If someone described a film by saying it's more like an "experience" than a film then it would be entirely in your rights to punch them as hard as you could in the face, however such a description is probably the only one that does Tetsuo justice. The movie plays like a series of disturbing, hellish visions rather than a film. On more than one occasion I found myself squirming a little at some of the more gory moments. For example one of the first scenes shows our fetishist pal inserting a length of metal piping into his leg. Not nice. And then it's a short walk into an incident with our leading man being chased through a train station by a woman with a cybernetic brain glued to her. That scene alone earns Tetsuo the 4 stars I've given it above, simply because it's one of the scariest and most disconcerting things I've seen for a long time. The second half rarely matches the action and fear from the first 20-30 minutes but will still manage to creep the hell out of you as the plot seems to spiral downwards into insanity.
Special effects-wise, Tetsuo is hardly cutting edge, but that's expected in low budget features such as this. But the stop-motion animation used adds to the raw edge of the picture, as does the grainy black and white film. Throw in a headache inducing techno soundtrack and you've got pretty much one of the most unsettling films to grace cinema for a long bloody time. Watch this at night with friends and you'll be a little scared. But watch it alone in the dark and after it's over you'll be phoning a friend to see if they can come round and look after you.
