10 Horror Films With Terrifying Sound Design

Based on the book of the same name by Ryo Murakami and helmed by legendary and prolific filmmaker Takeshi Miike, Audition is one of the films that drew western eyes towards extreme Asian cinema.

Beginning innocently enough, the plot follows widower Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi), who is holding fake auditions to find a potential new wife. It’s here he meets the shy Asami (Eihi Shiina), and the pair spark a relationship. But when Asami mysteriously vanishes during a weekend away, Shigeharu begins to search for her, discovering that this woman isn’t who she initially seemed to be.

Taking a swift turn into the macabre, surreal, and outright sickening, events come to a head during a climactic and infamous torture scene whereby Asami drugs and paralyses Shigeharu before inflicting pain with acupuncture needles and piano wire.

Despite it not quite resorting to showing all the blood and gore, this sequence’s manipulation of sound makes it more stomach-churning than any body horror could accomplish.

From the amplified sound of Asami chiming the needles she bore into her victim’s flesh to his cries of helpless agony as the needles and wire are driven in, turning down the volume here is the only way to end your own suffering in this scene.