Not a 'Torture Movie'

Agree 100%. I avoided this movie for a long time because I'm not a fan of movies that exist only for the gross-out factor. I finally gave it a watch just because I was curious about what all the hype was about. This movie is on everyone's most disturbing movie list.

It was actually a decent psychological horror move. It probably moved a bit slow for American horror fans, but it worked for me. The gore was a pretty small part of the film and it didn't languish in it like I expected. The camera really didn't show very much directly.

I guess if you are needle phobic it might be a little hard to watch, but it didn't phase me that much. The juxtaposition of this woman acting like a Japanese schoolgirl with the pain she was inflicting was creepy, but I don't get why anyone would walk out of the theater over it.

Solid film, expected a different ending where the whole torture thing was a dream brought on by the lead's guilty conscience. It certainly appeared to be going that direction and I think it would have made it a much more interesting movie. Still, not a bad flick and worth a watch. If you are really squeamish just skip the 5 minutes or so when it is obvious things are going to go badly for the guy, the story holds up fine without watching it happen.

This movie was a let-down, intensity wise. Saw, Hostel, Human Centipede, Irreversible... Tons of movies are "worse" than this in terms of being gory and traumatizing. Maybe they should market it in America the way YOU describe it, instead of the way that they did. :/

-ClintJCL
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Audition really isn't nasty for the sake of being nasty, and anyone who calls it a torture porn should really re-evaluate it.
I don't mean to impose, but I am the Ocean.

of course it's torture porn. if you want to see a brutal & graphic film which depicts psychological distress and violence in a more sophisticated way, watch Antichrist. to say that this isn't torture porn when there are ten minute scenes of a sexualised asami torturing shigeharu ("kirikirkiri!") but none really showing asami's breakdown, is just being obtuse. all those stupid scenes with the burlap sack. asami's father, etc. they fail to make her character sympathetic at all, even when showing scenes of her prior abuse. she is still barely depicted as human, more as a sadistic monster and the abuse she inflicts is highlighted with a fetishistic glee by Miike. in Antichrist, Charlotte Gainsbourg's derangement is treated a lot more sympathetically and the violence isn't grossly trivialised as it is in this film.

Von Trier = World class auteur. Miike = twisted hack who wanks off to guro.