Tetsuo: The Iron Man

 I was going to leave behind the description below as a small edit and drop a past write-up for this post after watching Tetsuo on Joe Bob's Drive-In, but I rather liked it too much for the IMDb user comments section.

Hitting a metal fetishist with your car and trying to get rid of him after doesn't help an office guy or the lover with him...once they dump his body, office guy starts to notice metal and machinery coming out of his body, turning him into scrap iron with a spinning drill for a penis.

I think that lays it out as plain as I'll ever be able to in any coherent way. This is about experience. It's about the wallop of the film's content and presentation. My wife asked me what on earth I was watching. Trying to explain it to her as she caught a brief snippet of Tsukamoto's Tetsuo as Taguchi was "being chased" by a subway phantasm scratching a scrap heap arm was futile. A squirting little tube sticking out of Taguchi's face splattering liquid onto mirror and wall isn't so easy to transcribe. Ishibashi licking what little face is left on Taguchi as the metal growth continues to metastasize, taking his penis drill in her voluntarily as her own blood and insides spray from behind her a gusher, isn't exactly something you see in mainstream films. And for that very reason, this film is revered and hated in equal measure. It isn't some clear, concise narrative that makes complete sense. I feel like I'm in the mind of madness while watching this. It is just absolutely loud and maddening. It really is brain drill, I think. It isn't for all tastes. I'd say it isn't for most tastes. But there is nothing else quite like it. 4/5 

This is as polarizing a horror film as there ever will be. As far as 1989, this could be my pick for the year as far as best horror films. For many, Testuo: The Iron Man is frustrating, too much for the senses to handle. And I get that.

March 21st, 2010

IMDb user comments:

Sheer insanity as I've never seen before. This movie focuses entirely on the merging of the human body(..the flesh)and metal whether it be the rusted tubes used by the "fetishest" for which he inserts in his leg(after a grisly scene where he opens a long gash in his leg for the bizarre procedure) or the stainless steel razor blade which pokes from the face of "Salaryman"(Tomorowo Taguchi)before wires, a spinning crotch drill, and other objects emerge, Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo:The Iron Man" follows a very surreal nightmarish scenario to a really crazy conclusion. Tsukamoto is a man with a fixation for implanting metal in his body and in a crazed moment of madness(after seeing maggots all over the rusty tube he inserted)runs out in the street, getting hit by a man in glasses, tie, and white shirt(an obvious white collar worker of some sort). This man(the film dubs as "Salaryman")and his girlfriend(Kei Fujiwara)decide to discard the guy down some hill to get rid of him(..and, after act, the couple get so hot and bothered by their misdeed, the two have sex as we watch them through metal fetishist's point-of-view), awakening a monster. You see the "metal fetishist" will get revenge by causing Salaryman to evolve into some sort of human junk heap. Gradually wires and other metallic odds and ends burst from within Salaryman and the missus obviously doesn't respond well to his dilemma. After an attempt to kill him with a steak knife, the drill pops up to burrow through her, splashing blood all over the place. We also watch as metal fetishist toys with Salaryman by sending him down streets at warp speed, causing the fella to evolve faster than he'd like, and eventually deciding to transform him totally and completely into a metal trash pile. I think Cronenberg is especially noted as an influence in "Tetsuo" because of the eventual metamorphosis of man and metal, the creation of an entire new species, as metal fetishist and Salaryman "cohesively bond" at the end, ultimately deciding they will share their "union" with the world around them. I've never seen a movie quite like "Tetsuo", with the black and white photography, shot as if lensed by a madman, actually enhancing the hysteria in a way I can not describe. Tsukamoto uses incredible camera speeds with characters moving down streets at a blistering pace. But, what I was overwhelmed and exhilarated by was the stop motion effects where we see how metal fetishist and Salaryman slowly metamorphose into metal creatures...the way wires take on a life of their own. The movie is certainly an experience unlike any other, hard to define, and absolutely psychotic. It was probably for the best that "Tetsuo:The Iron Man" was only 60+ minutes long, because it is such a shock to the senses, so nutty that it could easily overstay it's welcome.