Don’t worry your eyes will pop too.
Ever wonder how the Japanese got a reputation for being batshit crazy and over the top? Well Tetsuo – the Iron Man might go a little way towards explaining. This insane melange of sensory saturation and offputting confusion is an intense and unpredictable 70 minutes.
I’ve watched Eraserhead, Dark Star and a hundred horror films in the last 12 months – this might be the biggest headfuck of the lot – and when compared to Eraserhead while it is equally random and nonsensical it at least quite thematically linear and I would argue far more creative.
Tetsuo has no plot – but if I hazarded a guess as to what it was it is that two Japanese guys become possessed by scrap metal that overtakes their bodies and seems to create a sense of ecstasy and the need for more metal – so they both without further explanation start inserting and absorbing all metallic objects that they come into contact with in an effort to be metallier and bigger.
The entire hour or so has a backdrop of similarly whacky industrial edged rock music and is largely filmed in a staccato series of images and shaky camerawork.
In one ten minute span a businessman is attacked by a metal-possessed woman, he kills her and himself becomes possessed. Arriving home to the missus – and growing larger by the second as he continues absorbing all household utensils and metallic objects – the metal takes over and he likes it.
His missus senses something is up and nags him for a look, continually saying something along the lines of “I am curious, don’t worry you won’t shock me”. The he “unveils himself” to her, (now I need to tread a little more carefully here)…
She is not thrilled… then drilled… and killed.
That didn’t work, let me soften the news:
She is not elated… when penetrated… and annihilated.
Gee I just can’t get the hang of this:
She was afraid… then pureed… and slayed… with his penal blade…
Wow I channelled Don King or Clyde Frazier there for a moment.
Finally even Heidi Montag agreed she had gone too far.
The actual integration of the metal into the flesh is all completed in stop motion, this after all was the late 80s well before CGI, they even metallise a cat! Let’s see Tony Stark do that.
There is some weird (do I even need to say that now?) soft porn inserts (so to speak) that I couldn’t justify and a scene where the businessman does an impromptu crazy dance in a factory.
The two guys eventually meet in person – and well if you think Pokemon and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were weird then I’ve got news for you.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. Undeniably creative and challenging. I just felt like writing “I think” after every sentence, as I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on more than half the time. A disturbing curio at the very least.
