Audition (2000)
I didn’t get any time over the weekend to watch anything. And I didn’t get to see the Oscars presentation last night even. This is probably the first year ever that I’ve seen more than 1 or 2 of the contenders. Oh well, next year! 
Tonight I watched Audition, Takashi Miike’s horror film from Japan. It’s about a man in Japan who has his wife die of an illness about 7 years earlier. He is prompted by his son that he should marry again, so he decides he will. Not knowing how to meet women, he takes the advice of a friend or co-worker (I could never really tell which) and holds a fake “audition” and views the women. He’s enamored with one and calls her later a few times, they go to dinner, etc.
He comes in to talk to his son one day who suspects right away his father might have a girlfriend. His father confirms it and that they are going off on a trip for the weekend and he’ll ask her to marry him. He also mentions he’ll introduce her to his son sometime soon! (weird!) Anyway, that’s when the horror element starts up. And I thought it was rather creepy, but nothing that would keep me up at night.
After watching it I looked at a few extras and found that this movie ranks #11 of the 100 scariest. Eli Roth and Rob Zombie both declare how creepy it is. That’s when I see a few scenes and realize that the glitches I thought might be effects were the video skipping. So, I missed a hunk of the gory stuff on this DVD. NetFlix sent one that didn’t play right. So, I’m off to their page to report a defective disk. When you report one as unplayable or defective you have the option to have them send a replacement the next business day. I got the gist of this one, so I think I’ll just have them send the next title!
If you like horror and a little gore and want something that is more creepy that your ordinary horror, you’ll like this one. Be prepared to read the Japanese sub-titles as I couldn’t get the English audio track to play – but I’m thinking now maybe it didn’t have that track even though it was listed in the cycle of audio tracks from my remote. Anyway, enough of my problems!
Rated UR (Unrated). 115 minutes (1 hour 55 minutes). Almost zero profanity – at least the parts I actually did see. I saw one scene where an auditioning girl stripped down to her panties and you got a glimpse of her nice boobs. Gore and violence - torture and dismemberment, if that’s your thing.
