Audition: Seriously, this one is....tough to watch.

I used to be a big horror film fan (I say used to because as I grow older I find that I just do not have the stomach for them anymore or at least the ones that have no plot and only wish to fill the screen with as much blood and carnage as possible). After watching all the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street films, I thought there was no horror film that could get to me. And then I rented this film and, as the title of this post says, even I found it tough to watch.

Shigeharu has been living as a widower for far too long in the eyes of his family and friends. So in order to obtain a new wife with all of the qualities he seeks, he holds a fake movie audition. It is during this process that he meets Asami, a seemingly perfect woman. But there’s more to Asami than he could ever imagine.

Even days after you’ve watched the final moments of Audition, you are terrorized by the whole endeavor. What starts off as a faux romantic comedy devolved into a disturbing psychological thriller/horror film whose context and imagery will forever be burned into a viewers’ mind (especially male viewers). And it was this startling turn in tone that hit the viewer like a sucker punch for they cared for both Shigeharu and Asami, wanted them to fall in love and live happily ever after but wound up realizing, like Shigeharu, that you can never judge a book by its cover, even the most delicate flower can have a penchant for garrote wire and torture. One of the film's bigger missteps was the number of times it tried to misdirect the audience with dream sequences posed as reality. Audition ask a lot of the audience just with its visual content alone, and to play with their emotions in that way seemed unfair. A quick word of warning, if you thought the actions and reactions in Fatal Attraction were harsh, you should stay away from this movie for it takes you to a level so far beyond boiling a bunny that you honestly have to remind yourself, “it’s only a movie."

Grade: C