Chrissie D.
Editor’s note: All throughout October, the vibes get spookier and the nights get longer. It’s the perfect time of year to watch horror movies, whether you’re a year-round horror fan or you just like to watch horror flicks to get into the Halloween spirit. This year at Horror Obsessive, for our 31 Horror Classics Revisited series, we’re giving you one recommendation for a classic horror film each day throughout the month of October. What do you think—is this film a horror classic? What other horror films do you consider to be classics, and what films do you make sure you watch each October? Let us know in the comments below!
Audition was Japanese director, Takashi Miike’s first international hit landing in the States in the year 2000 among films such as American Psycho and Final Destination. America seemed to have a taste for over-the-top violence at the time and while Audition isn’t relentlessly gory throughout, it does check all the boxes in the last 25 minutes of the movie. So much so, that it landed itself on the 100 Scariest Movie Moments: Part V: 13-1 (2004).
What’s it about?
The movie centers around Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a widower of seven years. His wife dies in the opening scene right as his son arrives with a wack-looking class project to show her. We then jump ahead and see Shigeharu fishing with his son. He looks pretty happy and I would assume if this were modern-day, that the fish that he catches would end up in his next online dating profile picture. But alas, instead we see he and his son sitting down to a quiet dinner in a quaint simply furnished house where his son broaches the subject that it may be time to start looking for another wife because his dad looks “worn-out.” Apparently, his son believes that there are more fish in the ocean (besides the one they just caught and fileted for dinner). All in all, my man seems to be doing quite well without a relationship, but normative gender constructs call and Shigeharu gets the idea from a friend of his to hold an audition for a new wife.
They decide that they will pretend to hold a casting call for a film, but only hold the casting call for women that are in the window of 29–36. “It’s as hard as choosing my first car,” Shigeharu says gleefully as he sifts through headshots and biographies. He then stumbles on Asami Yamazaki’s (Eihi Shiina) profile and is struck by her miserable life story of how she ended her dream to be a ballerina when she broke her hip at 18. Shigeharu’s previous wife was a pianist, so it seems his type is a classically trained woman. Misery loves misery.
Then comes the audition scene where Shigeharu and his friend, Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) interview the women, asking various questions from “Are you psychic?” to “Would you consider doing sex scenes?” The tone is playful and comedic. They are having a great time and enjoying their position of control. One woman takes off her shirt and bra, while another reveals her suicide attempts and points to her scars. Shigeharu looks uncomfortable but is always complicit through the auditions as he is patiently crossing names off the list until it is Asami’s turn.
She comes in wearing all white, dressed in long sleeves and a knee-length skirt. Shigeharu is enchanted by her and immediately changes the subject to her ballet injury. He acknowledges that someone of her age who has lost so much probably understands the seriousness of life. Shigeharu Aoyama’s friend can tell that Shigeharu has made up his mind, but his friend warns him that there is something that not sitting well with Asami.
Shigeharu takes her out on a date despite his friend’s warning and they seem to enjoy each other’s company. Shigeharu’s friend tells him to slow down because again, something is off about this woman and so Shigeharu waits to call her back. Thus, we finally see her in her true form sitting in her apartment in the same spot staring at the phone for what seems like several days. Shigeharu finally breaks down and decides to call Asami, he takes her to a modern white-walled restaurant that is filled with other couples, until there is a cut and they are the only ones left. Then there is another cut and they are again at another restaurant, this one salaciously red and black. Asami has also changed her usual uniform of white by adding a fuzzy red coat to her outfit. It appears that Shigeharu is getting deeper and deeper into a situation with Asami that is absolutely, totally, and completely beyond his control.
Dream Logic over Torture Horror
The imbalance between the romantic notions of the movie mixed with the horror, and later, the violence of the film has urged many to place it in league with other torture horror films like Martyrs and Hostel (which Takeshi Miike made a cameo in), but I would argue that this film follows more of a dream logic than a harsh reality. The emphasis on color, character, and disorienting cuts and sounds, reminds more of a David Lynch film. There are many things left unexplained by the end of the movie, such as a timeline of events, which parts of the film are a dream, and which conversations actually took place and which ones were imagined, for example, the conversation at the end of the movie.
Also, the first time we see that something is truly off is when Shigeharu is asleep and we get a flash to Asami’s apartment where she is sitting on the floor staring at the phone with a large white bag on the floor in front of her. The apartment looks disheveled and we also see a vision of his previous wife hiding behind a tree (she appears often in dreams to warn him). When Asami and Aoyama go on vacation together for the first time, we see her often facing away from him, staring at the ocean or floating over the floor in a white floor-length dress. Then, when Aoyama is trying to decide how they will spend their evening and if they should go get cheesecake or dinner, Asami removes her clothes and lies down on the bed under a white sheet like a corpse in the morgue. Even as they are about to make love for the first time, he is figuratively getting closer and closer to death and from there, there is a rip in the fabric of the film as things devolve and move sideways. Then the phone rings, mirroring scenes from her apartment earlier when we see Asami waiting for a phone call, and we find out that Asami has left, a small death or break in their relationship. Just enough time for Aoyama to do more investigating into Asami’s past, which leads him to a dance studio that appears to be lit by a fire. This is where we learn where Asami has gotten her bruises and burns and that she has had an abusive childhood.
Audition subverts romantic and horror genre expectations. It is an OG “good for her” film focused on the abuse, misogyny, and gender norms put on women to where by the end we are almost celebrating the violence as a release. It’s not that we the audience think Shigeharu deserves this punishment, but more that he is a bystander of patriarchy and stand-in for Asami and the pain she has experienced in her life through patriarchal figures in her life. Asami is the one doing the penetrating as she skillfully inserts acupuncture needles into Shigeharu’s stomach and eyes. As the sayings go, these are the ways to a man’s heart and soul. “When you are in pain, you see your own shape clearly,” Asami says as she smiles for the first time in the entire movie and continues on with her work gleefully dismembering him in his own living room. Misery loves to cut off body parts.
Recommended with Reservations
While Audition is still an undisputed classic, I would say that the pacing is too offputting for a modern audience that has been conditioned to be jump-scared every 30 minutes. At a run time of one hour and 55 minutes, an hour and five minutes of which you can sit comfortably and laugh off much of the creep factor. That being said, I think the performances are engaging enough to draw in a patient audience that wants to see Asami become a “heroine not in a movie, but in real life.”
