Audition

And finally, a repeat from last year! No I'm not lazy; I actually wanted to revisit this film. Last year when I watched Takashi Miike's "Audition I'll admit it; I was very drunk on pumpkin beer. Which, for the pacing of this movie and it's foreign nature, is probably a bad choice. So this time I watched it sober and I feel like I definitely got a lot more from it; that being said, I still feel the movie had the same issues I pointed out last year.

Firstly, the Japanese are batshit. Plain and simple. Have you seen a "normal" Japanese horror film? Yeah, didn't think so. This movie is a slow burner for sure, with the horror not really coming until maybe the last half hour of the nearly two hour film. The ending is sufficiently horrifying and cringe-worthy as well, but after waiting for it for nearly an hour and half, it almost tame-ifies it in a weird way. It's awful and makes your skin crawl, but even it doesn't seem explosive enough after waiting so long. That being said, I felt like this time around I took in so much more of the underlying themes and ideas happening under the surface. I still, honestly, can't make heads or tails of them, but I find them interesting none the less. An interesting head scratcher that does stand alone as an out there but intelligent film, it is full of flaws. And I'd still pick Visitor Q in a heartbeat over Audition.

7.25/10