibly took the role due to this collaboration (and free a trip to Japan).

Kevin Connor began his career directing horrors such as From Beyond the Grave (1974). So I was surprised to see he additionally directed the 3½ hour long Elizabeth Taylor biopic, Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995). This biopic was indirectly another horror. This was due to the casting of a Scottish actor, Angus McFadyen starring as Welsh actor, Richard Burton. Luckily, his Welsh accent was more credible, unless Anthony Hopkins had dubbed him.

This biopic is worth a look for those scenes with “Elizabeth Taylor” (Sherilyn Fenn) and “Montgomery Clift” (William McNamara).  Fenn had the best on-screen chemistry with McNamara and this outshone that of all her on-screen husbands. I would have happily watched a film with just concentrating on their relationship.

Finally, let’s return to this lusciously filmed Japanese horror movie. This cinematography could have made us want to uproot and emigrate to Japan to live in this lovely house. But before we knew this as The House Where Evil Dwells, perhaps we should heed the advice of Vincent Canby from the New York Times. Canby aptly described this film HERE – in one of two horror films he reviewed – which…

“are cautionary tales about the renting of picturesque houses, at least without finding some earlier tenants who survived their leases.”

This advice is good to know, as you watch this movie and as many of the scenes remind you of other haunted house movies of this ilk. These houses are seen in films from the 1970s and early 1980s, where the house has a more sinister, eerie tale to tell… and include those future homes for the Rolf family (Burnt Offerings), the Arnolds (The Evil (1978)) and Maggie Walsh and her boyfriend, Pete Danner (The Legacy).

Just remember, those ghosts from 1840 were fantastically and credibly frightening after they possessed those characters in the present. Be aware if you move house and your partner ominously says they feel they are not in their right mind. Particularly if this is after they confess they have a crush on your best friend. Then remember those foreboding and foreshadowing words from Laura  – who says in those airport scenes – that “when in Japan”, she wants to “live as the Japanese do”…

 

Weeper Rating:  😦 /10

Handsqueeze Rating: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂🙂 🙂 🙂  🙂 🙂 🙂 /10

Hulk Rating: ‎ ‎  /10

 

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It’s In The Name of the Title Blogathon 2024

I added this post to my It’s In The Name of the Title Blogathon with Rebecca from Taking Up Room. Other posts with this cast include, 

• Susan George in Jack the Ripper, Billion Dollar Brain, Venom and more.
• Edward Albert in When Time Ran Out, The Domino Principle, The Love Boat and more.
• Doug McClure in The Twilight Zone, The Fall Guy, Murder She Wrote and more. He also features in The Binge Watchers Guide to The Twilight Zone, An Unofficial Journey by Jacob Trussell.

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