10 Most Mind-Bendingly Confusing Horror Movies
2. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
The Film
Not to be confused with the Marvel superhero played by Robert Downey Jr, Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a Japanese cyberpunk body horror from cult director Shinya Tsukamoto about a salaryman who accidentally runs over a dude with a penchant for inserting metal into his body, aptly credited as the Metal Fetishist, who exacts his revenge on the man by morphing him into a metal-human hybrid himself.
As the salaryman’s body is gradually taken over by metal, we’re treated to several bizarre sequences – the likes of which could only come from Japanese horror – including a hallucination in which he’s sodomised by his girlfriend donning a phallic, pipe-like appendage and an infamous scene in which the salaryman’s penis turns into a huge power drill and kills his girlfriend. Yes, really.
Eventually the Metal Fetishist and salaryman merge into one giant phallic form to turn the whole world into metal.
What The Hell It Means
Some think that like David Cronenberg’s Videodrome before it, the movie is about the merging of man and machine while others read Tetsuo: The Iron Man and its technophobia as a parable for the repression of homosexuality in Japan during the time of the film’s release.
Meanwhile, we’re still stuck on that power drill penis scene.