The premise of “Audition” is irresistible as a horror movie set-up. It's not only clever, it also does a tremendous job of commenting on just how casual the misogyny is in many horror films, from concept to execution to the marketing. “Audition,” at least in the original Miike film, is about setting those scales right, delivering some magnificent horror to those who have earned it.
I haven't read the Ryu Murakami novel that inspired the film that Takashi Miike made but I've seen that film theatrically three times, and all three times, it was amazing to watch the crowd while they watched the movie. It messed with them on a chemical level. If you haven't seen the film, it's about a guy who hasn't dated since his wife dies, and he ends up letting a friend, a film producer, put together a fake audition in which young beautiful women get to try out to “play the part” of the guy's new wife.
He ends up meeting a young woman who he is drawn to, but she is a giant king-sized box of holy-shit-crazy, and the way the film plays out is like the worst-case nightmare. It's just a parade of terrifying awful moments. No one who's seen it will ever forget just how skin-crawlingly scary a simple soft-spoken “Kiri, kiri” can be, or how ominous an unmoving bag in the background is.
No idea if they'll be using the book more, or even if the book is radically different than the movie. Producer Mario Kassar is spearheading this new version, which apparently already has a script, with director Richard Gray attached to direct. It sounds like the set-up is the same. A widowed man lives with his son, who urges him to get back into dating. What really matters is how Gray, who adapted the script, approaches the material. It always makes my stomach turn how the ending of “Fatal Attraction,” created after early test screenings revealed audiences were unhappy to see Michael Douglas go to jail in the first cut, is treated as if it were an improvement. It's anti-woman in every way, and it is upsetting to see that people embraced what essentially says “it's okay to throw away a woman once you've had sex with her as long as you and your wife shoot the crazy bitch.” While the lead female in “Audition” is definitely dangerous and damaged, I hope she's more than just a figure of fear.
This is intriguing news, and honestly, I'm just surprised it took this long.