Rubber's Lover

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Rubber's Lover
Directed by	Shozin Fukui
Written by	Shozin Fukui
Starring	Nao
Release date(s)	1996
Running time	91 min.
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
IMDb profile

Rubber's Lover is cult filmmaker Shozin Fukui's 1996 follow-up to 964 Pinocchio. Like its predecessor, it is an underground cyberpunk horror, with tense atmosphere, alarming visuals and graphic violence.

Rubber's Lover acts as a semi-prequel to 964 Pinocchio, and details a clandestine group of scientists who conduct psychic experiments on human guinea pigs they take from the streets. Using brain-altering drugs, sensory deprivation and computer interfaces, they subject their patients to gruesome scientific tortures that often end in brutal death. After continued failure, they pursue one last project - which yields dangerous results.

Rubber's Lover can best be defined as Japanese cyberpunk and industrial noir, in the same vein as Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Filmed in stark black and white, located in a setting of grim urban steel, steeped in machine aesthetic, driven by a kinetic style and empowered by a grinding metallic soundtrack, it draws on nightmarish horror and generates heavy fetishcore themes.