Most Unsettling Horror You’ll Ever See Is Crowned by Tarantino as ‘True Masterpiece’

Japanese horror films, or J-horror, are a provocative phenomenon that undermines the entire system of the horror film genre. Ut was in the field of J-horror, where major revolutions in the genre took place, both in narrative terms and in the style of the audiovisual language. It's not for nothing that in the 2000s almost all Japanese horror films were remade by Hollywood studios.

The thing is that J-horrors are very authentic, they take the horrible for the beautiful, transform the usual suspense into slow sketches of everyday life or chaotic dreams, and saturate the stories with cultural background, turning to the legends and myths of the country.

Among the ranks of J-horror fans is, of course, Quentin Tarantino. In a 2009 interview, he called Takashi Miike's 1999 film Audition a “true masterpiece.”

What is Audition About?

The main character Aoyama is a widower and seven years after the death of his wife he still hasn't found a new love. His friend, a movie producer, decides to help his friend. He arranges fake auditions for a role in a non-existent movie, but in reality he is looking for girls for a date with Aoyama. The main character likes the sweet, reserved Asami the most.

They start a relationship, but more and more people advise Aoyama to break up with Asami. For some reason, Asami's stories do not correspond to reality. And the people she knew are mysteriously disappearing one after the other.

Audition Starts As a Romantic Story, But Soon Turns Into a Nightmare

The film adaptation of Ryu Murakami's short story of the same name immediately puts you in a melancholy romantic mood. Before our eyes, a touching relationship develops between a hopeless widower and a kind and understanding girl. Nothing seems to foreshadow trouble, and the lovers seem to find comfort in each other.

However, Takashi Miike deliberately deceives the audience and shocks them with an endless stream of cruelty at the most unexpected moment.
Asami's tragic past as a survivor of childhood abuse gradually comes to the fore.

Audition Was a Predecessor to Many Revenge Horror Movies

Asami’s revenge on the entire male race knows no bounds and manifests itself in the form of torture scenes that are sometimes unbearable to watch.
Audition surprises not so much with its plot twist, but with the intensity and insanity of its nightmarish scenes.

Takashi slowly plunges the viewer into the protagonist's personal hell, throwing one horrible image after another at the screen.

It was Audition that foreshadowed the directors' obsession with stories of female revenge in the 2000s and early 2010s. The Japanese films The Grudge and A Slit-Mouthed Woman, Tarantino's Kill Bill, and I Spit on Your Grave are evidence of this.

Source: SkyMovies (via YouTube)