AUDITION PLOT-A man holds auditions in order to find a new wife, and gets in way over his head with a seemingly innocent girl. VIOLENCE-Heads and other limbs are chopped off, a guy gets several needles jammed into his eyeballs, and someone drinks puke from a doggie bowl (that's not violent but it's some gross shit anyway). SEX/NUDITY-I don't recall seeing any. Maybe there was a breast here and there, but it was probably brief and darkly-lit. WHY I LIKED IT-If you like horror, you need to seek out Takashi Miike's films. He's making some of the scariest and most violent stuff out there right now. AUDITION is a different kind of movie for Miike, but it still has some gut-wrenching violence that's really hard to watch. Basically he takes the audience on a surreal, nightmarish journey of mystery before finally letting loose and fucking you up. In the past, his stuff has been a little cartoon-y but still scary and sick. AUDITION is a bit more "arty" in its approach, and it made it on several critics' lists for 2001. I just imagine all those artsy-fartsy film people watching this at Sundance or Cannes, and then when the ending comes...WHAM! I remember reading that many people walked out because they couldn't take it. That's awesome. DOWNSIDE-Like I said, Miike lets the story and mystery build up before things get really horrifying. So the first 3/4 of the movie kinda drag. But the end is well worth it. MEMORABLE SCENES-Like I keep saying, the end of AUDITION is brutal as fuck. I was squirming in my seat, and I admit I wanted to look away a few times. It's some gut-wrenching shit. Man. It's definitely one of the most severe horror sequences ever filmed. And believe me, I've seen a lot of creepy shit. NOTES-This movie is available on DVD from Chimera Entertainment. Unlike releases by companies like Media Blasters, Tai Seng or Synapse, this DVD is awesome. The packaging is above average even for a standard American release of a big Hollywod movie. It's tough to include many extras with a foreign-language film, but Chimera did a great job. The disc has a 25-minute interview with director Miike (he doesn't speak english, everything is translated), and a commentary track by him as well (again, translated). Said commentary is short though, the film is 115 minutes and I'd say there's only a little over 30 of actual commentary. The disc also has a cool tour of the restored Egyptian theater, a photo gallery, great animated menus, trailers, and a bio/filmography for Miike. Also of note are the picture & sound quality, which are exceptional for a Japanese horror release. Everything looks and sounds awesome (nothing like hearing a foot being sawed off in Dolby 5.1 digital).
