Tetsuo: The Iron Man

1989 Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

Horror Marathon 2024 Day 15 Film 30

After watching Meatball Machine I realized I should watch the inspiration. Tetsuo is a film of gnarled mass- the plot a frenetic spitball upon a wall, an artful disgust drives the nightmare imagery. The film opens with a student shoving a metal rod into his leg- twisting it to be a part of him. Another man smashes the student with his car and finds shrapnel in his face. Eating away at this metal bit, his cheek starts to fester and pus busting out with more metal.

The cinematography is probably what makes this body horror tale feel so interesting. The blood becomes black as oil, as the mix of man and machine converge. The black and white image makes it very stark- interlaced images that zoom by with quick edits that make any moments where things are less kinetic seem meditative. That said, the special effects take on a similar corny humor and quality as Meatball Machine.

The scenes in Tetsuo are more obfuscated by the grime of the film quality that gives texture to the weird machine wires. The industrial music helps to propel the film as a bonkers odyssey of gross. Sexualized drill bits as a phallus, corrupted bizarre desire, and the eventual melding of flesh and technology. As this incorporates 80s tech- I loved the VHS scenes of memory rewinds.

There are a lot of aesthetic callbacks to varied films from Cronenberg to Lynch and Akira's monster as warped visions of cyberpunk. Outside of the oddball energy of the visuals the story becomes pretty nonsensical though, and I find that the film is perhaps best watched on flickering screens at some underground club with foreboding dark tunes. The images flow to the music and it becomes that weird movie you can't exactly recall.