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.
