A sympathetic but clueless middle aged man sets up an audition to find a new wife, seven years after having become a widow. The woman he picks and starts to date does not turn out to be the shy, fragile girls she seems to be.
Takashi Miike lulles us asleep with an excruciatingly boring and utterly passionless story of love and family life and then tries to catch us off guard with a bloody and gruesome finale.
With flashbacks, Miike shows us why the woman has become the monster she is, but does it give us any real insight into her feelings, her psyche? Can we appreciate her sad life story? Do we feel any compassion for her? No, no, no. In the end, she's just a monster. The things she went through as a child just seem to be another horror movie, with her uncle as the monster.
And the man? I just thought he was stupid and naive in the extreme. The girl's story doesn't check out, and there's obviously something 'wrong' with her. Warned by friends and even by his late wife in a vision, he still goes through with the relationship, and then becomes a helpless victim of her true nature.
Without being backed up by interesting characters or a gripping story, the admittedly horrifying ending turns out to be nothing more than some heavy duty blood and gore. Audition is a failed experiment at best. The only redeeming factor the film has is the increasingly surrealist style later in the movie.
Takashi Miike lulles us asleep with an excruciatingly boring and utterly passionless story of love and family life and then tries to catch us off guard with a bloody and gruesome finale.
With flashbacks, Miike shows us why the woman has become the monster she is, but does it give us any real insight into her feelings, her psyche? Can we appreciate her sad life story? Do we feel any compassion for her? No, no, no. In the end, she's just a monster. The things she went through as a child just seem to be another horror movie, with her uncle as the monster.
And the man? I just thought he was stupid and naive in the extreme. The girl's story doesn't check out, and there's obviously something 'wrong' with her. Warned by friends and even by his late wife in a vision, he still goes through with the relationship, and then becomes a helpless victim of her true nature.
Without being backed up by interesting characters or a gripping story, the admittedly horrifying ending turns out to be nothing more than some heavy duty blood and gore. Audition is a failed experiment at best. The only redeeming factor the film has is the increasingly surrealist style later in the movie.
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