[Film Review] Meatball Machine (2005)

Meatball Machine pushes the limits of splatter in this grotesque science fiction romp but uses problematic narrative beats to carry its character motivations, ultimately relying on outdated notions of sexuality and gender. It’s directed by Yudai Yamaguchi and Jun’ichi Yamamoto and stars Issei Takahashi and Aoba Kawai.

Meatball Machine promises a ton of gory fun in its plot synopsis: a lonely young man named Yoji (Issei Takahashi) must save the woman he has a crush on (Sachiko, played by Aoba Kawai) from a race of parasites who infect humans and force them to fight to the death. And largely, the film delivers on that promise. There are multiple scenes of the grotesque human/parasite hybrids, called Necroborgs, fighting to death with circular saw arms and chest cannons of unclear origins (“human tissue alchemy” is how I justified it to myself), and all are incredibly enjoyable. If you saw the description and thought, “yes, I would like to watch that,” then you’ll be delighted by harpoons made out of sharpened human femurs.. But whereas this film succeeds on an epic scale in terms of its splattercore aesthetic, it also has its fair share of failures. Namely, Meatball Machine suffers from some fairly regressive ideas about gender and sexuality that had me cringing far more than any of the on-screen viscera.

While the film tries to establish Yoji as being the sole “nice guy” amongst a group of chauvinistic factory workers, he still displays interest in Sachiko exclusively as a sexual object. This interest  is established through a scene of him masturbating to the thought of her but when they meet and she fails to live up to the fantasy he has constructed, he becomes briefly physically repulsed. Thus, even though the director’s  clearly want us to think of Yoji as the knight in shining armor-since he literally saves Sachiko from being sexually assaulted as a meet-cute- he is still just another grungy dude who only appreciates women on a superficial level. 

But this isn’t the only time Meatball Machine slips up in its depiction of human relationships. The film goes out of its way at several points to bring in perceived sexual misbehaviour for added shock value. In addition to the masturbation and sexual assault, there’s a scene with a prostitute soliciting services that comes largely out of left field, and when Sachiko is taken over by the parasite, it is explicitly portrayed as penetrative sex that brings her pleasure. The standout worst moment, however, happens when Yoji is accosted and attacked by a trans woman in an adult movie theatre. Why he’s there or what purpose this serves to the plot is unknown, but after he refuses the advances of the woman and calls her names, she attacks him, portraying her as a dangerous sexual predator. This glaring transphobia really colors the rest of the film since it pulls together that, in this story, any sex perceived outside of the societal norm – sex with sex workers, queer sex, female pleasure – is what is truly supposed to be horrific. The film was originally made in 2005, and was based on an earlier film in 1999, but its social commentary ages terribly today. 

From a technical and design standpoint, the film leans into the lo-fi origins of splatterpunk, and it comes out visually stronger for it. Special effects and makeup were done by Yoshihiro Nishimura, an award-winning director and effects artist. The Necroborgs, with their plethora of fleshy tubing, carapaces, and unsettling bloody button eyes, are a triumph of practical work in film. The interior shots of the parasite itself are some of the nastier puppetry I’ve ever encountered, which works to sell the grotesquerie of what’s happening to these people. Beyond the practical, a lot of work of the film reflects the small budgets of the subgenre: sound design is generic and mostly negligible, the title and credits look like clip-art (but it is delightful) and with the exception of some oddly chosen saturating colors (one scene is green, another is inexplicably magenta), the camera work and editing are respectable, although nothing out of the ordinary.

So, should you watch Meatball Machine? It is hard for me to put a seal of approval on a film that has such glaring problems with its themes; even if the film is fun to watch in parts, I recognize that the parts that made me cringe are things that people adversely affected by the attitudes in play shouldn’t be subjected to in their media. If there existed a cut of the film that removed essentially all of the plot contrivances and just showed off the gnarly effects and fights, I’d give it an enthusiastic thumbs up, but it’s a film whose great technical work is severely hampered by some backwards attitudes.

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