Words fail Hausu, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 goofy and deranged horror flick. Hausu is the sort of film that makes a writer want, to borrow the site of one of the film’s zanier set pieces, to draw deep from the tainted wells of cliché and hyperbole — to laud it as a trippy, must-be-seen-be-believed, insane, “like [blank] on acid,” avalanche of WTF — precisely because such descriptions actually come close to doing it justice. The cult favorite, which has been leaving a whole new generation of fans gobsmacked in its wake thanks to a restored and newly subtitled touring print (its first U.S. run) from Janus Films, finally arrives at the Castro Theatre for a one-night-only engagement that should be the top priority on anyone’s bucket list. […]
Something wicked this way comes when you put on a Shackleton track. Tinny hi-hats, shivering vocal snippets, and water drip snares skitter about like panicked rats as synths bellow like distant foghorns, announcing the approach of the bass. […]
