Reaction & Review | Audition

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm covering a Japanese horror movie from 1999. That movie is "Audition".

Now, I can tell you, guys, that "Audition" was directed by Takashi Miike. And Takashi Miike has a very long filmography under his name. Films such as "Ichi the Killer", "The Happiness of the Katakuris", "Visitor Q", and a bunch of other films that he's directed. And, out of all of his movies, this one is considered one of his most well known films. 

What I can tell you about "Audition" that I do know, outside of it being directed by Takashi Miike, is the plot, in which it's about a guy who lost his wife, and he ends up finding a new wife, which ends up being the woman that's advertised on the front cover for this movie. Speaking of which, I can also tell you that the movie stars Eihi Shiina. And I've seen her in one other movie that she starred in, which was "Tokyo Gore Police". I should mention that I did enjoy "Tokyo Gore Police", even though the movie was a tad bit long for my tastes. And she was great in that movie. So there's a really good chance that she'll pull off something great here, too.

One other thing that I should mention, which has nothing to do with the movie itself, but more so about it's director; Takashi Miike. He made a cameo appearance in one other movie that I covered for this series. That movie ended up being "The Neighbor No. 13". Now, I did know about it beforehand because, when I still had a copy of "The Neighbor No. 13", it mentioned on the back of the case that there was a special appearance by Takashi Miike. I didn't mention it at the time because I barely knew who he was, so I didn't bother bringing it up. Personally, I wish he could've picked a better movie to make a cameo appearance in, but I guess, sometimes, your first impression isn't always going to be your best.

Setting aside my disdain for that movie, I'm certainly hoping that "Audition" will be amazing, because I've heard nothing but great things about this movie. I'm hoping that all of the praise that this movie has gotten will be able to live up to that praise because Japanese horror movies, at least for me, have not had the best reputation for this series, so far. So I am hoping for "Audition" to be able to break that streak and present something good and entertaining. But the only way I'm gonna know if this movie will be any good, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Audition".

19 minutes later

Well, guys, I can say that, while the movie is moving at a rather slow pace, it is certainly fascinating, so far. I kinda hope the pacing will pick up as this thing continues on, but right now, I'm really getting sucked into the story. And that's always a positive.

8 minutes later

Wow. So one of these women auditioning for this fake role just admitted that she committed suicide twice and was sent to the asylum 3 times. Seems kinda messed up and odd, but hey, I can't really question her life choices, now can I?

10 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question. So, is he not going to mention to Asami about this director Shibata being missing for over a year? Seems a little bit odd to me that he would not ask that question to her. I understand that it's a trivial thing to be bringing up, but it does raise a question about her background, you know?

9 minutes later

All right, that was a little bit creepy on the few shots we've seen of Asami with her head down, up until the duffel bag started moving. Wasn't really scary, but still, kinda, creepy.

12 minutes later

OK, those burnt marks on her leg are kinda nasty. Certainly would be pretty awful for anyone to have those sort of burnt marks anywhere on their body.

15 minutes later

You know, guys, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, a human tongue flailing on the ground was not one of them. That was certainly different. Kinda nasty, but at least it's something new and creative.

12 minutes later

Is he trying to drink her vomit without a tongue? Well...it's certainly different. Kinda disgusting, sorta sick, and I'm kinda thankful I had dinner before watching this. Otherwise, I would've lost my appetite.

4 minutes later

...I was wondering what that wire was that she was holding on the front cover. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, that was fucking awesome. I loved that.

2 minutes later

O...K. Well, I can safely say that I'm thankful for never getting a needle shot in the tongue. That was...incredibly painful.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Audition". Let me shut the movie off...OK. Wow...what do I even talk about first? Well, I guess the best thing to start with is talking about the writing, as I mostly do with these reviews.

Before I started up this movie, I briefly mentioned about my previous experiences with Japanese horror movies, and how they didn't have the best reputation since I started doing this series. Granted, it's only been about 2 movies, but still, neither one of them made me interested in the Japanese horror movie genre. "The Neighbor No. 13" suffered from horrible everything with stupid characters, cheap special effects, a dub that wasn't all that great, and writing that could've been amazing, had the people who worked on that movie actually tried. Which they didn't. "Shock Labyrinth" also suffered from awful special effects, specifically in digital effects that overlapped the few good practical effects that movie had. And it's story could've been written better had it made some level of sense, and didn't have a god awful twist that ruined any chance of me watching that movie a second time. My point is, both movies suffered from a lot of things that would make a good horror movie, and both ended up sucking in the end. This movie, on the other hand, shows you that you can have a simple, yet amazing, story that won't make you ask a ton of questions. Questions involving logic issues with the story, or writing that was shallow and shit. This movie has none of that here. It, basically, is an example of a cautionary tale that anyone you meet is not always who they say they are. And "Audition" tells this story brilliantly. It shows you that you don't need an overly complicated story to make you care about what's going on. Now, I will admit that there a couple of minor issues with the writing, but I'm going to explain why they aren't a big issue in the long run.

The first issue I'm going to discuss is pacing. This movie has a VERY slow pace. This movie, for about 50 minutes to an hour, doesn't really have much happening. We're mostly focusing on Aoyama, who's been trying to find a wife, after his previous wife dies. And he does so through a fake film audition that his co-worker, I believe, comes up with. And so they start meeting the female applicants who are auditioning for the role, even though it's mainly to help find Aoyama a wife out of these auditions. And most of that ends up taking about the first 30 minutes or so of the movie. And then the other half hour is about meeting with Asami, the person who he ends up picking, and trying to propose to her. Well, he dates her a couple of times first, of course, just so he can understand what he's getting into about her past. I won't go too deep into Asami's character for the sake of spoilers, but I will say that out of every character in this movie, Asami is the most interesting. In fact, she is the reason to watch this movie. Which makes sense, of course, otherwise, she would not be on the front cover of this movie. But anyway, as I made mention earlier, this movie takes it time to boil up a slower paced story. And in a lot of cases, I would have an issue with this. Because most of the time, I feel as though certain movies are just dragging their feet and are not trying to develop anything involving characters or story development. Or, barring that, at least giving half a reason as to why I should care about their characters, even with the lack of depth that they may have. But this movie has that slow-paced advantage, because we are building up to the torture scenes. And it works so well. And what makes it even better is that this movie does not rely on jump scares. OK, granted, there are a couple of scenes that may attempt this, but I, personally, am not going to count them as jump scares, because I would barely constitute them as jump scares, anyways. I mentioned Asami earlier, and how she is the most interesting character in the movie. On the subject of characters, the others don't really have a ton of depth. In fact, I can only name two off the bat. One of them is Aoyama, who is the widower that loses his previous wife. He really doesn't have a ton of depth to him, other than he is a father that is worried about growing old, and is not getting any younger. And then there's his son, Shigehiko, who is studying about dinosaurs. He really has no depth beyond that. However, I'm willing to give that a pass because, even though they are kinda weak in depth, at least the movie gives you a reason to care about them. And that's more than enough that I could ask for out of a horror movie.

If I had to nitpick anything, and this is going to involve the second issue I have with writing, is something that I was thinking about when watching this movie. So, at the very beginning of the movie, we get to see the death of Aoyama's wife, who had just passed away at the hospital. Moments later, his son comes in, who was a child at the time, and he had made something for his Mom. I couldn't tell you what it was, but that doesn't really matter. So then the movie jumps ahead to about 7 years, where his son has grown up and Aoyama looks the same, despite the 7 year jump. And then one day, after the two of them come home from fishing, his son asks why his Dad hasn't remarried yet. And right there, I was wondering why his son never asked him about this during the 7 years after his Mom died? Now, I could understand not asking about it during his childhood years, because I don't think a child would be asking questions about marriage at that young age. But you would assume he would ask about remarriage, like, several years before the 7 years had hit, and ask about it then. And I totally understand that it's a very trivial, and stupid, thing to even be thinking about, but it was on my mind for about 5 minutes after he started asking about it. And at that point, I started to forget about it, because I knew it wasn't going to be a big deal, anyways. Beyond that point, the writing is really strong throughout it's 115 minute runtime.

Now let's get to the acting. The acting here is, almost, fantastic. There is one moment where I thought the acting seemed a little bit weak. And that is during the big torture scene towards the end of the movie, and I may have to spoil a little bit of the torture scene in order for me to talk about this part of the acting. So, Aoyama's son comes home and he sees his Dad on the floor, stabbed and his one of his feet cut off. Rather than looking shocked, as what a normal person would react to upon seeing a loved one in this state, he has a deadpan look on his face and sounds incredibly bored when he asks his Dad about what happened to him. And that's rather shocking, too, because the actor playing Aoyama's son was great before we get to the torture scene. I'm not sure if that was a slight misdirection on the acting, or if that's how he was suppose to react to seeing his Dad getting tortured. Either way, it just came across as a bit weak, and that's the only instance of bad acting I found in this movie. As for rest of the cast, holy shit, did they turn in amazing showings. And I'm even going to include the two child actors who were in this movie, for, like, the very short time that they were in the film. They also turned in amazing showings. So I can say that the acting was fantastic from everyone. And, even though, I did complain about one instance of bad acting coming from Aoyama's son, his acting before, and after that, were great. So I'm not going to harp on his one mishap, because his acting was just that good.

Moving onto special effects. And this is where the movie truly shines. This has some of the best practical effects I have seen done in a horror movie in a long time. As far as I could tell, there is no use of any digital effects here. We have quite a bit of blood in this movie. Granted, it's not like "Tokyo Gore Police" in where blood is just splattering all over the place like fireworks. It's only used in areas where blood is needed. And that's when Asami has to use this piano wire that's able to cut into flesh and bone, and it looks great here. We have body parts that were, either, cut off previously, such as that tongue I mentioned earlier. Or when we get to see one of Aoyama's feet being cut off and thrown towards a glass door. That stuff looked amazing, too. Makeup effects are also pretty good, too, such as the burnt marks I mentioned earlier. Guys, for a movie that came out in 1999, it, probably, has some of the best special effects in a movie that came out that year. And it still looks great over 20 years later, which is awesome to see.

Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting is well lit. Sound-mix is mixed perfectly. There is almost no music in this movie, which is great. Because, similar to when I covered "The Old Dark House" a couple of episodes ago, it benefits from not having a typical horror movie score. And it works, especially, well during the big torture scene at the end, and I loved that attention to detail. It proves, once more, that you don't always need a generic score in order to 'enhance' your horror movie. This movie, including "The Old Dark House", are two great examples that most horror movies should follow before deciding to add in any kind of score for their horror movie.

So, with all that being said, can I recommend "Audition"? Yes. Definitely. However, I have to stress that this is not going to be a film for everyone. If you're someone who doesn't like seeing blood, or body parts being cut off, then there is no way in hell I can recommend this movie. But if you're someone who's into horror movies, especially the psychological kind of horror movies, then you're going to absolutely adore this thing. This movie was amazing. I loved this movie. And I can officially say that my mini curse with Japanese horror movies has been broken thanks to this thing. And it's going to have a very happy spot on my DVD shelf. Now...I do remember Emer Prevost, the man who originated Reaction & Review, putting out a Reaction & Review for this movie. I'm gonna go watch that, and see how close my views end up matching his. Because it's been a few years since I last watched that review.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.