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23. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989 / 245 points)
Directed / Written by: Shinya Tsukamoto
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Why Its Significant - Shinya Tsukamoto's 1989 cyberpunk nightmare transcends mere horror movie status. It's a genre-bending assault on the senses, a low-budget explosion of body horror and social anxieties that redefined horror for a new generation as it left the 80s behind feeling prudish in comparison. Decades before films like Martyrs or Antichrist pushed the boundaries of bodily violation, Tetsuo reveled in the grotesque as flesh contorted, metal erupted, and the line between human and machine blurred viciously and without mercy. Tetsuo's raw energy and unapologetic violence of course paved the way for the wave of Asian Extreme horror to come too, notable examples of its influence seen in films like Audition or Ichi the Killer. Tetsuo: The Iron Man isn't horror for the faint of heart - it forces you to confront your anxieties about the human condition in the face of a technological future that may be coming sooner than we think. It received two sequels and is commonly included on lists of the best Japanese films ever made.

The Rankers
Seginustemple - 5
Evilordexdeath - 6
Rockus - 6
Johnbobb - 7
Mythiot - 11
Snake - 18
Bitto - 24
Jcgamer107 - 24
Plasmabeam - 27
Lightning - 28
Inviso - 29
Fortybelowsummer - 30
Karo - 30

Seginustemple - This is what happens if you put a tape of Eraserhead into James Wood's chest cavity from Videodrome. It's bonkers and I adore it. Could I explain the plot if I had to? Hardly. I'm all about the aesthetic. High-velocity body horror rendered in starkly contrasted black-and-white imagery with a kickass industrial soundtrack, hyperactive editing, bursting with expressionist sets/costumes/performances. It's kinetic to the point of exhileration and exhaustion, eventually smothering its subjects as well as the viewer under heavy metal chaos. Also features a great drillbit penis gag.

Evilordexdeath - Easily the most "wtf did I just watch?" film on the list. Believe it or not, this is considered a highly influential movie in Japan, though I'm not a huge enough weeb to name drop any later films it inspired except maybe a couple shonen anime of all things. There's a part where the main character boots around town on rocket skates fused to his body which made me wonder if this movie is where the idea for that one guy with glasses from My Hero Academia originated, and while it's more of a reach the very memorable scene where the guy's dick transforms into a drill reminded me of the part of the hot spring episode of Gurren Lagann where they make Simon's drill-shaped necklace grow bigger and hang lower to cover him up. Of course, in its turn Tetsuo was inspired by Akira, whose anti-hero its name comes from, and Akira is one of my favorite movies so I always wanted to see this one, but you have to look pretty hard to find similarities between them. Tetsuo actually makes Akira seem like a slow-paced and straightforward narrative in comparison. There is almost no dialogue, it cuts around like crazy on the timeline and abruptly fades in and out of dream sequences that aren't much more surreal than the stuff that actually happens, and there's basically no story. A salaryman runs over someone called "The Metal Fetishist" who curses him to gradually transform into a metal body horror monstrosity. Then he gets pegged by a dancing woman with a hose around her neck and has fatal sex with his girlfriend because his penis transforms into a drill. There's a lot of really weird shit in this movie.

What is reminiscent of Akira is that the latter half of the movie is mostly just two guys yelling and fighting each other. The metal fetishist comes back to life as another part-mechanical mutant and they fight for a while and then fuse into one being, declare their love for each other, and set out to take over the world by turning everyone else into a metal mutant. Now, Akira works because the characters are complex and there's a sense of emotional conflict. Yes Tetsuo and Kaneda spend half the movie yelling each other's names while fighting, but they've known each other since they were kids and they love each other. Kaneda remembers the shy kid he was a big brother to and wants to be the one to stop him because he feels its his responsibility as the leader of the Pills. Tetsuo doesn't squash Kaneda like a bug with his psychic powers even though he probably could and does to many others because deep down he still thinks of Kaneda as his friend and protector. A lot of his toxic macho posturing comes from wanting Kaneda to be proud of him and think he's cool. That's why the climax of the film where Tetsuo mutates into a weird monster and then Kaneda jumps into that singularity thing to try and save him is so powerful - when it really comes down to it, their true feelings for each other come out. Tetsuo: the Iron Man doesn't have complex characterization or emotionally resonant moments like that. The salaryman and the metal fetishist barely know one another. If you want to get into interpreting it you might say that the salaryman is victimized as a sort of underclass revenge fantasy because the metal fetishist seems like a way more punk kind of guy. It works because it's really, really weird and funny. A deeply strange Japanese movie like this made a great change of pace after watching so many samey American horror flicks.

Rockus - A surreal gonzo body horror film thats wholly original and unforgettable. A testament to what ingenuity and a visionary auteur voice can accomplish on such a small budget. Theres really nothing like Tetsuo or the rest of Shinya Tsukamotos work. The gnarly production design, black and white cinematography, and fantastic sound design come together to make Tetsuo such a blast. Bizarre and darkly funny, its a cinematic experience like no other, and it might have the best opening title sequence of the decade. It goes so hard.

Johnbobb - https://imgur.com/HWS3i7n

Snake - Yeah, a film pretty much just based entirely on atmosphere for me. And its sick nasty. I just absolutely dig grimy, filthy, industrial shit like this, always. Its like my favorite aesthetic. I dont think this film lets up for a single second. Reading between the lines, its so evident that as the Salarymans body contorts and metal takes over, it becomes a metaphor for anxieties about technology's increasing hold on our lives. Its genuinely something I think about all the time as we hurtle towards a future where the line between human and machine blurs entirely, our eyes fused with screens, our hands with phones, our bodies to factories, trapped forever as we become one giant, pulsating organism in an increasingly emotionally cold, inhospitable, numbing world. But, the beauty of Tetsuro is that it doesn't belabor the point. Its gone in a flash, offers no respite from the pounding score, the flickering black and white, the constant sense of unease, the gruesomeness of it all. Its maybe the idealized version of what horror should be - sickening to consume and like suffering through a nightmare.