10 Most WTF Horror Movie Endings

Based on the book of the same name by Ryu Murakami, Audition is a gnarly slice of extreme cinema helmed by adored cult filmmaker Takashi Miike.

After some persuasion from his teenage son, widower Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) decides to find a new wife by holding fake auditions for a film. He’s looking for his ideal woman, and he finds that in the quiet-spoken Asami (Eihi Shiina). The pair get on well, but when she mysteriously disappears one night, Aoyama begins searching for her.

The little information he knows about her only leads to dead ends and raises more questions about who this woman could be. A selection of dream sequences hint at her having a dark past with murderous intentions, but it’s not until the infamous finale where viewers discover Asami’s true nature.

Drugging Aoyama, Asami begins to brutally torture the man with acupuncture needles before severing his foot with razor wire. It’s an intense and visceral sequence that comes out of nowhere and savours in every excruciating act inflicted on the widower, even if some of it is off camera.

With reports of mass walkouts at its Rotterdam screening, Audition’s harrowing ending remains one of the most notorious moments in cinema history.