The Black House

Introduction from producer Kazuko Misawa on Dec. 3

Several of Morita’s signature themes and motifs receive their most macabre treatment in this, his midcareer feature (and first horror film). Adapted from a novel by Yusuke Kishi, The Black House follows an insurance agent (Seiyō Uchino) who receives a phone call from a suicidal woman (Shinobu Otake) asking about her life insurance policy payout; upon visiting her house to check on her, he stumbles across the corpse of her young son (who apparently has committed suicide himself). This sets in motion a chain of increasingly unnerving events. Morita provocatively unveils the latent madness underlying capitalism and the insurance-industrial complex’s financialization of life and death, arriving at an utterly absorbing work of sociopolitical horror.