10 Hardest To Watch Horror Movie Moments

5. Eye, Eye - Audition

Terrifier 2
Vitagraph Film

Even now, 22 years after it was first released, it's still hard to think about the final act of Takashi Miike's Audition and not feel just a smidge nauseous.

Plot-wise, Audition focusses on Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a widow who has struggled to move on with his life since the sad passing of his wife years prior. At the behest of his son and film producer friend, Shigeharu puts together an audition process to find a new wife. It's here that he meets Asami (Eihi Shiina), and the two soon fall head over heels for one another.

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Or not.

As film fans are slowly let in on how Asami was abused as a child, that her life story is a lie, with dead or disfigured bodies turning up, and a gross moment of vomit-eating, it's then that we get one of the most twisted sequences in horror history.

Having injected Shigeharu with a paralytic agent that unfortunately still leaves his nerves alive, Asami tortures her beau by sticking needles in and around his eyes before then cutting off his left foot with piano wire. And with Takashi Miike being Takashi Miike, so much of this is shown in graphic, gruesome detail.

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Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.