Shades of Davids Lynch and Cronenberg inevitably are prominent when watching Tetsuo: The Iron Man - the lurid 16mm black and white photography recalls Eraserhead, while the body-horror elements strongly echo the merging of flesh and tech found in films like Videodrome and eXistenZ. But director Shinya Tsukamoto brings his own flair to the proceedings, and Tetsuo never feels too derivative despite its obvious inspirations. An unnamed man is run over by a businessman and his lover, who proceed to dump him in the woods and find themselves physically transforming, their bodies fusing with metal. The visual equivalent of a thrash metal song, it's a visceral, relentless film in which sexual fetish is taken to the extreme.
