17. Audition
directed by Takashi Miike
Though it absolutely deserves the attention, it’s always a bit of a shame that Takashi Miike’s Audition makes a lot of lists like these. With its surprising turns and unique narrative construction, it is a film that is best seen without any prior knowledge, but the cat was let out of the (human-sized, flopping around) bag long ago. That aside, Audition is one of the craziest horror film ever made. The film’s second half fully devolves into madness that is both immediately shocking and creepy enough to settle into your bones. Mixing the contemporary J-horror aesthetics with the soon-coming torture porn trend, it takes a modern love story and makes it a fever nightmare. If anything, it’ll turn you off cute little Asian girls for a long, long time.