THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS
Director: Takashi Miike Run Time: 113 min. Release Year: 2002 Language: Japanese
Starring: Keiko Matsuzaka, Kenji Sawada, Kiyoshiro Imawano, Naomi Nishida, Shinji Takeda
From Takashi Miike, the prolific director of genre milestones AUDITION and ICHI THE KILLER, comes THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS—a movie that can best be described as THE SOUND OF MUSIC meets DAWN OF THE DEAD. Guests are turning up dead at a peaceful country inn owned by the Katakuris family. To keep bad word of mouth from spreading, the Katakuris chop up and bury the guests. But that’s only the beginning of their problems. Featuring grotesque stop motion animation, surreal musical numbers, and gore-lusting zombies, THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS stands tall as one of the most unique, bizarre, and satisfying horror-comedies ever made.
“A go-for-broke animation-comedy-fantasy-horror-musical spectacle.” — Slant Magazine
Restoration courtesy of Arrow Films and the American Genre Film Archive.