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In Japanese cinema, which has never shied away from the extreme but rather embraced the grotesque, both in terms of violence and sexuality, it is inevitable that a multitude of shocking scenes would emerge, or at least did exist before the era of political correctness. Add to that a sense of peculiar humor, extreme techniques used to depict horrific moments with stark realism, broken taboos, and a total disregard for political correctness, and you have the foundation of this list.

Naturally, narrowing the countless shocking scenes in Japanese cinema down to just 15 is no easy task. However, with a focus on diversity, here are some of the most unforgettable and jarring examples. Some of the scenes described were difficult to find so I opted for something similar instead, from the same movie.

15. The first sex scene in Caterpillar

Lieutenant Kurokawa returns home from the war a celebrated hero but also...

Sometimes a film’s visuals are so visceral that they overpower your eyes entirely, pulling you in and setting your other senses ablaze. The putrid smell of rancid flesh stings your nostrils as you become acquainted with the Sawyer family homestead; your teeth chatter as MacReady and Childs stare each other down in the unforgiving Antarctic snow; the unwelcomed taste of pea soup miraculously appears in your mouth soon after Regan MacNeil spews forth a torrent of the stuff into poor Father Merrin’s face. Some of the horror genre’s best entries are more than just a story that haunts you: they’re a full body experience.

Legendary renegade filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto’s debut feature, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), shares this quality of sensual transcendence. Stifling waves of heat and humidity radiate from nearly every frame of the picture, and throughout its brisk 77-minute runtime you can’t help...

Audio Assault.

June proved to be a wild month: we talked about the wacky space antics of Leprechaun 4: In Space (listen), the underseen-but-very-good trans vampire film Bit (listen), and Robert Rodriguez’s first half of the Grindhouse double-bill, Planet Terror (listen).

To kick off July, we’re racing over to Japan to discuss the 35th anniversary of Shinya Tsukamoto‘s Japanese cyberpunk masterpiece, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).

In the extreme cinema film, an unnamed salary man (Tomorowo Taguchi) is slowly transformed into metal after a hit and run involving a metal fetishist (Tsukamoto). After accidentally (?) killing first his cat, and then his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara) – with his new metal drill dick no less – the salary man and the fetishist engage in a destructive battle of wills that only ends when they fuse together. Together at least, the lovers set out to destroy the world.

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Stars: Tomorô Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, Shinya Tsukamoto, Renji Ishibashi, Naomasa Musaka | Written and Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

After spending his youth creating short films and entering experimental theatre, Shinya Tsukamoto made an indelible mark on Japanese horror cinema with his feature debut, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The writer/director/producer/editor also appears on-screen as a metal fetishist, setting the tone for this bizarre work as his character inserts scrap metal into a self-inflicted wound in his thigh. The sight of maggots within the wound causes him to run in fear, resulting in him becoming the victim of a hit-and-run accident.

The story then focuses on a salaryman (Tomorô Taguchi), who discovers a metallic thorn sticking out of his cheek while shaving. While he later waits in a subway station, a woman infected with metallic tentacles begins chasing him. This begins a campaign of terror upon the salaryman,...

We’re back for a new Let’s Scare Bryan to Death, and this month we’re navigating the gritty, grimy world of live-action Japanese cyberpunk with perhaps the quintessential example of the subgenre, Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man. This 1989 film is one of the more high-intensity, visceral experiences ever put to celluloid, so I’m thankful to have guest Dani Bethea to guide me through it.

Bethea has one of the best minds in horror journalism today. Formerly the editor-in-chief for the We Are Horror zine, you may have seen their work at cinéSPEAK, Studies in the Fantastic, and the Transploitation Project. You can also catch them in the upcoming documentary Mental Health and Horror and read some really fascinating long-form pieces via their Medium blog.

Bethea had a number of great movie recommendations, but Tetsuo is one I’ve been eyeing up for quite some time.

Winner of the Grand Prize in Pia Film Festival, “The Adventures of Denchu Kozo” was the film that reinvigorated the career the disappointed Tsukamoto had placed in the background to deal with stage plays, and along “The Phantom of Regular Size”, is a distinct precursor to “Tetsuo“.

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Hikaru is a high school student with a rather unusual deformity: an electric rod (denchu in Japanese) is growing out of his back. His appearance results in him getting bullied by his classmates and is only with the help of Momoko, a girl he has feelings for, that he manages to escape their violence. Eventually, due to an accident with a self-made time machine, he is transferred 25 years in the future, where Japan in being controlled by the Shinshengumi Vampire Gang, whose three members are building a bomb that will bring eternal darkness to a world already on the brink of catastrophe.

Clémence Polès at Happy Bones on The Music Of Regret and My Art director Laurie Simmons and Women Without Men and Looking For Oum Kulthum director Shirin Neshat at Fffest: “They both are artists that are filmmakers as well and I thought a conversation could be interesting.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The 2nd annual Fffest screened Bette Gordon’s Variety and I-94; Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson with Sofia Bohdanowicz’s Veslemøy’s Song; Nadia Farés’s Honey And Ashes; Kei Fujiwara’s Organ with Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man; Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men with Forough Farrokhzad’s The House Is Black; Laurie Simmons’ The Music Of Regret, and a Women From Ghetto Film School free short film programme.

Laurie Simmons with Shirin Neshat on the Fffest red carpet Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

A panel with Erin Lee Carr (I Love You Now Die), Desiree Akhavan (The Miseducation Of Cameron Post), Dianna Agron,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of Modern Art

MoMA has reopened, and it is–I do not say this lightly–almost too much in one weekend. See for yourself.

Film Forum

“Shitamachi: Tales of Downtown Tokyo” begins with both canon and lesser-known Japanese cinema.

Films by Tim Burton and Joseph Losey play this weekend.

Metrograph

Films by Hitchcock and Blake Edwards play this weekend.

“You are a failure, so you shouldn’t make this film.”

(Kazuo Tsukamoto to his son’s plan for making his first feature)

If we take a look at the history of Japanese cinema, Shinya Tsukamoto stands out as one of the most provocative and original voices. Beginning with his first feature “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” authors like Tom Mes and Jesper Sharp acknowledge the relevance of his work for the Japanese film industry which had not played a significant role internationally. Tsukamoto, along with colleagues such as Takeshi Kitano and Takashi Miike would be the most important voices, and while both of these have been following mainstream and better budgeted film, Tsukamoto has managed to maintain most of his independent roots.

At the start of his career, taking a film camera in his hand again was unthinkable for Tsukamoto, who had been a member of several...

The concept of the sci-fi horror genre allows us to address the built-in terrors and tensions developed in society that are difficult, if not impossible, to actualize and confront directly. It has the strengths of sci-fi’s ability to question our potential as a developed species, breaking current conceptions of reality to attain a scenario that directly addresses these bigger questions than those enveloped in regular drama. However, some of these questions are big enough to be menacing: we do not always wish to wonder about the scientific possibilities that lie outside of us; the unknown of the natural world can do its best to terrify us as well. This is a major distinction between what sci-fi horror and “regular” horror intend to achieve: no longer are the monsters personal and haunting regular people; they can be cosmic and haunting our professionals, our perceived authority. It is the helplessness in...

Tiff’s Midnight Madness program turned 25 this year, and for two and half decades, the hardworking programers have gathered some of the strangest, most terrifying, wild, intriguing and downright entertaining films from around the world. From dark comedies to Japanese gore-fests and indie horror gems, the Midnight Madness program hasn’t lost its edge as one the leading showcases of genre cinema. In its 25-year history, Midnight Madness has introduced adventurous late-night moviegoers to such cult faves as Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. But what separates Midnight Madness from, say, Montreal’s three and half week long genre festival Fantasia, is that Tiff selects only ten films to make the cut. In other words, these programmers don’t mess around. Last week I decided that I would post reviews of my personal favourite films that screened in past years. And just like the Tiff programmers,...

by Colleen Wanglund, MoreHorror.com

February was Women in Horror Recognition Month and there are plenty of women that we recognize in horror year round.

Consider the “Scream Queens” we all know and love—Michelle Bauer, Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Linnea Quigley, Marilyn Burns, Elsa Lanchester, Brinke Stevens, Camille Keaton, Sybil Danning, Ingrid Pitt, Barbara Steele, Fay Wray, and Beverly Garland.

But there are countless other women, actresses, writers, directors, who you may not know and don’t get proper recognition.

Here's a short list of some female directors that deserve to be mentioned.

Barbara Peters - Humanoids From The Deep (1980)

Katt Shea - Stripped To Kill (1987), Dance Of The Damned (1988), Poison Ivy (1992)

Ida Lupino - The Hitch Hiker (1953)

Elizabeth Fies - The Commune (2009)

Jennifer Chambers Lynch - Boxing Helena (1993)

Fran Robel Kuzui - Buffy The Vampire Slayer 1992)

Kei Fujiwara - Organ (1996)

Antonia Bird - Ravenous (1999)

Jen and Sylvia Soska...

NEW YORK -- Boldly venturing into the outer limits of our imaginations, ''Tetsuo -- The Iron Man'' has created new, innovative experimental techniques for experimental cinema. As conceived, written, directed and edited by Shinya Tsukamoto, who also co-stars, this film combines the wildest elements of any avant-garde filmmaker you can think of, and lifts them to another dimension altogether.

Making its U.S. premiere at Film Forum, ''Tetsuo -- The Iron Man'' will appeal to sci-fi/cybertechnic/special effects aficionados, as well as any film student seeking out new pioneers to emulate.

As far from mainstream as humanly possible, this technically astounding flick encompasses stop-action photography, heightened sound, bizarre performances and some mind-boggling visuals that more than make up for any lack of cohesive narrative.

In black and white, the film opens with a grainy shot of a man slicing open his own leg, then inserting metal tubing into the gaping wound. At second glance he notices lice swarming over the bloody thigh and runs wildly into the streets where he is hit by a car.

The next day, the driver (Tomoroh Taguchi) of the hit-and-run car notices a metal sliver protruding from his face. In a scene reminiscent of a similar one from ''Poltergeist, '' he picks at the sliver and opens up his face. Soon he discovers himself turning more and more into a giant metallic trash heap.

He engages in bloody sex with his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara), thanks to his new metallic drill of a penis, and she too turns into some kind of metallic creature. Together, they suffer from frenetic gyrations that look like a music video from hell.

Jumping back and forth between warped reality and his vivid nightmares, the visuals take us on a mentally exhausting yet exhilarating journey toward our horrific metallic future.

Tsukamoto's vision and startling execution are brilliantly conceived, even if they are a bit frightening in nature. His expansive use of film offers new and exciting directions for atypical filmmaking. ''Tetsuo -- The Iron Man'' is a kinetic piece of celluloid that opens the limitless doors of possibilities.

TETSUO -- THE IRON MAN

An Original Cinema Release

Director-writer-editor-art director Shinya Tsukamoto

Cinematographers Shinya Tsukamoto, Kei Fujiwara

Music Chu Ishikawa

Producer Kaijyu Theatre

Black and white

In Japanese, with subtitles

Cast:

Salaryman Tomoroh Taguchi

Girlfriend Kei Fujiwara

Woman in glasses Nobu Kanaoko

Metals Fetishist Shinya Tsukamoto

Doctor Naomasa Musaka

Tramp Renji Ishibashi

Running time -- 67 minutes

No MPAA rating

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...