Tetsuo: The Iron Man

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Tetsuo: The Iron Man

1989

1h 7m

Horror

Sci-Fi

Animation

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Popcornmeter

78%

Tomatometer

18 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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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

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David Day

Horror Movie Talk

This is not a movie that anyone I know will enjoy because it’s enjoyable. It’s good because it’s important, it’s good because of what it allowed to come after it.

Rated: 4/10

Aug 11, 2025

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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

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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

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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

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Josh Larsen

LarsenOnFilm

...the sound design disturbed me the most.

Rated: 3/4

Jun 9, 2022

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MasaHiro X

Adapted from the storyline of The Phantom Of Regular Size (1986), Shinya Tsukamoto's earlier 18 minute short film. Tetsuo (1989) does a good job fleshing out the storyline with its own beats, has an intense atmosphere, the music is fantastic and overall the ending is a climactic chaos. One thing this film does great is stop-motion. The film also has some definitely intentional comedic affect as well which is a good thing. Makes it feel all the more jarring and insane to watch.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

07/24/25

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Ollie W

Some of the special effects aren’t great but the film certainly has style and a cool look to it. I would have enjoyed it as a short film. The storyline is nonsensical. Can’t say I found the story or characters compelling. But it has some remarkable visual moments and great industrial sound design. Certainly nothing like a typical movie - more like a somewhat juvenile art film (the protagonist develops a large metal drill phallus and tries to kill someone with it while saying “you want a taste of my sewage pipe”). Somewhat unpleasant, lots of screaming and body horror throughout. Difficult to really know what’s going on or why.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

07/16/25

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Lee G

This is so deranged, so insane but so amazing! It hits you with a ferocious, unnerving speed that keeps you captivated by the beautiful bizarreness that unfolds in front of your eyes. An awesome experimental score by Chu Ishikawa fits perfectly with such an incredible movie! Highly recommended!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

06/15/25

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Dani G

Even for a cult movie, this is pure garbage-waste of time. What the hell was that?

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

05/19/25

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Teddy B

As wild as it the plot sounds, 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man' is a remarkable work of body horror and twisted sound design.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/02/25

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Elliot A

A masterpiece that's more trippy than LSD

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

12/14/24

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Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Director

Tomorowo Taguchi

Man

Kei Fujiwara

Woman

Nobu Kanaoka

Woman in Glasses

Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Metal Fetishist

Naomasa Musaka

Doctor

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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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