Audition

If you're reading this site, odds are you've seen Audition, Takashi Miike's 1999 adaptation of Ryu Murakami's novel about a single father whose attempt to start dating again goes horribly wrong when a seemingly innocent woman develops a very one-sided relationship with him. However, unless you are fluent in Japanese, a bit of a language barrier has always separated US readers from the actual book this particularly notorious bit of horror is based on. This may not seem odd to casual readers- after all, how many Japanese horror books have you read in English? - but the stateside absence of Audition is particularly notable considering all of Murakami's less famous novels have already made the voyage to our shores.

Fortunately publishing house W. W. Norton & Company are looking to break down that barrier June 7th, 2010. And if you're curious as to whether or not reading about the surgical exploits of a spurned would-be lover will match the ferocity of Miike's adaptation, I think these quotes culled from Amazon's Audition product page should help sway your mouse towards the Pre-Order button:

"The prose in these passages is elegiac and affecting, but it has the sharp, visceral feel of the butcher's knife or surgeons scalpel a highly compulsive, one-sitting read, and Audition should add to the Renaissance Man's growing fanbase in the English speaking world." -- Irvine Welsh, Guardian

"Murakami has gained a reputation as a diagnostician of Japanese culture in the Bret Easton Ellis/Chuck Palahniuk mode for all his gory details, and his insistence that modern life is just one more movie, Murakami remains a romantic. Trauma and nostalgia may defeat each other, but there's always hope in the form of the next generation." -- Telegraph PRAISE FOR PIERCING

I know what you're thinking. Yes, having a girl you're trying to date drug you, paralyze you, stick pins in you, and then slowly amputate your limbs using piano wire is a fate worse than death. And you're right, it certainly is, but it's not the fate of Aoyama, the lonely protagonist of Takashi Miike's classic film Audition that's the topic of today's Fate Worse Than Death. Sure, Aoyama is going to have a limp for the rest of his life, and he's probably going to have an even harder time getting back on the dating circuit, but his life is a cake walk compared to The Man in the Sack.

That's right, the Man in the Sack, the casually mentioned missing record producer from Asami's past who we learn is confined permanently to living in a burlap sack in Asami's apartment. And if being kidnapped and forced to live in a sack isn't already a fate worse than death, how about having both of your feet, three fingers, a tongue and an ear chopped off before being put in said bag?

Plus, what happens to the Man in the Sack at the end of Audition? Asami clearly can't take care of him anymore, which means that poor man is not only mutilated to hell and back and shoved into a burlap sack, but now he's been denied the only meal source he had: someone else's vomit.

Yep, I'd say slowly starving to death in a burlap sack because you can no longer eat your mistress' vomit is a Fate Worse Than Death.

Best of the New Releases: Trick 'r Treat, The Children, The Thaw, Not Quite Hollywood
Okay, okay, you've had Trick 'r Treat bludgeoned into your conscious to no end lately. Well now is your chance to finally see Michael Dougherty's fabled film. I can't speak for what's on the DVD or Blu-ray, but the film itself is a wonderful tribute to all things Halloween. I saw it for the first time a week ago (review) and I'm already planning on popping in the Blu tonight.

This October's haul from Ghost House Underground isn't quite as large as the eight or so films they put out last year, but what they've lost in quantity they've made up for in quality (plus all four titles are available on Blu-ray). For starters we have The Children, a film I think can't be improved upon (review). Next up is The Thaw, a nice bit of eco-terror starring Val Kilmer and Aaron Ashmore about the discovery of a mammoth and the deadly parasites frozen inside it. Mark A. Lewis' film is basically a proposition of how to remake The Thing without remaking The Thing, but that's not entirely a bad thing considering how excellent the formula of frost-bound bio-horror is. I wouldn't call The Thaw a blind buy, but it's worth a look down the line.