by: Dr. Boogie

...CONTINUED

Back upstairs, Prof can't help but notice that Gorgeous doesn't have a reflection in the mirror, but that must seem pretty pedestrian compared to all the other warning signs she's given them. The oddly silent Gorgeous drops off her aunt's journal before showing Kung Fu a peculiar grandfather clock.

The good news is they found Sweet. The bad news is that those diabolical futons stuffed her in a clock. That, or she's the world's worst hide-and-seek player. Prof and Kung Fu take a moment to lament the loss of a character whom I might not have even been able to name had it not been for Kung Fu blurting out her name early on.

Speaking of unremarkable characters, the two of them head back downstairs to see what all that screaming and erratic piano playing was about. They find an unconscious Fantasy and parts of Melody. The piano music continues unabated.

Before you can say, "welcome to Halloween at Shakey's," the girls notice that Melody's severed fingers continue to tickle the ivories. Even in death, however, the piano remains Melody's biggest critic, smashing her fingers to bits as soon as they miss a note.

Prof and Kung Fu drag the unconscious Fantasy out of the room and try to revive her so they won't have to lug her ass arou-

Wh... What the hell was that? What the hell did I just see? A guy eating ramen is at the house with them? And there's a bear serving at a ramen stand with Mr. Togo!?

... uh, well I guess it's over now.

The girls barricade the stairs and retreat to the room with the creepy picture of Blanche. Prof pours over Auntie's journal, hoping to find some clue as to why all of this is happening. It's obvious that she's never going to figure it out, so Gorgeous bursts onto the scene and lays everything out for them:

In short, Auntie died years ago while waiting for her fiance to return from the war. Her desire to be married was so great that "her body remained alive after her death." I don't think it counts as death if your body doesn't die.

Anyway, now she eats all the unmarried girls that come to the house. Why? "Because that's the only time she can wear her bridal gown." Psh, women and their clothes. Am I right, guys? High five!

Gorgeous then politely asks to eat the girls, all the while flinging junk around the room. Kung Fu uses her kung fu to deflect a number of objects, but she's not really making any progress. She makes a break for the phone while her two companions act like huge loads. Her thinking is that the phone is probably the only non-possessed item in the house.

Wrong.

While all this is going on, we cut away to see that Mr. Togo has finally arrived at the bus stop where the girls began their cross country hike to the mansion. Now all he has to do is drive in total darkness along the unmarked path he's never seen before until he arrives at the mansion he's never been to before. What could possibly go wrong?

Surprisingly, Kung Fu is able to destroy the possessed phone before it kills her. Then she's attacked by a... mummy, or a mannequin, or something. She carries it and herself through the wall with a powerful charge. Now that she's outside, she could make a break for it. Being far and away the most efficacious of the girls, she'd probably make it. But no. Instead, she has a kung fu fight with the possessed Gorgeous.

Incredibly, she survives this fight as well! Unfortunately, in the midst of all that flipping and shoddy camera work, she winds up busting right back into the room with Prof and Fantasy. Those two, on the other hand, haven't done a damn thing since she left.

Prof has reached the conclusion that Blanche is a key part of all this. With the cat nowhere in sight, she deduces that the cat must be following Dorian Gray rules. She puts Kung Fu in charge of destroying the cat's portrait because it's not like she's going to get off her bony ass to wreck some artwork to save her own life. Kung Fu lunges at the portrait, but she has some trouble with a nearby light fixture.

Prof and Fantasy do their best (and by "best," I mean "least") to free Kung Fu, but as I've explained, they are both completely useless to the point where their mere presence is a liability. Look, these sorts of things can happen around the house. Here's what you do: take a potato, cut it in half, and then make some home fries because you don't want to get eaten by a rogue light fixture on an empty stomach.

From Kung Fu's perspective, we see the dismembered bodies of all her friends tumbling through whatever dimension is on the other side of all those hungry pianos and clocks and shit. I have to imagine that shooting these scenes was a little awkward, what the director doing his best to explain why he needed his actresses to get nude and chromakey the areas around their chests. "Listen, if we want the audience to understand that you've been devoured by a vengeful ghost, we need to have your bare boobs floating in space. What are you not understanding about this!?"

Speaking of not understanding things...

What can I even say about this that isn't already evident from those pictures? Kung Fu's lower half wriggles out of the light and delivers a flying kick to the cat portrait. That's what true grit looks like, people. If you can't finish a job, then by god, you better dispatch your limbs to do it for you!

There's still plenty more Hausu madness to see!
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