Audition (1999)

VERDICT:
7/10 Peglegs

Takes a while to reach that paydirt, but once you’re there, sweet sassy molassy, you will not forget it.

Audition is about a widower who, with the help of his friend the film producer, sets up a fake cattle call for a non-existent movie as a means to find a woman that, hopefully, might just be the (next) one. He quickly finds himself falling for a timid brunette, but by the time he figures out that she’s batshit crazy through and through, it’s unfortunately far too late to just give her the old “We need to talk” bit and get on eHarmony like the rest of his widower pals.

Now, I haven’t seen too many movies by director Takashi Miike, but it doesn’t take too many encounters to realize that there aren’t a whole lot of other dudes out there that make ‘em like he does. The guy is pretty out there, and he’s one sick mofo, but I don’t see a whole lot of other horror directors out there that are going anywhere the kind of sadomasochistic and challenging shit the Miike has become infamous for pulling off with style.

And that’s probably what’s most interesting about Audition. This is one messed up movie, but it’s also crafted in a way that it doesn’t cheapen the movie as a whole. The main reason being that Miike just does a great of keeping the tension at this horribly unsettling slow boil that by the time the last fifteen minutes roll around, you’re either in it for the long haul or you’ve got your trigger finger trained on the STOP button because it is just too damn much to take.

Miike keeps his audience in the dark about what’s really going on along with giving an explanation as to what the hell is up with this weird-ass girl, and with each subtle, bizarro hint he drops as to her true colors, you can’t help but keep watching. It’s a pretty jaw-dropping and unnerving trip, but good lord does it separate the sheep from the goats by the time the climax rolls around.

But the double-edged sword of this movie is the said last ten or fifteen minutes. I think a lot of people have seen or have heard about this movie solely because of this final scene, and by the time you finally see it, everything else that came before pretty much pales in comparison. This is a bad thing because when someone asks you, “Have you ever seen Audition?”, they’re really asking you, “Have you ever seen the last ten or fifteen minutes of Audition?” Granted, the scene is beyond insane, and while it does do a dandy job of confirming the audience’s suspicions and culminates the building intensity in a truly nightmarish fashion, it also isn’t doing any favors to the rest of the movie in a certain sense either.

The pacing is also pretty slow at times in the hour and forty minutes leading up to this wonderful little segment, and it has a signature Miike non-ending to it that I continue to wonder whether I like or not, but in the grand scheme of things, neither of these things really detracted from the movie all that much anyway.

Also, is it just me or did this charming woman’s punishment really not fit the lonely widower’s crime? Seems a tad extreme for duping her into believing she was trying out for an acting gig. Totally overreacted.

But still, even with its faults, Audition is something else. Not only is it a very well-made and utterly twisted horror movie, it’s one of those things that’s worth seeing just so you can say, “I survived Audition.” And amazingly enough, it’s not even Miike’s most extreme effort.

Good ol’ 1999, back when J-horror was in it’s prime…

And is it weird that I crack up at that last scene now? Anyone else think there’s some dark, dark, dark comedy going on there? Just want to make sure I’m not tapping into any Freudian homicidal urges or anything.