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Arrow Video’s ‘Audition’ Blu-Ray Release Goes Deeper, Deeper, Deeper
It’s been over a decade since my first viewing experience of Takashi Miike’s Audition. I remember watching this one during a time when I was beginning to break away from more traditional mainstream horror and was delighted and horrified with the result.
Audition centers around Aoyama, (Ryo Ishibashi) a lonely soul who recently lost his wife to illness, and is left to take care of his teenage son. When he has all but given up on love, his friend comes up with the idea of holding a fake film casting audition in order to help his socially secluded friend find love once again.
During the audition, Aoyama is entirely taken with the timid and beautiful, Asami (Eihi Shiina). What starts off as a heartwarming setup for something out of the When Harry Met Sally playbook, ends up spiraling into all-out twisting, atmospheric dread. This all comes to head with one of the genre’s most memorable endings.
Miike is methodical with
This occurs when Aoyama innocently decides to call Asami back for the first time. In the scene, the lovesick Aoyama nervously paces back and forth with schoolboy sensibilities before finally making his phone call. The film then cuts to Asami sitting on her knees leaning forward in a desolate apartment looking at a black rotary phone. You see a smile creeps across her face through her draped black
From there this movie takes you for the full Miike experience. This includes horror, dream logic and dangerous visuals. A tightly wound nightmare of a film that holds up entirely.
Arrow Video does a fantastic job with this long-treasured, cult release. Complete with a brand new interview with Takashi Miike and an awkwardly perfect intro by Miike sitting timidly in an audition chair are all must see features for initiated fans.
Complete features include:
- Brand new 2K restoration of original vault elements
- Original 5.1 Dolby Surround Audio
- Optional English subtitles
- Audio commentary with director Takashi Miike and screenwriter Daisuke Tengan
- Brand new commentary by Miike biographer Tom Mes examining the film and its source novel
- Introduction by Miike
- Ties that Bind – A brand new interview with Takashi Miike
- Interviews with stars Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Renji Ishibashi
and Ren Osugi - Damaged Romance: An appreciation by Japanese cinema historian Tony Rayns
- Trailers
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Anton Bitel.
- Audition is a
pitch perfect genre ride and Arrow does a fantastic job of reaffirming that. All of You Audition initiated fans out there owe it to Miike to find a friend who hasn’t seen this yet and demand they have a watch.
Arrow Video’s stellar Audition blu-ray is out now and can be found here.
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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