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Tetsuo: The Iron Man

1989 1h 7m Horror Sci-Fi Animation List
84% Tomatometer 19 Reviews 76% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
A "metal fetishist" (Shin'ya Tsukamoto), driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.
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Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Critics Reviews

View All (19) Critics Reviews
Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine Tetsuo and Fetishist's transformation into Iron Man becomes a response to the machinization of the individual in a systematically regimented Japan. Rated: 3.5/4 Aug 27, 2001 Full Review Marc Savlov Austin Chronicle Rated: 4/5 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Trace Thurman Horror Queers Podcast Shinya Tsukamoto's wildly inventive experimental body horror film still astonishes more than 30 years later. Rated: 3.5/5 Jul 8, 2024 Full Review Joe Lipsett Horror Queers Podcast A confronting metal soundtrack accompanies this bizarre and compelling nearly dialogue-free odyssey about two men who go from enemies to lovers. The black and white visuals are sumptuous. Rated: 4/5 Jul 3, 2024 Full Review Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand ... Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much of David Cronenberg’s work and twists it into a manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. Oct 29, 2022 Full Review Josh Larsen LarsenOnFilm ...the sound design disturbed me the most. Rated: 3/4 Jun 9, 2022 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Quinn E im not quirky and artsy enough to enjoy this movie Rated 2 out of 5 stars 09/11/24 Full Review Logan D A metal fetishist is accidentally killed by a businessman and his girlfriend. The businessman begins to be plagued by a curse that transforms his flesh into metal. A bold frenetic sexually charged technological cyber-punk insane horror film. I loved it. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/21/24 Full Review NiB Y This is as much as a movie as someone's bad trip. Though not recommeding this movie would be a complete disservice. The pratical effects and stop motion are marvellous and i would be lying in not saying that this movie is a legit source of inspiration for me. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 06/08/24 Full Review Brody C It’s good at what it wants to be good at, body horror. The plot is minimal, which is OK. The visuals and cinematography are what make the movie interesting. But at a certain point it can tend to be just random shots of metal….just to really hammer home the point (pun intended). Just not very entertaining, more so interesting. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 04/28/24 Full Review Charles T Just another Japanese-language, surreal, horrifying, chilling, gross, sadistic, industrial sixty seven minute nightmare in glorious black and white. What can I say about the plot? A victim of a hit-and-run accident has his revenge on the couple that ran him over. That sounds like a pitch to an average Hollywood movie, and it has been done, but "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" quickly leaves all safe Hollywood ingredients in its wake. The victim somehow gets the male driver to slowly turn into a raging machine. It starts with a small wire sticking out of his cheek. Soon, he is being chased in a subway terminal by a woman with the mechanical affliction. He escapes her, but still tries to make it with his girlfriend. In the film's most horrific scenes, he grows a giant ugly drill, and the two spend many minutes both trying to kill and love each other. Halfway through, we find out what the victim is trying to do, and the climax involves the two men joining together in more ways than one. Surrealism is so hard to describe- quick, give me the plot of "Un Chien Andalou," but this film is one of the most violent films I have seen. So much can be read into this, from machines taking over our world, to impersonal love relationships, but all in all, director and writer Tsukamoto stuns the viewer with eye imploding visuals. The stop motion special effects work well, and everyone involved seems to be in actual pain in many scenes. The makeup and mechanical costuming are top notch, and the music totally kills- not quite heavy industrial, but not just another rock soundtrack, either. There is not a lot of blood here- there are torrents of it. This is a blood monsoon. The soundtrack has little dialogue, and the sound effects consist of a lot of metal scraping metal, which had me climbing the walls. Watch for the now infamous scene as the unnamed man feeds his girlfriend breakfast. "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" is a hard core sci-fi/horror fan's dream, I'll never curse my car or microwave again. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/08/23 Full Review Becca S Some classic Japanese Body Horror that defined the genre at the time of its release! Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Tetsuo: The Iron Man

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A "metal fetishist" (Shin'ya Tsukamoto), driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.
Director
Shin'ya Tsukamoto
Producer
Shin'ya Tsukamoto
Screenwriter
Shin'ya Tsukamoto
Production Co
Palisades Tartan Films
Genre
Horror, Sci-Fi, Animation
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 13, 2015
Runtime
1h 7m
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