Movie Review: Audition (1999)

Directed by Takashi Miike

Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiini and Tetsu Sawaki

Audition starts off with the main character Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) sitting with his wife while she lies on her deathbed. She passes away and he is left to raise his young son alone. Years pass, his son is nearly an adult and will soon be leaving home, and Aoyama seems to have gotten over the death of his wife. But he is lonely and with some coaxing from his son he comes to the realization that he might be happier if he took a wife. Not quite sure how to go about this, he consults with his movie producer friend and they come up with a pretty ingenious scheme for finding him a wife. A fake movie audition, where they line up 30 women to audition for a movie that will never be made, with Aoyama choosing the girl he feels is the right fit for him. He becomes entranced by one of the girls, Asami (Shiina) after reading an essay she writes for the audition. He immediately strikes up a relationship with her and soon discovers that his deceit is nothing compared to the skeletons Asami has in her closet. What plays out is a top notch thriller that slowly builds up to a fantastic horror show. The scene where Aoyama finally gets up the nerve to call Asami on the phone is just plain creepy, the phone is ringing, Asami is sitting quietly on the floor of a run down apartment and as the camera pans out we see a large canvas sack on the floor behind her, there is something inside it, and its moving. Asami smiles and picks the phone up.

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As the film moves on, Aoyama realizes there is something not quite right about this young girl he has fallen for and he begins to investigate her story, meeting acquaintances and bystanders he learns a tale of mysterious disappearances and hacked up bodies with extra body parts found at the scene. Although it took quite a while for this to turn into a full-blown horror movie, the road to getting there was quite entertaining, with several dream sequences placed throughout which sort of throw you off balance. This is a prime example of why I love Asian horror movies, think Psycho meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only instead of Leatherface we are treated to the sight of beautiful Eihi Shiina in a nurses outfit with elbow-high latex gloves and a very menacing syringe. (excuse me while I touch myself) The scene near the end where she is straddling Aoyama and torturing him with the long needles is priceless, singing, “deeper... deeper...” as she pushes the needles into his eyes. That's horror movie heaven right there people.

Yes, this movie was gory towards the end, but it wasn't too intense(perhaps I got the cut version). It did hit a nerve though and did have me squirming, I aint gonna lie about that. I really did enjoy this movie, it was nasty without being obscene, slickly done and well acted. I would recommend it to anyone who likes their horror with a side order of blood and guts, not drenched in buckets of it.

I'd rate it 7.5 crazy Asian psycho-bitches out of 10

Reviewed by KennyB