Got any surreal, awesome madness lined up for the weekend? "Hausu," aka "House" (⋆⋆⋆, unrated, in subtitled Japanese) seems like a fairly normal horror story until it starts to wander into abstract absurdist territory. And then it becomes the new, all-female "Ghostbusters" on magic mushrooms. Sure, at first Auntie's house just looks a bit odd to the schoolgirl friends who drop in for a weekend getaway. But when the half-hour setup is done, the piano begins eating people, a severed head flies around and the neighborhood watermelon salesman turns into a skeleton because a fellow announces that he prefers bananas. The story has something to do with the passage of innocent youth (the use of virginal white and blood red symbolism here could support hundreds of art history research papers). Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's 1977 self-satirizing gem has become a Halloween favorite with fans at the Trylon Microcinema by moving beyond scariness to pure psychedelic strangeness. But it's strange in the best way possible. (Fri. and Sat. at 7, 8:45 and 10:30 p.m.; Sun. at 5, 6:45 and 8:30 p.m. Admission: $8. Trylon Microcinema, 3258 Minnehaha Av. S., Mpls. For tickets and further information, visit take-up.org or call 612-424-5468.)
Colin Covert
