Meatball Machine

2005 Directed by Yudai Yamaguchi and Jun'ichi Yamamoto

Horror Marathon 2024 Day 14 Film 29

This is a film about love-- it just expresses it through the grotesque yearning of infatuation with exploding gonzo body horror. It's a splatterfest that riffs and rips off Tetsuo: The Iron Man's legacy of man-machine interface. Here the plot is like some psychosexual anime cartoon- alien invaders finding hosts they infect and use to battle and consume each other.

The main character is this loner dude at a factory that's too shy to really connect with the loner girl- until it's too late and they're both infected by this monster that takes over their systems. The laughable effects are also obscenely bloody so they take on their own gruesome silliness. The edgy sequences are shot with overblown lighting and ridiculous shots the swing and focus on the newest monster transformation like some horrific Power Rangers episode.

Blood pours over the two of them, as their inner monsters cry out in perpetual war. The emotional outburst delivers on all the carnage- achingly destroying while wanting connection. He's finally able to act as an erected phallus cannon juts out of his chest-- The mangled metaphor is exploded, leaving the disgust of putridness; the film is a success if you really want to stomach the ridiculous heartfelt ad nauseam. Brains not included.