Week 2 Phone Home

みんな、おかえりなさい。

For my listening homework, I chose the 1989 horror film Sweet Home. In it, a group of journalists and art restoration specialists visit the Mamiya Mansion to recover a fresco made by its late, reclusive owner. Rumor has it that the mansion is haunted by the ghost of Mamiya's wife, who, driven mad by the death of their child, was compelled to abduct children from other families to give her child playmates in the afterlife. Additionally, this film holds an important place in video game history, as its Famicom adaptation would later serve as the inspiration for Resident Evil on the PlayStation.

スゥイートホーム・ザ・ファミコン

Given my love for the Resident Evil series (and horror in general), I needed to see the film for myself. While it's a bit cheesy and dated, the use of practical effects adds so much charm and realism to the film that'd be absent if it were remade using CGI. I found I was able to understand much of the dialogue since the characters used casual language. The only words I really struggled with were technical terms and paranormal words such as "exorcism." Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the film, I don't consider it very scary. Haunted houses are a bit overdone, and Sweet Home doesn't offer anything groundbreaking with its gothic, turn-of-the-last-century architecture. I was surprised to see such a house in a Japanese horror film, however. I expected the Mamiya mansion to be a traditional Japanese home. Apart from being a little generic, Sweet Home is also packed with 80's over-exaggeration and bathos. The amateur quality of the acting means there are many droning screams and eyes pulled so wide they threaten to pop from the sockets, but the cast still does a good job overall. Their acting isn't painful by any means.

Though Sweet Home isn't my new favorite, it's worth your time if you enjoy Resident Evil, cheesy horror, or just want to practice listening to Japanese. The film was tangled in some rights issues so you can find it for free on YouTube. The game, however, was never released overseas and physical copies can go for exorbitant prices on eBay. You didn't hear this from me, but I recommend playing the English fan translation on an emulator if you're interested.

A screenshot of the English patch, taken from Wikipedia.