Meatball Machine

Directed by the duo Yudai Yamaguchi (Battlefield Baseball) and Jun'ichi Yamamoto "Meatball Machine" is apparently a remake of Yamamoto's 1999 movie with the same name. I doubt I'll ever get a chance to see the original so I'll just stick commenting on this one. First of what is "Meatball Machine" ? A simple in noway pretentious low budget industrial splatter flick packed with great make up effects and gore. It's not something you'll end up writing books about but it's nevertheless entertaining if you dig this type of cinema.

"Meatball Machine" follows the well known plot. Boy loves girl but is too afraid to ask her on a date. Boy finally meets girl. Girl gets infected by a parasitic alien creature that turns her into a homicidal cyborg. Boy, in turn does also transform into said thing, and goes on a quest to save his love. Will he succeed? Who gives a damn, as long as there is carnage and death I'm satisfied.

The plot is simple, relatively clichéd but it does it's job well enough setting the movie's course straight forward into a bloody confrontation between the two leading characters. There is a subplot focusing on how the parasite that infected the girl came into to their lives. And yes it too luckily shows more violence. I'm happy. Acting is what you would expect from a no budget splatter film. It's not exactly painful for the ears but it's not exactly good either.

The movie's main attraction besides the violence and gore (like I haven't mentioned that enough already) are the cyborg designs. Done by Keita Amemiya who's work in creating outlandish creatures and costumes for both movies and video-games is well known. The necroborgs as they are called in "Meatball Machine" look stunningly detailed. Without the usage of CGI Amemiya's designs are a breathtaking fusion of flesh and metal, painfully awesome in their appearance. Able to transforms various parts of the body into cool weaponry such as saws, rocket launchers, blood-firing shotguns and so on and so on. Though you can easily recognize the cheapness of the film, necroborgs are A-movie class.

"Meatball Machine" is "Tetsuo The Iron Man" mixed up with "Alien" all done in low budget and extra ketchup mode. It's an immensely entertaining film that disregards modern special effects and proves that the splatter genre is still alive and kicking.

Meatball Machine is an amazing splatter film, it has an original plot with young love, buckets of blood, and weird alien creatures that mutate people into freakish robotic war machines.

Now the film isn't for everyone, people who love splatter films or the movie Tetsuo: the Iron Man will applaud it.

The special effects can be cheesy at some points of the film, but your not exactly suppose to take the film very seriously.

Yet, all in all it's a lot of fun, well if you find budding romantics infested with slimy tumor like gobbles who seek to destroy each other in bloody alien oozing battles.

"Meatball Machine"

Have you ever wanted to see a film based solely on the positives you created in your own head? Completely ignoring any cinematic standards or any reviews written on the film? Because, of course, your going to believe what you want to believe anyway. This way of thinking is very true in my case and for my latest film review for the Japanese shock film "Meatball Machine"

'Meatball Machine" is another film among the ranks of the Tokyo Gore- splatter film genres, with a pinch of Sci-Fi. I was curiously drawn to the film solely on genre, but more specifically because Japanese Effects Director Yoshihiro Nishimura helms the ever so, not so easily forgotten style of excessive blood, mutations of grandeur and everything perverse his big brain can throw at you. In this case the film is a complete success for it's costumes and effects. I've come to the realization that the best way to judge Nishimura's FX work is to base it strictly on a physiological basis. If you feel a little queasy or your stomach mildly turns, then the film is usually pretty good. If you experience any worse symptoms then the aforementioned, you better settle in and expect a wild ride.

As for the remainder of the film.... I'll get to that a bit later...after the jump!

"Meatball Machine" pits a young machine worker "Yoji" ( Issei Takahashi) as a lonely member of society. He's not great with the ladies and frequents adult theaters only to receive advancements from a transvestite. When a friend attempts to cheer him up and brings him to a brothel to de-virginize him, he walks out before anything happens.

On a daily basis he longs across a field at the affection of his desire, a young women, a co-worker whom he cannot muster enough courage to share his feelings.

This sub-plot plays second fiddle to the meat of the story that explodingly connects a bit later in the film.

Japan has become infested with parasitic alien creatures that inhabit and take control of human hosts, and when one of the host bodies are met face to face with another, a fight to the death ensues...oh and the winner rips out the alien parasite and eats it upon victory (yeah. not a real family friendly film). One of the more eventful scenes in the film is when a alien is found by "Yoji" outside the porn theatre. He brings it home and puts it in his closet. When he invites his affection home with him, it rears it's ugly head, and horrible scorpion tail, that it inserts inside her vagina, spewing the alien parasite inside her to take control of her. I swear, maybe it was just me, but it looked like she actually took pleasure when that elephants trunk stinger penetrated her Hoo Hoo....eww! This sequence sets off a chain of events that is "Meatball Machine"

Co-Directors Yudai Yamaguchi and Jan'ichi Yamamoto create this concoction based on earlier work written, produced and directed by Yamamoto in 1999. Their science experiment Circa 2005 starts very well- with elements of horrific, excessive gore, violence and welcomed extremism. My first thoughts were " I'm in for gory, gory, goodness".

Like this head split in two!!!!!( Not the best Photo)

Overall the direction was moderately constructed-Costume and Effects were pleasantly expected. The Writing at times, I felt lacked in originality and direction, at times becoming loose, making the pace and energy of the film misplaced. The love story, sub-plot was refreshingly agreeable for sheer ironic purposes. In conclusion the film is a success for any fan of the Japanese bloody madness genre. A little too weird in subject matter for my taste, but it is worth watching....once!

BruceVain

MEATBALL MACHINE is a tale of the trials and tribulations of young love. It's also about alien parasites that latch onto human hosts, drill out their eyeballs, and assimilate / mutate their organs, turning them into weapons of mass destruction.

Our young heroes are caught up in an epic struggle between warring extraterrestrial entities bent on decimating each other in the messiest, gushiest ways possible.

Will true love prevail, or will the Necroborgs inherit the Earth?

This bizarre movie is an excellent example of the triumph of imagination over budgetary limitations...

Alien parasites infect humans, trigger the growth of massive bio-cyber weapons, and then use the grotesquely mutated hosts in death-matches that cumulate with the victorious host tearing out and devouring the losing parasite. Nothing makes much sense, and the entire premise seems to be an excuse for trippy-drippy special effects, monstrous prosthetics, and preposterous geysers of slime and blood. Unlike the equally nasty 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man' (1989), this is not an artsy experimental film but rather a typical gruesome, exploitive splatter-fest. If that's what spins your propellor, 'Meatball Machine' delivers, if not, you won't last the first couple of minutes. The final scene (and sequel setup) is existentially amusing. Watched on Tubi with English subtitles.