I went with the least spoilery poster for this movie, but unfortunately, they are all at least a little bit spoilers.
Anyway, Audition is another slow burn of a horror movie, but really builds to a totally what the fuck final act. Similar to Kairo, this is a Japanese movie also dealing with feelings of loneliness and isolation, but this one doesn't focus on technology as Kairo did.
The movie starts almost like the premise to a rom com: Shigeharu Aoyama loved his wife, but seven years after her untimely death to illness, everyone thinks it's time that he got back in the game. But middle-aged widowers don't know how to date anymore, plus at his age, he wants to be confident in his partner that they will be in it for the long haul. But have no fear, his producer friend, Yoshikawa has a brilliant idea!
"Let's hold auditions for a movie, but really you'll be scouting these women for your potential mate"
"Yay! What could go wrong?*"
*Highlight for spoiler: everything.
So after scouring over hundreds of applications, they pick 30 women for the audition, but one. Asami, has clearly caught Aoyama's eye even before he's met her. During the audition, he becomes even more enamored with her. Yoshikawa warns Aoyama against moving too quickly as he has some reservations. Something in his gut doesn't feel right, but more specifically, he was unable to reach her references, one of whom has even been missing for over a year.
Aoyama ignores the warning and begins to develop the relationship anyway. This are seemingly going well and he takes her away for the weekend with the intent of proposing to her. Although somewhat aloof to the plans that Aoyama suggests, Asami begins to disrobe, asking him to join her in bed. As he does, she stops him and makes promise that he will love only her and no one else. He of course does because homeboy needed to get his dick wet. Just kidding, he clearly truly loves her.
But when he wakes up, she's gone.
The rest of the movie is a roller coaster of emotions as he tries to find her, but ends up finding out about her past, much of is shrouded in mystery and seeming dead ends. There's quite a bit of non-linear editing in the final act which leads to a lot of thinking "wait, what?" But for a movie that keeps forcing you to ask "what is real," the conclusion was satisfyingly straightforward and wrapped the movie up nicely.
There were a few very solid jump scares, but most of the horror is psychological, either between not knowing what is real or the horror of what insane people are capable of. There's also a bit of visceral, bodily horror, but not that much outright gore, as most of the violence is implied, choosing to focus the camera on the perpetrator rather than the victim. If you fear needles, as I do, there is one particular scene you will likely watch through your fingertips (as I did). I tried to find the clip to show off how horrifyingly creepy just the audio in that scene is, but apparently no one wants to put it online because it's clearly too scary.
Rating on the Spook-o-meter: 7 out of 10 boos
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