Audition

Audition by Ryū Murakami is an oddity. It's a dark revenge story starring a pair of despicable characters who target the wrong person to play a part in their fantasy world. Let's set the stage for a second.

Aoyama is a documentary film producer who lost his wife a few years back. His colleagues and his son have been pushing him to remarry, but Aoyama has just not been able to find love again. So what would a normal person do in this instance, you say? That's right. Set up an audition for a fake movie so that you can interview your future wife. Sound creepy? Well, it is. Very, very creepy.

Yamasaki Asami tried out for the part, and Aoyama instantly fell for her. She's beautiful, young, and a pleasure to be around. The only thing that Yamasaki asks of Aoyama is that he never lie to her. So when the movie inevitably falls through and he must tell her the truth about the bogus movie deal, sinister things start to happen.

Okay, so that's kind of the quick outline of the story. It's a decent little setup, but it has some issues. Minor spoilers ahead

One: the first half is extremely misogynistic. I know this theme is present to depict the main characters in a certain light, but it was incredibly hard to get through.

Two: red flags. C'mon, Aoyama. I mean, I know love makes you put on blinders, but this relationship was clearly going to be a car crash in slow motion.

Three: The inevitable sex scene was described in the most unsexy way imaginable. The length and technicality of it were about as interesting as me describing how a fuel injection system works on a car. It was kind of weird and off-putting. Maybe that was the point.

So, the book does very little in the thrill department, and it kind of meanders its way to the conclusion. It's something you could see pitched as a story in a horror anthology but passed up because it was a bit too ordinary.

❖ Category: Horror
❖Rating: 2.5/5