Editorials
Tetsuo: The Iron Man Trilogy: A Post-Mortem
There are few pieces of experimental film I love as much as Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It’s a sensory shocking 67 minutes that doesn’t just present you with harsh editing and powerful visuals but also delves into ever present and increasingly concerning questions about the nature of the self in the face of technological progression.
Director Shinya Tsukamoto’s grimy little project of humble beginnings ended up becoming a watershed moment, not just for independent cinema but for pop culture at large. Releasing almost one whole year after Katsuhiro Otomo’s legendary film Akira in 1989, Tetsuo’s aggressive, psychologically driven composition would go on to completely reshape Japanese cinema as much as Otomo’s work would.
The Mad Science of Shinya Tsukamoto and Japanese Cyberpunk
Tetsuo was the first true entry into the subgenre we know as Japanese Cyberpunk. Mark Player of Midnight Eye described the genre perfectly, so to borrow his words: it’s an “explosion of sex, violence, concrete and machinery; […] [reveling] in post-human nightmares and teratological fetishes, powered by a boundaryless sense of invasiveness and violation.” Tetsuo would codify this feeling of insecurity and boundary breaking aesthetically, with that grungy, rusty-tasting visual style becoming the signature for the live action cyberpunk movement. This would then leak into the V-cinema boom coming out of Japan in the 90s, with many independent filmmakers taking cues from Tsukamoto.
The films produced during this period would evolve further, going into the 90s and early 2000s. Tetsuo would ultimately become the grandfather of another incredibly popular genre of J-horror called J-Splatter, thanks to its particularly nasty and out-of-pocket FX and its transhumanist set dressing serving as inspiration. Beyond the Eastern cinema sphere, directors like Quentin Tarantino and Darren Aronofsky have openly voiced Tsukamoto’s influence, with some film critics like Tom Mes even theorizing that his inspiration fueled the works of David Fincher and The Wachowskis.
Why Tetsuo Still Feels Frighteningly Relevant
Tsukamoto’s harsh industrial vision of the world to come drowning in new technology and waste spread from film to film, and from medium to medium in an unforgettable way. It’s not hard to see why. For a story with such muddled and dark visuals, its narrative feels as clear as day when placed against our modern struggles. It’s a story that asks about the nature of technology in relation to our existing culture, and how it will interface with the power structures we’re already fighting against.
Which is why, for a sequel so brilliant it’s still glowing white hot 37 years after the fact, it’s strange that neither of its sequels are ever discussed.
A Pair of Sequels Forgotten to Time
I can’t really blame anyone for missing the memo when it comes to the Tetsuo trilogy. I doubt that even Tsukamoto knew when he was working on his original short film, The Phantom of Regular Size, the first iteration of Tetsuo, that it would become the tale he revisited the most. Both of these sequels, Tetsuo: The Body Hammer and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, are effectively reinterpretations of the first Tetsuo, with each one moving further and further away aesthetically and thematically from it.
The core elements are the same in each movie: a salaryman is infected or implanted with some sort of metal that causes their body to begin mutating horrifically, straining his relationship with his romantic partner. All the while, he’s being stalked by a man only known as the “metal fetishist” (Tsukamoto plays the fetishist in each of these films, serving as their primary antagonist). They inevitably clash, and the salaryman and metal fetishist get fused together, turning into a massive mecha-monstrosity. Chaos ensues.
But despite the motifs being the same, the three films are so vastly different from each other that they beg examination. Few directors get to remake their films, and even fewer have gotten to do it three times. So, what do these movies really say about Shinya Tsukamoto’s evolution as a creative, and do any of them stand up to the original iron legend?
Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Repression, and The Isolation of Technology
Tetsuo: The Iron Man’s narrative is far from conventional, being told both out of order and with no exposition to speak of. But it isn’t incomprehensible, and it isn’t hard to see one of the underlying fears of the film: left unchecked, technology will only become an extension of already isolating social structures, obfuscating and suppressing the truth of the individual.
The Iron Man is most commonly interpreted as a story about sexual repression and a struggle with sexual identity; Horror Press contributor Evan Benner has a fantastic article dissecting the film in just this context, and I fully encourage you to read it. But while I agree with this general reading, the events of the film and especially its ending always felt much less liberating, and much more bittersweet. The story takes pains to depict the encroaching metal infection itself as getting in the way of connecting with the true self; in this lens, it is a monstrous embodiment of the salaryman’s inability to accept his sexuality.
How Technology Becomes a Barrier to Identity in Tetsuo: The Iron Man
The body the metal fetishist gives our salaryman is not one sensitive to connection, but a shell that performs hypermasculine violence and crushes communication. The salaryman’s very dreams are infected by it, turning visions of his sexual desire into nightmares. The metal fetishist himself scans through memories on a television screen, putting a layer between the mind and memory. The metal, the technology, is a barrier that is only bypassed in the film’s climax, with the two men finally being brought together.
When the metal fetishist finally shares his vision of the new world with the salaryman, it’s a barren, demolished one. Devoid of life, but more importantly, devoid of everything except for the tools of destruction they carry within them. They are bonded by a mutual resentment for a world that has trapped them. Thusly, while the ending of Tetsuo brings the two men together, seemingly liberated as they become one entity, they are still subsumed by the war machine they have become. Their only chance at freedom, it seems, is to finally destroy the modern world and its structures, both physical and social, with their love made of pure annihilation being the tools for the demolition.
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, Anxiety, and Generational Trauma
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, however, is a completely different beast in both form and function. It’s a much more straightforward film, concerned with telling a fairly conventional revenge story, leaning heavily on the science fiction aspects rather than using body horror to tell a story about the self and sexuality. This time around, we actually get names for our leads: salaryman Taniguchi, wife Kana, and metal fetishist Yatsu. Once again, Taniguchi is stalked by not only Yatsu, but also by his mad scientist and their loyal cult of bodybuilders.
Body Hammer certainly feels more campy, reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s Darkman by way of Videodrome and bloodier Ultraman episodes. The visuals are cleaner, but it’s not like clean is really what was appealing about the original film. The cinematography in Body Hammer is much floatier, much slower, and it really encourages the dreamlike aspects of the first film, but it loses much of the originals punk charm and chiaroscuro lighting. It’s a film more focused on interfacing with the urban environments of 1990s Japan (a focus Tsukamoto found primary to understanding the first film). Unfortunately, the industrial soundscapes of The Iron Man that represented the cacophony of city life aren’t really present here.
From Sexual Repression to the Sins of the Father
Moreover, this film has abandoned any conversation about sexual repression, more interested in getting into the anxieties of parenthood, toxic masculinity, and intergenerational violence. The main conflict is spurred by Yatsu’s minions kidnapping Taniguchi’s child, and Yatsu’s mysterious relationship to our salaryman; is he the cause of Taniguchi’s missing memories from before age 8, or is he himself a victim of the same affliction? What results is a really wild exploration into the fear of carrying on a cycle of violence from father to son, and the horrific nature of how destructive tendencies can feel like they’re almost bound by fate.
The film certainly doesn’t feel as transgressive, even with the strange places it takes its story to. And I don’t know if I can say the increased budget did much to aid Tsukamoto’s growth as a director. But I can sincerely say that Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is still a very solid piece of science fiction horror, while still acknowledging its undeniably the consequence of making a highly conceptual film much more digestible for a larger audience.
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man and The Bland Superhero Rehash
And then, there’s Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. Few films have let me down as much as this. What Tsukamoto delivers with this 2009 film is a dull, shot-on-digital reiteration of the visuals seen in the first feature, thrown into a tumbler and polished to a point of near unrecognizability. There’s a very bitter irony here, considering this is a series all about the dangerous separation from humanity that technology can cause. The Bullet Man leapt into the age of digital filming wholeheartedly, and ended up as a lifeless, humanity drained reinterpretation of the previous films.
This is the only film that doesn’t star Tomorowo Taguchi as the salaryman, this time replaced by actor Eric Bossick. He’s an English-speaking actor, and the film is an English language one, unfortunately. The majority of the cast has this uncertainness in their speech, a difficulty speaking the language with confidence. The performances really hurt what is already a bad script, laden with too much exposition and not enough purposeful character writing. This time around our salaryman Anthony is at the center of a bizarre government project, with the whole thing reading more like a bad anime where the protagonist has to control their inner rage or see their powers destroy them.
Whereas The Body Hammer actually wanted to dissect the conditions of trauma and defense mechanisms that make people emotionally stunted and seized by fear, The Bullet Man is more interested in action that is shaky and poorly directed. Barring some downright bizarre uses of shaky cam, its photography is genuinely lackluster, and its actually interesting makeup designs squandered on a toothless tale that lacks meaning. What results is a bland superhero “horror” film that, in reality, has abandoned its horror and experimental roots completely.
A Tragedy of Potential in The Tetsuo Trilogy
It’s always difficult to see a film series you like take a complete nosedive, but the unraveling of the Tetsuo trilogy is a different kind of disappointing. There is a criminal amount of wasted potential here, even with the limitation of reusing the same core elements over and over again.
The original Tetsuo is a cornerstone of film history, a cyber-gothic cry against rigid society and conformity. Nothing can change that. Had each entry been as radical and unrestrained as the first, as experimental in its special effects and sound design, as heartfelt in how it was made, it wouldn’t have mattered if they were telling the same story as long as there was innovation. But instead, with each iteration, part of its spirit got taken away while its narrative stayed the same.
Now, the Tetsuo sequels stand mainly as a cautionary tale: one that says to not get captured by singular ideas or reused motifs, but to seek out that gritty, unknown spirit of great experimental art. Don’t be bound to your ways like the salaryman, inured to the uncomfortable and unfamiliar, stuck in the doldrums of direct art. Keep searching for the unheard of, and keep exposing yourself to the strange, or be easily consumed by easily consumable art.
People hate It: Chapter Two. Unlike many horror sequels or poorly reviewed releases that gain popularity in time, the film has seemingly gained more notoriety. Maybe it’s the occasionally goofy CGI, the heavy comedy, or just how overstuffed it is, but everyone is really down and out on it. Still, though, I will defend this movie like a member of the Losers Club defending their Ka-Tet (deep-cut King reference for you constant readers).
But why, though? Objectively, the movie can feel overstuffed. The CGI is a little goofy. Well, despite all this, I believe It: Chapter Two captures the pure essence of the book. It captures the heart, the terror, and metaphors about small town America excellently…even better than the first one.
It: Chapter Two Is the Ultimate Stephen King Movie
Listen…I am a simple man. If you have this much pure Stephen King energy in a movie, I am going to love it. Why King fans did not grasp onto this movie, I do not know, because it is probably the most “Stephen King” Stephen King movie ever.
We have the small, Maine town and characters from the book, yes, but also a fantastic cameo from the big man himself. Seriously, this movie is like Avengers: Endgame for constant readers (even though Castle Rock is technically more of a crossover). The movie has the heart, small-town summer feeling, and aesthetics for a King film to the max. Whether that is a positive or negative depends on the viewer, but constant readers can relish in how set the movie is on capturing King’s Americana.
It: Chapter Two Understands the Stephen King Novel
Yes, the movie is sillier than the first installment. It’s technically less proficient and cleaner than its predecessor. Still, this movie just generally captures both the message and energy of the book. Don’t get me wrong, It (2017) is excellent in that it feels like a haunted house walkthrough. There are lots of different entities Pennywise dresses up as to attack. It’s colorful, fun…but it takes a lot of liberties. This is fine, but It: Chapter 2 painstakingly portrays the deeper undercurrents and plot beats of the novel.
The Horror Beneath It: Chapter Two
It has always been a story about the darkness behind America’s suburban facade. Behind all of the killer clown and creature feature/cosmic fun, it is about how America’s past will always linger, and is always darker than any fictional entity. It: Chapter 2 does not shy away from its portrayal of bigotry, or its bigger messages about racism and America’s past. The first one has elements of it, but really, Chapter 2 feels like it peels back the kid’s-on-bikes stuff to get to the nitty-gritty of the story.
Additionally, the movie gets the casting down perfectly. Not saying It did not have some of the best child performances ever, but finding not only worthy adult counterparts, but book-accurate players would have to be an arduous task. Huge shout-out to the casting team for absolutely nailing this.
Bill Skarsgård Makes Pennywise Even Scarier
The whole cast blows this movie out of the water, but Pennywise in this one steals the show. Skarsgard is rarely anything less than excellent, but he gets his true horror laurel here. He plays the role as sinister as possible, landing some humor but never letting it weigh down the fear factor.
He is a force to be reckoned with. When making something like a killer clown movie in contemporary times, you have to be really careful not to make it just straight-up silly. Art the Clown is, of course, pure nightmare-fuel, but when approaching the horror big top, it can unintentionally end up feeling like a mismarketed Goosebumps episode.
This, though, is not a case like that. Pennywise is nightmarish in this. His voice is more sinister, and he reads as a predatory cosmic entity, and not just another slasher villain. Fun and frightening, Pennywise pulls no punches in bringing the horror in Chapter 2.
It’s not unreasonable to think most American horror fans can probably name only one Mexican horror filmmaker: Guillermo del Toro. Given how many fantastic films he’s made and how successful so many of them have been, it’s easy to see how he became a household name, but he’s far from the only Mexican filmmaker with a taste for the macabre. Rubén Galindo Jr. may be a major telenovela producer now, but in the 1980s he wrote and directed independent genre films in Mexico that likely influenced the kind of filmmaker del Toro would become. Galindo Jr. isn’t some obscure figure in Mexican entertainment, but he’s also not as widely known as he should be in horror circles, despite having many of his genre films available from Vinegar Syndrome.
In celebration of Latin Heritage Month, I wanted to shed a light on Galindo Jr.’s films not just because they are a lot of fun, but also because of how underseen they still are. Galindo Jr.’s early films mark a complete departure from the work he does now, so much so that you’d think it’s different people, but his early career genre films were important and part of a familial legacy of both the Galindos and the Cardonas (the royal families of Mexican genre films).
The Galindo Family Legacy in Mexican Horror
Rubén Galindo Jr., as his name suggests, is the son of Mexican filmmaker Rubén Galindo Aguilar. He first entered the film industry as an actor, but joined his family’s production studio to take on a myriad of roles like set designer, accountant, purchasing manager, and more. His directorial debut in 1969 was for a comedy, Un Amante Anda Suelto, and was the first of 47 films he would direct. While his focus wasn’t explicitly horror, he did direct a couple of films starring Luchador and actor Santo, as well as many Mexican westerns before focusing more on distribution in the 1980s. Coincidentally, around the time his young son, Galindo Jr., would begin his own filmmaking career.
Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Journey Into Mexican Genre Cinema
Galindo Jr. began his filmmaking career by leaving his hometown of Mexico City to attend UCLA, only to return to CDMX in 1983 after graduating with a degree in Film and Television Arts & Sciences. His first film, Cementerio Del Terror, was a huge hit despite being a modest production, and it was the first of many independent horror films Galindo Jr. would take on. While his legacy won’t be built upon the work he did in genre, it certainly started there and evolved beyond the underground and into the mainstream over time.
Cementerio Del Terror (1985): Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Horror Debut
Galindo Jr.’s first film is by far one of his most uneven, but in the same vein, also one of the most entertaining. It starts like so many great horror flicks do: on Halloween, as a group of kids decides to steal a body from the morgue, only to disrupt the ghoulish ghost of a serial killer. While graverobbing isn’t exactly the kind of thing many do for fun, this particular endeavor is in service of a satanic ritual that will go awry, thus leading to all kinds of bloodshed and demonic appearances. There’s a sub-plot involving some premonitions of the killer returning from the dead that go ignored, reasonably so, and where things land is your standard house/cemetery of horrors where the kids are met with all kinds of devious and dastardly demons.
The Horror Influences Behind Cementerio del Terror
With a reported budget of 45-65 million pesos (roughly $275,000-$540,000 US dollars), filming started in 1984, and Galindo Jr. was able to wrangle in well-known Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz to star in the production. The film was a huge success for Galindo Jr., even if it wasn’t well-received by critics at the time. Galindo Jr.’s influences are apparent in terms of both content and style, as he clearly draws inspiration from John Carpenter’s Halloween and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. There’s also a heavy helping of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, even if the ghouls at play here aren’t the zombified kind. It’s truly a smorgasbord kind of horror film that never fully commits to one idea, but knows how to weave them together well enough to be entertaining.
The practical effects may seem ropey by today’s standards, but context and time would dictate that these are quite good considering the circumstances and how much of a trailblazer Galindo Jr. was for making this kind of film at this time in Mexico.
Time has been far kinder to this film than critics were, as it averages a 3.0 on Letterboxd and is the recipient of a now sold-out edition from Vinegar Syndrome. In terms of ranking, this is probably B-Tier for Galindo Jr., which is impressive for a debut feature regardless!
Dimensiones Ocultas (Don’t Panic) and Its Influence
Perhaps the best-known of Galindo Jr.’s early genre films, Don’t Panic is without a doubt his best horror effort, and his most derivative. If Cementerio del Terror was riffing on two horror classics, Dimensiones Ocultas riffs on another. This time, it’s Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. Following very similar story beats, we follow Michael, who, on his 17th birthday, uses a Ouija board with his friends and accidentally unleashes a demon. This demon isn’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill possession type; no, this demon haunts you in your dreams! Michael sees these murders before they happen and tries to warn his friends, to no avail.
Why Don’t Panic Remains a Mexican Horror Cult Favorite
There’s a lot to love about Dimensiones Ocultas, and it’s not hard to see why it has become Galindo Jr.’s most notable genre film. From the strange kid-print adult-sized pajamas that Michael wears to the incoherent plotting, it’s not a film that’s going to appeal to those who prefer tight technical filmmaking and single-threaded plot lines. The characters are hard to take seriously, in part because so many of the voices are dubbed, and if this all sounds like reasons not to like this film, you’re sorely mistaken.
The Elm Street influence is endearing in how sloppily it is transcribed here, but it’s also distinct enough to not feel like a complete rip-off. The demon, Virgil, doesn’t really look like Freddy, but if you squint your eyes after a few drinks, you’d probably not be able to tell the difference. The death scenes are creative and at the same time comedic, so it’s not a film that is easy to take seriously, which is a good thing.
While there are no budgetary numbers that are verifiable, Dimensiones Ocultas shows more ambition in terms of effects and ideas than Cementerio, while not really showing much evolution in terms of screenwriting. Galindo Jr. does have better command of the pacing here, and this too has received the amazing Vinegar Syndrome treatment like Cementerio, but is also sadly out of print. A-Tier Galindo Jr.
Ladrones de Tumbas (1989) A Unique Mexican Slasher
Shortly after Dimensiones Ocultas, Galindo Jr. was back at it, directing his third horror feature, Ladrones de Tumbas. Learning a bit from both of his former features, Ladrones feels far more consistent both in terms of plotting and execution. It does tread familiar ground that harkens back to Cementerio, as a group of teenage treasure hunters unknowingly awaken a malevolent entity hell-bent (literally) on bringing forth the spawn of Satan. The spirit systematically takes out the teens one by one in clever, slasher-centric ways, and while it does feel familiar, it’s never repeating the same stuff seen in earlier Galindo Jr. joints. The effects feel far more accomplished, and the story is much easier to follow, all things considered.
The Forgotten History of Mexican Horror Filmmakers
There’s even less information about this film’s production out there, which is more of a reminder that there is still a woeful lack of study around Mexican horror filmmakers that has penetrated the mainstream. Even in preparing for this article, it’s quite difficult to find trusted sources- hell, any sources besides Wikipedia and IMDb. What we do know happens after Ladrones is that Galindo Jr. would begin his distinction from horror and start making his way West to more dramatic and widely accepted fare. There is one more film that Galindo Jr. would helm for horror, possibly two if you consider Resucitaré Para Matarlos in 1991, before making his big pivot. And you guessed it: the Vinegar Syndrome release of Ladrones is very much out of print. S-Tier Galindo Jr.
Mutantes Del Año 2000 (1992) Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Sci-Fi Horror Experiment
Mutantes del Año 2000 is easily the worst of Galindo Jr.’s genre efforts, and it’s largely because it’s kind of a silly premise. It’s a story about a teacher going through an ugly divorce during a time in the future where pollution is so bad that everyone wears gas masks, and an ex-husband who has been dumping nuclear waste behind the house, mutating the local rodent population. When a giant mutated rat enters the home, the teacher must fight it to stay alive while she’s warding off both the rat and her ex, who wants to keep his nuclear secret. It’s absurd, and it almost feels like Galindo Jr.’s first foray into the more dramatic side of storytelling.
Not only is this one a bit of a slog to get through, but it also loses some of the fun and charm that Galindo Jr.’s previous films exhibited. While the story is a bit more concise and clear, a positive, the delivery leaves a lot to be desired, even if the world-building is somewhat interesting. It’s hard to know, at least without further research or speaking to Galindo Jr. directly, what caused him to fall out of love with genre, but his lack of conviction is apparent here. You can’t fault someone for wanting a change, but I would be remiss not to wonder what it would’ve been like if Galindo Jr. kept refining his abilities for the sake of scares.
Why Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Mexican Horror Films Deserve More Attention
One of the most challenging parts of writing this kind of article is not having enough sources to tell a fully holistic story. Part of this is due to time, as one can only watch so many special features in such a time, but also that there simply aren’t as many primary sources for Mexican horror history and the filmmakers that contributed to it. The fact that so many can’t name more than one Mexican filmmaker says a lot about the lack of information out there, and so if you’re a filmmaker seeking a new topic for a genre documentary, consider Mexican horror. Not only is it fertile ground, but it’s also got a lineage of talent that is still alive to talk about what it was like, something we are reminded of weekly as announcements of deceased horror stars come across our news feeds.
Rubén Galindo Jr. is just one of many who have made their mark on horror in Mexico, and selfishly, I would love to know more about this than what is available. Running a website and working full-time doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else, but it’s important to both remember and celebrate the legacies of those who came before as trailblazers who are just as worthy of our praise as those who become household names.
For more of Matt Orozco’s work, along with many other great horror articles, head on over to Macabre Daily!
