Audition is notorious for its change of register, its movement from quiet romance setup to extremely intimate scenes of torture. At some early screenings, audiences don’t seem to have known that they were headed for horror at all. Was there a moment when you felt the film shift? When was it? Why did you choose that scene? If you never felt a shift, why not?
16 thoughts on “Audition 1”
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I agree with the consensus above, that the shift happens when Asami is seen waiting for a phone call in her dilapidated apartment with the body bag. I also noticed some of the scenes that indicated horror from an early stage. When Shigeharu’s son told him that ‘love will make you blind’ (or something to that effect), it was clear that the man would fall into a trap. Much in the same way, it was clear that Shigeharu would be in trouble when he stopped listening to the warnings of his friend, Yasuhisa. The golf scene in particular comes to mind, where Shigeharu’s optimism about the girl is put in contrast with Yasuhisa’s doubts about her background. I think that the line they exchange at the end of that scene is telling: Yasuhisa says “cool it down a little”, to which Shigeharu unconvincingly responds “of course” while smiling.
In the beginning of the film, there was a sense of family and innocence that captured the screen. However, there was a scene or two scenes that really changed the movie from innocent to horrifying and graphic. The first scene was when Asami was in her apartment and she was totally hunched over waiting for Aoyama’s phone call. The body seemed very disturbing and unusual. Also, once the phone did ring, I was startled by how loud it was and it went from complete stillness and silence to my heart completely racing. The bag that appeared to have a body inside was always a little off putting, but in this scene, it moved so it was even more disturbing. The next scene that I totally realized how weird and creepy Asami was was when Asami and Aoyama were in the hotel together. While he was talking about things to do, she remained silent and put her back away from him. She then turned off the light and took her clothes off. I could tell that Aoyama was also very stressed in that setting because of his facial expressions. For me, these were the two scenes that I started feeling really uneasy which later led to my face covering my mouth for the rest of the movie in shock. While watching the gruesome scene towards the end where she wires off his foot, I was shocked about the contrast of how innocent she sounded while performing such terrible acts. That was the true horror for me. She sounded like a little girl giggling and having fun while putting needles into his body and eyes and cutting off pieces of his body. I knew it would be kind of scary because it is a horror movie, but I didn’t think it would be this graphic.
My perspective was definitely altered from coming into the film aware that it was horror. Therefore, I looked for almost every opportunity to see horror in aspects of the early scenes. Most specifically I thought of the conversations of Yoshikawa and Aoyama around the inception of the audition. I initially expected Yoshikawa to be the villain as he created the plan and spoke disparagingly of women. However, as I accepted that he was not the antagonist, I noticed the mood shift immediately during Asami’s interview, with suspense being increasingly introduced. The slow zoom as Aoyama begins asking his more personally questions created a feeling of dread. His expression is complex, not just one of attraction but obsession. Also the conversation is just downright weird. We get the first suspicions of Asami from Yoshikawa in this scene. Later that night when he calls Asami, the weirdness continues, I was wondering the entire time why is she into this creepy man. All their interactions are off putting. Then, when Yoshikawa calls, he introduces more suspicion and mystery around her character. These are imprinted more heavily during the scene playing golf on the rooftop. In addition, we get the distorted cut to Asami’s interview, our first visual marker that something bad will happen. Immediately after this scene, Aoyama calls Asami and we see her room/lair for the first time. To imprint dread even further we see the music teacher jump in the bag.
The moment I felt the biggest shift from a “heartfelt” film to a horror film was definitely in the phone call scene where Asami is sitting in her home waiting for Aoyama’s call. Before this, I was suspicious and looking at the wrong character. As many others have stated, I thought the protagonist was the villain. I expected Aoyama to be a grieving widow and project his grief onto Asami in an odd way, however, it was the complete opposite. Asami’s smile was very devilish once the phone rang and I think the biggest jump scare scene for me was in the same scene where Mr. Shibata (I think that’s him in the sack) rolled around in the sack. At this point, I was thinking that the person in the bag was a spiritual monster controlling Asami. However, as the film progressed I stood incorrect. Because I went into this film knowing it was a horror film I was too focused on Aoyama, so when this shift occurred it caught me off guard. This was probably one of the toughest horror films to watch because of the jump cuts, dream sequences (or those weird sequences of Aoyama meeting the victims), and the intense torture scenes. However, I did enjoy the film because of how much it caught me off guard, specifically from those shifts from being weirdly romantic to a mind twist.
The moment where I definitely felt a shift in the film into horror was the scene in which Asami was waiting in her home for Aoyama’s call. There were other scenes before this that felt off but this was definitely the first one that really felt like horror. Asami was awkwardly and uncomfortably bent over and clearly had been in that position for a long time. That alone was super unsettling and clued the audience into the fact that something was off about her. The scene dipped further into horror when the mysterious bag in the background began to move around suddenly. This slight jump scare certified a tone of horror for this scene. Every scene after this one for the rest of the film held a tone of horror for me because I could no longer trust Asami’s sweet nature. That scene showed that she knows how to play a part and something is not right about her.
Rowan Safley
While the first part of the film legitimately had me thinking it could be remade as a rom-com, the scene I would say marks the shift towards the horror and gore is when Aoyama and Asami are in the hotel and she shows him her scars while inviting him to sleep with her. From there, Aoyama starts to try to track her down and quickly deteriorates into the odd illusions and gaining the information about Asami’s life before they had met. From there, the film gets steadily more disturbing until we reach the scene in which the bag creature is unleashed and fed.
I noticed a shift in the movie when Asami was shown sitting in an empty room waiting by a telephone with a big bag that looked like a body was in there. in the scene, they showed her spine showing how thin she was and there was a single light that made the room look creepy. what made it creepier was the man in the bag was not dead I had a feeling that he would be alive and tried to prepare myself for a jumpscare and still jumped when he started to scream and move around. before I saw this scene I was thinking how is this a horrors movie it seems more like a comedy I had suspicions of Asami when Yasuhisa said to Shigeharu isn’t she too good to be true, how she lied about having an agent, and when they weren’t able to find any information of her like she was a ghost. the scene of Asami in her room when Shigeharu called she slowly lifted her head to show this sinister smile and I knew from there something was wrong with her and that she was going to hurt Shigeharu. there were earlier signs that gave her away but it’s like what Shigeharu’s son Shigehiko said love makes you blind his father ignored all the signs because he was lonely and wanted to find someone.
It is hard for me to identify one moment where we really dove headlong into gore, but there are a few moments that signaled shifts. First, when Aoyama is reading her essay, and she talks about having died already when she lost ballet, the shot is interrupted for a brief moment by a cut to a girl sitting in what looks like an insane asylum bed. Asami looks disheveled and creepy, and has that classic Shakespearean signaling of having her hair down and messy to symbolize insanity. Then, I knew she was going to get weird but I just didn’t know when. Next, when Asami is sitting by the phone, her posture is so odd and the composition of the shots is so off putting with that strange sack strewn on the floor, which we can only assume contains the guy from the music industry. I wasn’t expecting violence in that moment, and the only action that follows that shot is the bag coming to life, but something about staring at the bones in her neck made me pretty certain there was some crazy stuff coming soon. Lastly, when we hear the voicemail from Shigehiko that he’s sleeping at a friend’s house, I knew we were in for the final battle. I didn’t know yet how absurd the torture would be, but I knew it was going to happen once he is confirmed to be alone in the house. Overall, this movie totally rocked me. It was the scariest movie I have seen and made me adjust my posture in that whole-body-terror way seemingly every time the shot changed.
I noticed a shift in the scene early on that showed a woman (Asami before we knew who Asami was) sitting in her apartment in the dark. This moment was undeniably ominous with how obscured everything is in the scene: everything is shadowed, Asami is turned away from the camera, and the camera is so close to Asami that you can barely see her surroundings. At this point, we don’t know who the woman is, if she’s a potential victim or villain, if it’s a grown woman or a child, but it’s a scene that certainly seems to be foreshadowing something. The cut to this scene is quick, a bit jarring, adding to the surprise of it while also creating new questions for the viewer. This scene (in my opinion) is the moment that shifts the tone from romance to horror, especially if I were hypothetically an audience that had absolutely no idea what I was in for. Given that this is a horror movie class, I figured it would probably be a horror movie. Knowing this going into watching the film, I paid extra attention to how much time the movie spends setting the scene and introducing characters. It takes a surprising amount of time for anything really unsettling to happen and even after it establishes that something is horribly wrong, it still takes its time building tension and creating unease. The movie gets steadily more unsettling as it goes, and certainly lives up to expectations given the tension it spends ages creating.
Although it had very drastic changes in register and feel, the ominous and thriller aspects of the movie were present from the beginning. The tone and coloration of the beginning scenes, although intended to create a sense of grief, also set a tone of melancholy that is accentuated throughout the film. The quick introduction to grief and vulnerability lays a solid base for what occurs later in the film. However, the beginning still plays as a romantic setup and may trick viewers into believing they have entered the wrong film. One particular moment that created a significant shift in the film was when we first see the sack in Asami’s room because, up until this point, the movie has slowly built up this sense of tension and unease. Once you know the sack jolt and make an almost monstrous noise, the film makes a stark turn into psychological or supernatural horror. We are left guessing as to what is in the sack and what Asami is really up to behind the scenes. We, the audience, have to reflect and question everything we have seen and realize that something sinister is coming, but we have no idea of what.
Going into this film, I was expecting it to be quite scary. I had read the simple blurb for the movie that comes up when its googled, but I knew nothing beyond that short description. Even though the beginning consisted of scenes that could’ve been from a romance movie, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting the film to get disturbing quickly. The moment that stands out to me the most where I felt the film shift was the scene sequence in which Aoyama was deciding whether or not to call Asumi. Aoyama was hesitating, conflicted whether to cave into his desires or heed the warnings of his friend. He ultimately decides to call her, and we see a scene in which Asumi, creepily hunched over sitting in a rundown room, looks up with a devilish smile. After the phone call, the mysterious rucksack jumbles in a human-like way. That scene felt significant to me in that it was the first scene where I felt some of the classic emotions induced by a horror movie. The unsettling-ness of Asumi’s house, position, and smile was indicative of the film’s turn to torturous horror. It seems that this was felt not just by me, but by many of us in the audience. The scene itself felt like it was shot with the purpose of being the change of register for the film, between the wide shot to see the dilapted room and the closeup of Asumi’s creepy expression. I think Asumi always seemed odd, her demeanor and mysterious background hinting that she would turn into the source of horror, but in that moment, it was undeniable that there was something seriously wrong with Aoyama’s new beau.
I think the most prevalent shift towards horror was the scene where Asami is hunched over on the ground next to the man in the burlap sack. This scene was also preceded by a sudden jolt caused by the jarringly loud phone ringing sound. While this is the most obvious shift to horror for me in the film, I felt there were more subtle signifiers throughout. The film had an eerie feel throughout which I think had something to do with the dim lighting and music. Even the first scene where young Shigehiko was walking through the hospital. The scene was very dark and had a greenish-blue hue which contrasted a typical brightly lit and sterile looking hospital. It felt like the movie was moving slow and the music made it feel like it was always building up to something, which I think added to the feeling of dread many people have mentioned in their posts. I felt like I was waiting for something for the whole first half of the film, which built a lot of suspense. This could be, however, due to the fact that I knew this was a horror film (and a disturbing one) going into the screening.
Long before the film became truly disturbing, I felt a deeper sense of dread than I have felt during any of our screenings thus far. It’s challenging to identify where exactly a shift occurred because there were a number of small clues that preceded any tangibly scary scenes. One of the earliest clues is when Mr. Yoshikawa tells Aoyama that there is something he doesn’t like about Asami, even though he cannot pinpoint what this is. At this point, the audience is left speculating about what could be off about Asami, and this uncertainty creates dread; we do not know what Asami is hiding, what she has to do with Aoyama’s late wife, or even whether she is living or dead (maybe others didn’t have this experience, but my immediate thought was that she is a ghost). The creepiness continues to build in both subtle and obvious ways; for instance, there is the scene of Asami sitting near the mysterious burlap sack, and the scene Jack mentioned where the restaurant suddenly becomes empty.
In my eyes, the biggest shift in the film occurs during the bedroom scene. At this point, it has already been well-established that there is something deeply wrong with Asami, but I think this is the first time when she becomes immediately threatening. Up to this point, she has been obedient and submissive; however, as Aoyama is talking, she suddenly seems to gain power in the relationship as she shuts off the light and undresses. For the first time, she is the one who has control, and this is terrifying for the viewers who do not know her intentions. Aoyama does not yet seem to recognize any threat, which serves to minimize his agency. At this point, his fate is no longer within his control, which the remainder of the film brutally affirms.
Honestly, for most of the film i was waiting for the other shoe to drop because I saw the poster for the movie and I assumed that she was the main villain in some way. There wasn’t a single moment that created a shift in atmosphere but a series of gradual shifts that create a gradient like effect leading from the romance parts of the film to the gory bits. The first moment where I thought something was off was when she was sitting on the floor waiting for the telephone to ring while a white burlap sack rolls around on the floor. Everything before that felt light hearted – the auditions, the encounters between the co-workers, etc… Until the scene of her sitting on the floor made me start to think that something was wrong with her due to the unnatural but intentional (on the film makers part) nature of it.
Thought if I had to pick a single scene which triggered the tonal shift in the movie it would have been when he went to visit the former ballet/piano teacher in the studio. The dilapidated/abandoned setting next to the loud trains. The character/man in the wheelchair was clearly deranged and traumatized in someway and the signs pointed to her being the perpetrator. But I think they tried to give subtle hints of her deranged/odd nature from the very beginning by having her always look down and speak in a very low, whispering voice with submissive posture and body language. I thought they were hinting that something was off with her from the get go and the progression of scenes was compounding on the abnormal nature of her character.
I think the feeling of a shift really depends on what someone knows about the film before seeing it. If I hadn’t known anything about the movie prior to watching it, I would say there was a shift in the scene where the protagonist contemplates calling Asami after a few outings with her (around the 43 minute mark). After he looks at his phone, the film cuts to Asami at her barely furnished home, sitting on the floor staring at a phone that sits next to a bag of what seems to be a body (the movie never really specifies if there is an actual body inside aside from a scene that I took to be more psychological than actual). I believe this to be the film’s first horror scene. The mixture of her slouch, the noise of the wind, and the scarcity of her home drives the horror feel.
However, because I knew this movie was going to be scary, I felt a shift when Aoyama was in the car listening to the radio. The scene, around the 15 minute mark, suddenly cuts to a little girl listening to the same station. We then learn, later in the film, that the girl is Asami. Because this scene was abrupt and random, it gave me an eerie feeling; it didn’t really fit with what was going on with the rest of the film at that point.
The movie absolutely turned gory out of nowhere, but I could sense the tides turning from a cute romance to an ominous thriller pretty early on. The first time I noticed this was when it was brought up that Mr. Shibata is missing, and she admits that she lied. I got the sense that she more than lied about it, and that there was something deeper going on. A few minutes later was the first time that we saw her sitting in that awful position with her legs splayed out and her neck bulging waiting for the phone to ring, and suddenly nothing she said was credible anymore. There was something in a big burlap sack, presumably a person or parts of a person, and she was doing nothing but waiting for his call.
Part of what made this scene the one that shifted the vibe was the camera work. When the main character confronted her about Mr. Shibata, and she responded, the camera zoomed in on her face, giving the audience the ability to examine her face to get a sense of whether or not she was telling the truth. While he bought her lie, I found it difficult to. Similarly, when we are introduced to her waiting by the phone, the camera was incredibly still and wide, staying on the scene for three seconds longer than it should have, allowing the audience to examine every part of the room and fully realize that something is definitely off.
After that scene, more and more clues are left that she does not live a normal life. When he finally calls days later, she is sleeping in the same position (we are meant to assume she hasn’t moved), and her eerie smile when the phone rings was certainly unsettling. In addition, she is always wearing the exact same dress, which isn’t scary in itself, but it certainly is odd. Her answers to all of his questions were quite general, and while I couldn’t explain what happened on their second or third date when the camera angle changed as she talked about her family and the restaurant was suddenly empty, but it again was unsettling enough to clue me in that things may not be quite what they seemed. Lastly, when he dropped her off from the taxi and the car drove away, we could see her standing and watching the car, never moving, as if she has no home to go to and if she does, she doesn’t want him to know.