House is at once the most unlikely and the most obvious of Halloween classics. On the one hand, the film was largely unknown outside of Japan until the 2010s, when the Criterion Collection launched it from a gray-market favorite to an official part of the company’s unofficial canon. On the other hand, it’s a film whose mischievous spirit is perfectly suited to the holiday — which may partially explain why it’s become so beloved so quickly. Either way, it’s a deliriously fun and delightfully surreal film with color and imagination to spare. That’s thanks to its visionary director, Nobuhiko Obayashi, who wrote the story — about a group of Japanese schoolgirls, a spinster witch, and a fluffy white cat — inspired by one of his young daughter’s nightmares. Perhaps best described by Criterion, which calls it “an episode of Scooby-Doo directed by Mario Bava,” this psychedelic freakout of a haunted house movie is unmissable, whether you’ve never seen it or you’ve seen it a hundred times.