Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi (Japan, 1977, 88 min.). Japanese with English subtitles.

How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 movie House? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? A giallo-style episode of Scooby-Doo? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face to face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions—all realized by Obayashi via inventive animation and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House may have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Newly restored by Criterion.

Watch the trailer.