Audition

Audition is a truly creepy piece of Japanese cinema. The Japanese do have a way of creating genuinely disturbing films without having to use the standard Hollywood scare tactics.

The basic plot is thus: A teenage boy encourages his father to find a new wife, feeling it is high time his father got over his grief at the death of his mother. Said man, speaking to a friend about it, decides to stage an "audition" for the perfect woman, ostensibly getting suitable young women in under the guise that it is for a film role. He is captivated by one woman in particular, much younger than him and begins to see her.

For the first half hour, you're a bit horrified by his cavalier attitude about how to find the perfect wife. By the second half, you're feeling sorry for him as the woman he chooses turns out to be fairly insane, having been tortured and abused as a child, and fearing abandonment, she begins to act increasingly bonkers, culminating in a horrifying scene of torture at the end.

Not for those of a weak disposition, the tension and suspense in this film build and build and build until about the last 5 minutes. Director Takashi Miike does an amazing job of setting the tone of the film and of slowly building the atmosphere of doom until he finally unleashes the badness in a torrent of blood and nasty at the very end.