10 One-Off Horror Movie Villains Who MUST Return

Few movies have scared viewers away from dating as much as Takashi Miike’s signature film, 1999’s Audition.

Audition is framed around an unethical and sexist – but still sympathetic – widower/father named Shigeharu who fakes TV show casting auditions to find a new wife. Although things initially go well between him and his partner, Asami, Miike’s tale concludes with Asami drugging Shigeharu and committing some of the most unsettling physical and psychological torture in all of 20th-century cinema.

Asami’s insecurities, jealousy, and violent past are shown long before the final scene, such as when she kills Shigeharu’s dog, holds her butchered former employer captivate in a sack, and reveals numerous burn scars across her body. Nevertheless, it’s her paralyzing Shigeharu before puncturing him with needles and sawing off his foot that makes Audition [in]famous.

At the end, Shigeharu’s teenage son – Shigehiko – kicks Asami down the stairs, and she murmurs about her love for Shigeharu as she seemingly dies from a broken neck, and the father and son await the police.

Asami is far too intriguing, multilayered, and entertainingly sadistic to be restricted to one cinematic appearance. Undoubtedly, a solid screenwriter and/or director could devise a logical and rewarding way to bring her back to further explore her complex history and mentality while also having her dish out extra debauchery.