Meatball machine is an in your face cult, sci-fi, horror, blood bath from Japanese directors Yudai Yamaguchi and Junichi Yamamoto. Based on a short film of the same name, Meatball Machine will grab you by the balls and hurl you into a crudely crafted world of biochemical weapons, chronic masturbation and obscure sci-fi references.

As a film strictly for the cyberpunk fan boys it holds up well; think of a bizarre love child of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Legend of the Over Fiend, with a splattering of Xbox’s Gears of War thrown in for good measure. Once you strip away the lashings of blood and over the top sci-fi premise, what you’re left with is actually a surprisingly sweet story. Meet Yoji, a 20 something factory worker and lonely recluse, he has his eye on the pretty, but also very shy, Sachiko who works next door.

The film follows him as he tries to pluck up the courage to go and speak to her, until he eventually saves her from the forceful factory boss. At the same time across town crude alien parasites are infecting humans and turning them into their toys, as the film progresses the hideous parasites turn more and more people into biochemical war machines who then fight each other, eating the loser in a ritualistic bloodbath.

If any of that sounds good, and you’re up for a bit of fun I would give meatball machine a watch. If it doesn’t then I would stay well clear as you would likely to be waking up in cold sweats, worried you’re being probed by parasites. For anyone that has seen ‘tetsuo: the iron man’ and enjoyed it, this is definitely for you! It was clearly a very big influence when they were making this low budget sci-fi nasty.

For any fans of Akira, you will be able to draw parallels with meatball machine, after watching it – in fact I believe it could have worked a lot better as an anime, the contrast between the plot and the action would have been smaller and the necroborgs more believable, (I dare anyone not to laugh the first time one wanders on screen!).

Meatball machine is out on 6 July courtesy of 4 digital Asia, and it’s not for the faint hearted or those who take their movies to seriously!

Words > Sekou Abineri