Tetsuo: The Iron Man: Consistently, excessively, comically phallic

Rating: 🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩
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In 1988, director Shinya Tsukamoto drove a screw through cinema’s eye with his debut feature, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Much like Eraserhead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre before, Tetsuo was a first effort destined for cult glory. The film packs more mutilation, black humor, and sexual perversion into 67 minutes than some directors can manage for an entire career. Tetsuo’s plot, delirious at first contact, follows “Salaryman” (Tomorowo Tamaguchi) as he comes under the influence of the twisted “Metal Fetishist” (Tsukamoto himself). In an act of revenge, the “Metal Fetishist” transforms “Salaryman” into a hulking monster of wire and junk. If only we were all so lucky.

Dripping with inky blood and obscured by video filth, Tetsuo’s expressionistic delirium stands as a monument to low-budget body horror nastiness. Even with such limited resources, Tsukamoto’s deluge of brain-searing images remains completely untouched. But, the fabric is familiar. Pulling influences from the aforementioned David Lynch film, as well as the works of David Cronenberg and Japan’s own kaiju genre, Tsukamoto concocted a bubbling black stain of a movie; a sick joke which Taschen’s Japanese Cinema tome lurches to label “a trippy sci-fi industrial pop sex fantasy.” While not untrue, the descriptor lacks a critical qualifier: “homoerotic.”

Let’s be clear: Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a high-octane celebration of the cock. It is a shameless sausage fest which stuffs dicks into all available areas. The imagery is consistently, excessively, comically phallic. Lacking the elegance of Alien’s sleek schlong symbolism, Tetsuo prefers to present penises in the language of metal rods and sewage pipes. It’s unlikely more than the weirdest of the weird would find the opening sequence of “Metal Fetishist” inserting a rod in his leg wound erotic (call me!), but his act serves as the first penetration in a film which loves shoving things where they shouldn’t go. A knife in a socket, a grotesque metal feeding tube, and of course, a metal tentacle which snakes inside the “Salaryman” from behind.

In a film where the subconscious blossoms into rusted, mutated flesh, this prehensile phallus points towards Tetsuo’s ultimate direction as a work of queer awakening. The steely snake’s appearance follows several introductory vignettes: first, the “Metal Fetishist” pleasuring himself, followed by “Salaryman” and “Girlfriend’s” (Kei Fujiwara) accidental car crash with the manic metal masturbator. Aroused by the act of violence, the two fuck with the injured fetishist looking on (though we see this as a flashback), thus spurring his vengeance. Then, “Salaryman” awakes with a piece of razor sprouting from his cheek. Soon after, he encounters “Woman in Glasses,” (Nobu Kanaoka) who comes under the influence of the “Metal Fetishist.” Her hand bloats into a steel claw, and she pursues “Salaryman” back to his home. The end of their confrontation finds “Woman in Glasses” mocking “Salaryman” in the “Metal Fetishist’s” distinct voice - a feminine body invaded by a masculine presence.

This motif continues immediately, when we are trapped within the “Salaryman’s” carnal nightmare. The queasy dream finds “Girlfriend” sprouting the aforementioned appendage; a steely strap-on only HR Giger could love. She coddles the growth, taunts “Salaryman,” and eventually violates him. Again, the male and female exist in tandem, this time committing Tetsuo’s first explicit sexual act. Instantly, we are brought back to reality, where “Salaryman” and “Girlfriend” are getting intimate in their own special way. Their seemingly sadomasochistic relationship highlights the film’s perception of sex and violence, twin obsessions of Tsukamoto’s career: that the two are one and the same. In this moment, however, no one’s having any fun. The “Salaryman” in particular can’t seem to get off - until a hulking piece of drill-tipped heavy industry erupts from his crotch.

“Girlfriend” processes this dick development with a mix of terror and curiosity, until “Salaryman’s” advances become too much to bear. She does not, as Tetsuo phrases, want “a taste of [his] sewage pipe.” Their evening tips into violence, and she incapacitates “Salaryman” with household implements. However, he awakes to find his drilldo goring “Girlfriend” with bursts of blood. This is where Tetsuo: The Iron Man finally throws femininity out the window - from here on out, it’s all about schlong. “Salaryman’s” sexuality stirred when the “Metal Fetishist’s” broken body triggered the couple’s car crash copulation, and now his masculine desire has found form as a whirring wang. Of course, the “Metal Fetishist” is there to embrace this development with a nitrous-fueled cackle.

It’s difficult to interpret the relationship between “Salaryman” and the “Metal Fetishist” as anything but sexual, especially when the “Metal Fetishist,” also transforming into scrap, arrives with a bouquet of flowers. He manifests from the dead body of “Girlfriend,” male aesthetics continuing to supplant the female. This invasion brings us to the film’sfinal stretch, which involves the “Metal Fetishist’s” backstory, his plan to create a “NEW WORLD” of metal, and a telekinetic duel. This back bit is where Tetsuo stuff most of its narrative, but it’s also where “Salaryman,” now a giant mass of steel, penetrates “Metal Fetishist” with a colossal junk of junk. The violence between the two culminates with “Salaryman” absorbing his tormentor, letting “Metal Fetishist” enter him in the most literal sense. The act is complete when we find “Salaryman” and “Metal Fetishist” joined within a womb. They observe each others’ naked bodies in a slow dream, the film finding its first moment of peace in bare intimacy between two men.

Tetsuo’s conclusion is one of the greats. Joined in body and soul, “Salaryman” and “Metal Fetishist” have taken the form of a massive, mobile phallus. “Ah, I feel great!” remarks the “Salaryman.” Free from the traditionally feminine in the most overt imagery possible, he finds bliss in his new role as the shaft of a giant Giger penis. The two have concocted a plan: turn the entire world to metal. The “Metal Fetishist” is embedded upon the dick’s tip, armed with some manner of automatic weapon. He proclaims, in the most romantic moment I’ve seen on film: “Our love can destroy this whole fucking world.” The towering cock tank rolls out, rampaging through the streets of Tokyo. Roll credits. Not bad for a first date.

While Tetsuo: The Iron Man is mostly known for unforgettable images, it’s this through line of dawning gayness which I, and hopefully others, find so compelling. From the first metal bud to the final monolithic member, Tetsuo is about repressed desires realized. “Salaryman” flees from one feminine figure and dispatches another entirely. His sexual needs become incompatible with “Girlfriend,” legitimately destroying their relationship. It's only when he finally comes face to face with the “Metal Fetishist” that he finds peace, both men defined by the metal they host in their bodies; both men playing receiver to penetrating objects. This shared experience unites them; the transforming force which separates them from common society inextricably joins them.

The over-the-top, shameless chaos of the film makes the mens’ fusion something to be cheered, not feared. For what is ostensibly a horror film, there’s very little to be scared of in Tetsuo. You may be disgusted, you may be tickled, and you will certainly be entertained - but you will not be scared. So, it’s hard to feel anything but amazement and disbelief as the final phallus speeds through suburban streets. Tetsuo administers no judgement here, no indication that this coupling is more of an oddity than anything which came before. They’re simply two men who have found love in the form of a world-destroying dick, and that’s beautiful.

There’s so much more to be said about Tetsuo. From Tsukamoto’s role as “Metal Fetishist” commenting on directors as voyeurs, to further exploring how the narrative handles gender and transhumanism, myself and others could write many, many pieces on this movie. But, this review is already too much of an essay. My ultimate opinion? Tetsuo: The Iron Man is required viewing. If you’ve never seen it, Tetsuo will be unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. A review can’t possibly capture the kineticism of the film; the way this 67 minute homemade madhouse of iron and grime blasts ahead to outdo itself at every turn. I haven’t even mentioned the soundtrack: a throbbing, clanging mass of auditory industry which sounds exactly like the drill penis looks.

I always come out of Tetsuo grinning and energized, starry-eyed that some alien just like me was out there making movies; that someone peeled off an exact section of my brain and splattered it across the screen. If you’re a fan of body horror, if you like industrial music, if you love sick humor, if you’re a pervert, if you’re just gay and weird and want to see what other true blue weirdos have made, you owe it to yourself to watch Tetsuo. It’s a wonderful party movie, and an even better date movie. To misquote John Waters: “If you go home with somebody and they don’t like Tetsuo, don’t fuck ‘em!”