Editorials
Arrow Video Presents the Remastering of a J-Horror Classic: Reflecting On ‘Audition’
Nearing the 20th anniversary of its debut at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Takashi Miike’s Audition has long been regarded as one of the most unsettling films ever made. Audition has been renowned as a tremendous work of Japanese Horror, offering a shocking delivery of terror. It is a divisive work as well, with critics speaking to its contrasting themes.
With Audition’s anniversary in mind, Arrow Video this week released a special 2K restoration of the film; this version comes packaged with a small booklet and lots of features. Including a variety of different interviews and commentary, there’s also a special feature entitled Damaged Romance, with Japanese cinema historian Tony Rayns discussing Miike’s career and sharing an insightful critique of Audition.
Adapted from Ryu Murakami’s novel of the same name, Audition follows Shigeharu Aoyama, a middle-aged widower. His son encourages him to get back out into dating, inspiring Aoyama and a film producer friend of his to arrange a fake audition for the former to find a potential wife. Aoyama is immediately attracted to Asami Yamazaki, a quiet woman who grew up loving ballet, but has lost her ability to dance. The two begin seeing each other, but what starts as romance soon evolves into a world of nightmares.
The twist comes in the form of revealing who Asami is; the viewer learns of her abusive past, and how she has grown to torture and kill those who hurt her. At first, Asami appears as a gentle woman; it’s as the narrative progresses we learn more of her backstory and mentality. Visually, Miike provides context through surreal sequences that interrupt the linear narrative; these transitions are jarring and offer a psychological horror element. There will be moments where we re-watch an interaction between Asami and Aoyama we saw earlier, but this time the dialogue will be different; or, Aoyama may be in a nightmare where he sees Asami, but in the blink of an eye, she has shifted form to look like someone else. Through this mix of cuts and flashbacks, we have context regarding Asami’s past and Aoyama’s state of mind.
When Asami and Aoyama begin seeing each other, she requests that he love no one else but her; when she breaks into his home one night, seeing a photo of his late wife and learning of his son, she loses it and renders him immobile (drugging a drink of his). Her attack on him leads to a graphic segment of dismemberment and torture, as Asami prods Aoyama with needles and cuts off one of his feet with wire.
Other than Audition being known for its disturbing violence, it is also a film of much debate regarding its themes. Given the two primary ways one can read the narrative, there is a mix of opinions between whether or not Audition is a feminist or misogynistic film.
As shared by Rayns in Damaged Romance, Japanese culture has a history of depicting women in hypersexual pornographic roles, often with violence directed towards them, or as the overtly domesticated wife. In staging a fake audition, Aoyama and his friend treat women as objects to be judged based on Aoyama’s desires. It is a manipulating act, serving to only drive what Aoyama wants to find in his ideal wife. It is worth noting the age range of early 20s to 30s for the women, given that Aoyama is well into middle age.
Speaking to the feminist ideas within Audition, one can see Asami as rebelling against sexism and misogyny. Rather than submit to the needs of a man and his control and desires, she is acting against cultural norms, fighting back at anyone who has harmed her. In this manner Audition has some feminist elements to it: the problem, however, is that this view is weak when given the stronger evidence for Audition’s more misogynistic point of view.
On the opposite end, Audition can also be read as an exploration into the fear some men have of women being in control. One can find evidence of this in the surreal sequences, which represent Aoyama’s fears of Asami having sexual power over him. Considering the context of patriarchy in Japan, Aoyama is a figure that would assume control over a relationship. The dream sequences provide context to the concerns Aoyama has coming into a new relationship with a younger, attractive woman (and if that is too much for him to handle).
Because we experience the film through Aoyama’s point of view, it takes away from the film’s feminist angle, cutting away at the significance of Asami’s fight against misogyny. Rather than presenting a powerful story about a woman rebelling against patriarchal ideals, the narrative cares more about addressing a man’s fear of not being in power. To further complicate things, the ending adds another layer of complex ideas; when Asami is left “defeated” by Aoyama’s son, Aoyama is left crippled and severely wounded (physically and mentally). In wounding Aoyama, has Asami succeeded? In her attack, has she driven home the message to him that women are also powerful and not just objects for use?
In its dual ideology and blending of both psychological and body horror, Audition is a significant work of Japanese Horror. For years Audition has been applauded for its use of surreal terror and graphic violence. For fans of Audition, this special release is a must-buy, especially given all commentary that speaks to its thematic ideas. In all its anxiety-provoking tension, Audition is a nightmare-inducing experience, and an essential work of cult cinema.
Found footage movies rely on immersion and a particular kind of suspension of disbelief in order to scare viewers, so it stands to reason that playing along with the “kayfabe” of it all is necessary for these movies to be effective. However, despite being something of a purist when it comes to in-universe recordings, I’ve come to accept that traditional productions can benefit from the occasional injection of found footage thrills.
For instance, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation makes genius use of the analog gimmick in order to trap us in the titular rooms alongside our main characters before effortlessly switching back to a more cinematic language. In honor of these dynamic films that manage to combine the best of both worlds, today I’d like to share six other hybrid horror movies that successfully incorporate found footage into their scares!
For the purposes of this list, “hybrid” horror movies are defined as any flick that shifts between diegetic recordings and traditional filming techniques for a significant amount of time (or at least for pivotal scenes).
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own hybrid favorites if you think a particularly freaky one was missed.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. The Last Broadcast (1998)
Internet critics may have overstated the influence that Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast had on The Blair Witch Project, but the found footage subgenre still owes a huge debt to this underrated piece of avant-garde filmmaking. However, while the movie sets itself up as a documentary about the disappearance of a group of cryptid-hunters attempting to track down the Jersey Devil, things take a darker and much more grounded turn towards the final act.
I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the jarring shift in perspective actually helps to sell the idea that everything we’ve seen before the finale was an attempt at using filmmaking to manipulate the public perception of a “real” incident.
Not bad for a movie with a $900 budget!
4. Cam (2018)
When you consider just how much the internet affects our daily lives, it’s strange that we don’t see Screenlife elements pop up in more movies these days. For instance, Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber’s highly underrated Cam only works as a freaky parable about online sex-work because it masterfully balances Madeline Brewer’s intimate moments with highly immersive segments within cyberspace.
While one might argue that the entire film could have been produced as a Screenlife experience, the hybrid approach allows the filmmakers to explore our main character’s life beyond the screens – with the duality of modern human existence actually becoming a recurring theme in the story.
3. Banshee Chapter (2013)
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s popular stories were told in the epistolary format (where the text is presented as an in-universe compilation of letters or personal notes), so it makes sense that a spiritually faithful adaptation of his work would incorporate elements from the modern-day equivalent to epistolary fiction – found footage!
That’s why Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter is such an effective scare-fest, as this hybrid adaptation of From Beyond -retold through a conspiratorial lens as it references MK-Ultra and even secretive numbers stations- immerses viewers in a mind-bending tapestry of Cosmic Horror that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
2. The Deep House (2019)
The underwater setting does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Deep House, with the film being especially uncomfortable if you’re already scared of tight spaces and being deprived of oxygen. However, even the universally unsettling elements of the flick only work because the POV often shifts into claustrophobic footage courtesy of our main characters’ GoPro cameras.
Telling the story of a couple of YouTubers who encounter a haunted house at the bottom of an artificial lake while vacationing in France, The Deep House’s first-person exploration sequences contain some of the film’s scariest moments. In fact, I’d argue that the movie didn’t even need ghosts, as becoming trapped in the titular House already sounds like a fate worse than death.
1. Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
My personal favorite instance of filmmakers successfully managing to combine traditional cinematography with POV filmmaking, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is proof that the two formats can co-exist if the right story comes along.
After all, what better way to conclude a mockumentary all about reality getting increasingly more cinematic than by ditching the found footage gimmick altogether during the finale? Not only does this shift in presentation work on a conceptual level, but it also elevates Behind The Mask into a proper Slasher, which is probably why we’re so excited for that long-overdue sequel!
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