昔から、この国ではどこの家にも妖怪家鳴りが住んでいた。住民たちはもう家鳴りの声は聞こえない。家鳴りは時々、それを寂しく思う。

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This house rattling spirit has lived in this old house for generations. But the old woman who lives there as the final resident can no  longer hear the noises it makes, which leaves the house rattler filled with a sense of longing.

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House Rattler tells the story of an old woman who lives alone in an old Japanese house in a depopulated town, and the spectre (yokai) that shares this house with her. The protagonist of the film is a yokai a few inches tall called a yanari, which appears in Japanese folklore. It has long been believed that the mysterious creaking and other noises that can sometimes be heard in the house are the work of yokai trying to startle the residents.  While yanari are yokai that are unique to Japanese houses, the term yokai originally referred to monsters that bring about bizarre and unusual phenomena that are beyond human understanding. In Japan, people have long believed and feared that the world they live in has a shadowy side that they cannot see, and by calling them yokai, they have created a boundary between their daily lives and the human world, keeping them at a distance. 

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