Rating:

Meatball Machine is a Sci-Fi, Horror, Love story from Yûdai Yamaguchi and Jun’ichi Yamamoto. It is a hyper-splattery film involving intelligent parasites from an unknown origin in space, who use human bodies as their own personal battle stations, turning them into a bio-mechanical mess called Necroborgs. These parasites travel in small pods and locate human beings with negative thoughts. Once transformed, you are completely at their mercy as they track down other Necroborg’s and engage in battles to the bloody death using weapons made from the body of the human host, with the winning parasite devouring the losing parasite.

Here, take a look at the opening sequence in which you will see part of a transformation, two Necroborg’s fighting and a head cleaved in two…and all of it in under 3 minutes. After watching, you will probably already know if this movie is for you or not. Read my review after the jump.

In Meatball Machine, we meet a shy loner named Yoji (Issei Takahashi) who has a crush on Sachiko (Aoba Kawai), a shy girl who works nearby. Yoji spends most of his free time at work staring at Sachiko as she hangs up laundry, or jacking off thinking about her. He can never seem to muster the courage to tell Sachiko how he feels about her. In fact, Yoji is such a timid, reserved fellow we watch him get his ass kicked by a transvestite who tried to fondle him at an adut theater. But things change for Yoji when he is able to stop Sachiko from being raped, even though this ended with Yoji getting his ass kicked once again. Using this opportunity, Yoji finally gets up the nerve to lay down the moves on Sachiko and tell her how he feels. To his surprise, he learns that Sachiko feels the same way about him. But things just are not to be for these two characters, as no sooner does Yoji get a little lip action from Sachiko, he gets to watch in horror as Sachiko is first raped, then assimilated by a parasite and turned into a Necroborg. Talk about a first date going wrong. The rest of the film details Yoji hunt for Sachiko in an attempt to help free her from the parasite that is controlling her, leading to a guilt-ridden Yoji becoming partially transformed himself and having to engage in a battle with the girl he loves.

I have heard of this film over the last couple years and finally got a chance to watch it. One of my main reasons for waiting so long was simply because the majority of the reviews were lukewarm at best and some reviewers pointing out that Meatball Machine rips off some other well-known films. Well, count me in as one of the people really, really enjoyed it. Seriously, Meatball Machine enters as one of the more entertaining B-Movies I have watched in a while. The effects in the movie are solid, from John Carpenter’s The Thing-ish style transformations of the humans, to the well-crafted (though obviously foam) NecroBorgs. While the suits look foam, you can tell that a lot of time and detail was put into creating them.

Meatball Machine has has a slew of splattery effects that included head splitting, kiddie splatting, eye drilling, and buckets of blood. Even the parasites themselves were done to great effect and during the battles between the Necroborgs, we are shown the parasite operating his human host from the inside. These scenes of the parasite and the internal operations of the Necroborg are outstanding and the mixture of mechanical and biological were a real treat and the small detail of a spinning piece of mechanical apparatus surrounded by blood and tissue is extremely effective.

If I were to find any fault with the film, it would simply be that the movie sets up the first 3\4 of the film leading the viewer to the obvious final battle confrontation. A confrontation that goes on just a tad too long and doesn’t quite pay off. That’s not to say it is bad, as these parasites know how to turn human flesh into some pretty nasty weaponry. From saw blades, swords, organic blood-missile projection and even a gut cannon. The acting in Meatball Machine is borderline abysmal when it exists, but to be honest, it doesn’t hurt the movie one bit. I also couldn’t help but notice that there seems to be an underlying message of the film that seems to warn the viewer about showing your emotions, I don’t know if that was intentional or if I am just picking up on some cultural differences. But who gives a shit about all of that when you have alien parasites turning unwilling humans into some David Cronenberg version of a Borg?

Budget restraints keep the entire set in an industrial area, which add to the steam-punk vibe of the film, but it is put to good use as well as waving away anyone wondering how and the hell these Necroborg’s could possibly walk around completely unnoticed. Hopefully, a sequel will come out one day. The ending, which consists of a conversation between two parasites (yes, it is just as silly as it sounds), definitely sets things up. Be sure to check out all of the extras on the DVD, they do a lot to explain some of the backstory of the two main characters, as well as the parasite\Necroborg. Also, let me know if you have seen this. If you have, did you enjoy it as much as I did? If you have not, and especially if you are a fan of B-Movie splatter\sci-fi\horror, you really should track this one down, get a friend or two and give it a shot.