Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Haunted House

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

I have a confession. I have never seen a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I have no excuse. I own a couple of them. Most are available on various streaming services. Maybe I just have a slight aversion to J-Horror. These Japanese films do not tend to grab me the way the more Western films do, for whatever reason. Hausu. Ringu. Noroi: The Curse. Audition. Battle Royale. I’ve seen all of them, and I found them to be good to pretty good. I definitely will not be accused of being hyperbolic in my praise for any of these films. So many other people whose opinion I respect seem to love these movies much more than I do. I always just feel like I’m missing something, or maybe an aspect or style of filmmaking is keeping me at arms length.

Going back to the well (Ringu joke maybe) for my haunted house pick—Kurosawa’s Sweet Home. I may as well start near the beginning with his filmography if I am going to dive in. Bottom line up front: there is a lot I like about this movie, but yet again, I did not love it like I had hoped. Mainly the film is too long. Fifteen, twenty (thirty?) minutes lees, and I would have been really praising it a bit more. But still, there is plenty here to praise, and I think I might like it more on a second viewing (and if some nice boutique label wanted to give it a restoration and release, I would definitely pick it up on day one).

Sweet Home follows a fairly familiar template as far as haunted house movies go. There is an abandoned house of course. This house belonged to an artist. Legend has it that there is a fresco on one of the walls of the house that has not been seen or recorded. Enter a television crew who wants to go into the house and document the discovery and restoration of the fresco. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for us), the group gets more than they bargained for when they discover that the legend of the ghost of the house is true. Lady Mamiya, the matriarch of the family, haunts the home, still distraught over the loss of her baby who died in the home’s furnace. No one is safe from her hysterical insanity.

It is fairly difficult to not think about Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist while watching Sweet Home. Children in peril. The lore of outsiders disturbing the area. Early visual effects mixed with some fantastic practical ones. There is a lot to like in this film for sure. Again, it’s just too long. And the VHS rip I watched on YouTube did not do it any favors (I later discovered a better version on YouTube, so maybe watch that one if you want to check it out).

I think every review I read mentioned how a video game was based on this movie which then became the basis of Resident Evil. So I guess I need to add this blurb here too. I did love those first couple Resident Evil games, but I never thought about them while watching Sweet Home. 

I’m going to keep pushing through J-Horror though. I feel like I’m getting closer to unlocking the magic.