The Meaning of HOUSE

Agreed. Very interesting take on the film.

Your analysis seems very good. My take on the film is based on the last monologue where they mention about how love is immortal. I kind of took it as Gorgeous loved her mom and her aunt loved the man she was going to marry. Their love has helped keep them alive and hence why Gorgeous becomes her aunt. I'm still trying to think it over, but I do like your coming of age thesis. Your point on the blood equating to menstruation I think is good, especially since they is a good 5-10 second sequence of Prof swimming naked in the blood.

OK, then why did that dude turn into bananas?

Very interesting take. I agree that there's simply too much overt symbolism (the blood soaking her white bridal dress) present to simply be written off as quirkiness. I think Fantasy putting her head to Gorgeous' breasts and calling her mother also fits perfectly with your theory.

At the end was Gorgeous possessed by her aunt?

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Interesting take on the film. This reminded me of the scene in which Gorgeous' school uniform magically transforms into a more adult dress. Perhaps more symbolism backing up this theory.

It's been mentioned that the director wanted to give the film visuals of a young girl's nightmare, so it does seem like the film is a metaphor of that terrifying moment when a girl leaves behind their youth.

My interpretation is along the lines of the original poster but it deviates in sections. Reality is pretty much only shown in the beginning scenes with her father and the candid home movies. Things start to go all Alice in Wonderland once the white cat pops up (Gorgeous' equivalent to Alice's white rabbit). From there on the movie starts to become metaphorical and reality phases in and out.

There's three stages of the story once the girls head off to the house. There's the horror story told from the perspective of Fantasy, the family drama told from the perspective of the Aunt and the coming of age story told from the perspective of Gorgeous. At times all three merge together but you can view the film from these three angles.

There's also three stages of being a woman presented, again with the same three characters. Fantasy represents childhood, Gorgeous represents adolescence and the Aunt represents old age. You could even say that the Step-Mother represents the link missing between Gorgeous and the Aunt. So there is four in total.

The most obvious level of the film is that of the horror story. It's told from the perspective of Fantasy both from the character's ability to daydream and because on a meta level she is the embodiment of Fantasy. Since has the worst reaction to the Aunt because she is the youngest and her future scares her.

There's a reason why Fantasy isn't killed off in the movie. You can say that the nightmare of the house was dreamt up by her and that she wakes from the dream to be comforted by a mother figure represented by Gorgeous. The horror portion of the movie pretty much starts and ends with Fantasy.

Interestingly the aunt is portrayed in the mold of the classic Yurei (Japanese ghost), a ghost that cannot pass onto the afterlife. In the case of the aunt, her love, sorrow and jealousy caused her to become a Yurei and the house became her purgatory. Yurei are normally depicted in white burial kimonos, however that takes the form of her wedding dress. In the scene when Gorgeous is applying the lipstick you can see a flash of her with large peg like teeth styled after a form of Oni (Japanese demon). The glowing orbs that possessed Gorgeous juggles seem to be Will-o-Wisps that are the trademarks of the Yurei.

The white cat seems to be a bit of a hybrid of the west's idea of a Witch's familiar, the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and the Japanese Nekomata/Bakeneko (minus the forked tail). Nekomata/Bakeneko have several powers, one noticeable power is the ability to take the form of an old woman to cause mischief. So I guess you can treat the cat and the aunt as being part of the same vengeful spirit.

The second level of the film, the meta-level is an exploration of the stages of womanhood. Each of the 7 girls represent an aspect of puberty. Fantasy represents naivety and the fear of the change. Mac represents hormonal changes with her increased appetite. Sweet represents the desire to fill expectations and the role of domestic life. Melody represents creativity and the desire to have fun. Kung-Fu represents courage and brashness. Prof represents logic and leadership. Gorgeous represents vanity and beauty. In a way the 7 girls represent a 7 sins/virtues.

The order of the girls getting killed is fairly important. Hormonal changes don't last forever, so Mac is killed off first. Sweet fades away to show that childhood is going. Melody dies to signify that harmony is making way for chaos. The brashness of Kung-Fu also fades away once the unknown of puberty hits. Leaving Prof there to try to apply logic and reason but she fades away in with the menstrual blood. Leaving a distraught Fantasy there being comforted by the mother figure of Gorgeous who it seems has gone through puberty by the end of the film. There's a bit of solidarity between the two since Gorgeous seems to have adapted to womanhood while Fantasy is probably the last girl to go through it. You could probably say that instead of the girls getting killed, they have all one by one gone through menstruation.

Gorgeous' views on love and sex are forever changed because she'll never see her father and mother in the same way. Since she's realised that her companionship with her father is just not the same what he has with her step-mother. Her sexual identity has been awakened and she'll never see relationships from the same narrow child like view.

The third level of the film is the family drama. Starting with Gorgeous rebelling against her father and new step-mother to her finding an understanding of what it means to be an adult. Especially after hearing what her Aunt went through.

Of course all of this happens at once so you've got a family drama, horror film and portrait of womanhood all in one. The ending is especially strange because it can answer all three levels of the plot. The first is that it was a horror film, and that the now possessed Gorgeous lures her step-mother into the house. So that it will turn night and her step-mother will be devoured since she is still technically an unmarried woman.

The second interpretation of the ending is that the girls had a chaotic night in the house with their imaginations going wild. Possibly with a girl experiencing her period for the first time so there would have been alot of confusion. So when Gorgeous is the first to wake up and mentions her friends being asleep, she is telling the truth because they are sleeping from being awake all night. The Aunt's probably alive and well too.

The third is that Gorgeous grows up and accepts her new mother, because she's seen that nothing lasts forever. Noticeably with the passing of her mother, the changing relationship with her father, the loss of her aunt's fiancee, her mother's hometown dwindling after the war (they mention that the town's girls slowly disappeared but that could be because the town's men were largely killed in the war) and that she's grown apart from her friends (it does seem like she has nothing in common with them). Gorgeous probably realised after meeting her Aunt, that she wasn't how she envisioned her to be. Gorgeous thought she would be copy of her mother, but the reality is that she is a broken down old lady, while her new step-mother is probably a whole lot closer to how she remembers her mother.

The ending scene about love being forever can be applied to the three interpretations. Firstly the emphasis on forever means that the girls' spirits are trapped in the house forever, that they didn't break the curse and that they are caught up in the Aunt's twisted view on love. Secondly with all the sexual visual metaphors in the film, you could say that love from a sexual point of view is forever, because one's sexual identity never leaves them once discovered. Thirdly she's realised that welcoming her step-mother doesn't mean she'll lose her biological mother, since her love and connection to her is forever.

I hope all of this makes sense, it's really difficult to put this film into words (partly because of the complexities and partly because I'm writing this late at night) but its' a whole lot deeper than what some people give it credit for. I don't think you can really pick one of the above interpretations or something I haven't mentioned and take it at face value. The film really relies on the viewer taking in all pillars at once, otherwise I don't think the film holds up with just one take on it.