Hausu

Partially inspired by Jaws and the eerie suspension conjured by a monster lying in wait, Obayashi’s cult-beloved Hausu is truly impossible to classify. Hypnotic, surreal, and singular, it’s a psychedelic ghost story that feels like a fever dream, following a young girl and her six friends as they visit the former’s ancestral house in the countryside, only to encounter a fiendish house cat, a possessed mirror, a bleeding grandfather clock, and a whole litany of supernatural (and fatal) events. Starring mostly amateur actors, Hausu is a hallucination, part nightmare, part dream come true for fans of the absurd, and just flat-out weird.