A horror film that's been described as so "disturbing" that a renowned filmmaker reportedly hurled the DVD out the window is now available to stream.
Audition, a Japanese psychological horror from director Takashi Miike, has long held a reputation as one of the most unsettling films ever made.
First released in 1999, it tells the story of Shigeharu, a lonely widower who, with help from a friend in the movie industry, stages a fake casting call to secretly search for a new wife.
But when he becomes enamored with the mysterious and soft-spoken Asami, he sets in motion a chain of events far more horrific than he could ever imagine.
Played by Ryo Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina respectively, Shigeharu and Asami’s disturbing relationship takes a brutal turn after it’s revealed that Asami’s backstory doesn’t quite add up. Though she claims to be a former ballerina sidelined by injury, every reference she provides turns out to be either untraceable or dead.
Legendary critic Mark Kermode recalled the film’s impact, telling Express: “By the end of the screening I was hiding behind the seat in front of me cowering in terror.”
Kermode even recounted the extreme reaction of director Ken Russell, who “watched half of the movie before throwing the disc out of the window and demanding to know what the hell I was doing bringing something so frightful into his home".
Still, Kermode named it his top pick of the year, and its award-winning debut at the Rotterdam Film Festival sparked intense debate.
As he described, critics were “divided between those who viewed it as a misogynist nightmare and those who embraced it as a feminist revenge allegory with teeth".
The movie scored an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.1/10 score on IMDB.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called the film a “stomach-turning masterpiece,” describing its protagonist as a woman “bent on punishing typically Japanese male arrogance, but also self-pity and incipient masochism.”
Stephanie Archer of Film Inquiry described Audition as “a slow burner of a horror, an almost perfect example of a frog in boiling water," while Carolyn Hands of JoySauce.com admitted: "A film I’ve seen once and I’m not sure I’ll ever see again because it’s so effectively disturbing, which is exactly what you want with a horror film. I’ve never looked at piano wire the same way again."
Anna-Maria Ninnas, writing for Medium, penned in her review that "Audition has been critiqued as both misogynistic due to [Shigeharu's] motivations, as well as feminist due to Asami’s inevitable revenge on the man who wronged her".
"In actuality, it’s neither: there’s a much deeper underlying commentary addressing Japanese women’s evolution from their ‘traditional’ selves," she continued. "The book, in fact, punishes men for the unreal standards set to Japanese women, romanticising an oppressive, patriarchal past.
"Meanwhile, the film is about the source of that ‘longing’ for the ‘traditional’ woman, which is the underlying belief that Japanese culture dies with the empowerment of women, thus the trend of demonizing women in J-horror,” she concluded.
Viewers have also chimed in on social media to share their stunned opinions after watching the horror flick.
According to Daily Star, one person summed it up best: “Might just hold the crown as the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen… as it takes you for a loop by presenting what looks to be this very by-the-numbers romantic dramedy only to pull the rug from underneath and deliver a deeply terrifying and sadistic tale of how someone is not who they seem to be.”
More than two decades later, Audition still lingers in the minds of those who’ve seen it - and now it’s easier than ever to experience the terror firsthand.
The film is available to stream on Amazon Prime (with a premium add-on), YouTube, Google Play, and Apple TV.