Disembodied

★★★★ Watched by TobeWobe 18 Apr 2023

You can definitely tell that the director loves Frank Henenlotter. And if this was made with a larger budget, I probably would’ve guessed that it was made by him! Despite its laws, I love the ambition and creativity in this, and the effects and soundtrack are great for its budget.

I wish I could see the original cut, though. I’m really not sure if the Director adding those weird dream sequences in his final cut really helped anything. Plus, I can tell her the shots are digitally altered from the original film print, and I would like to see what it looks like naturally. Oh well. Still a good watch nevertheless!

1 like

Corey Corcoran

★★★★ Watched by Corey Corcoran 16 Apr 2023

“You’re a lot smarter than your average dope.”

This feels like an adaptation of a lost Charles Burns’ comic. Good stuff.

3 likes

ngmi

★★★½ Watched by ngmi 10 Apr 2023

Quiet film. Strange. Watched with zaid.

Whatisthiswint

★★★½ Watched by Whatisthiswint 30 Mar 2023

God I need some coffee

John

★★★½ Rewatched by John 22 Mar 2023

Dead Alive Productions put out some of the grottiest, most low-rent garbage on the VHS market, so when I chanced on a copy of this film in a thrift shop long ago (for $2!), its cover emblazoned with a bloody-looking mass of organs and a head in a jar, I braced myself for a real trash-a-thon. Imagine my surprise to receive instead an ethereal, David Lynch-meets-Stephen Sayadian-style fever dream full of stop motion sequences, dance numbers, and weird poetic body horror. It stuck with me as a strange little treasure, and I appreciated the film for trying to do something different while being mis-marketed to gorehounds looking for their evening's fix. Now it's 17 years later, and imagine how weird it is for me to see it out on Blu-ray.

I'm delighted to see all the good reviews here, even if revisiting this didn't quite live up to what I remembered. Perhaps there's just no recreating that first experience. I love the specific feel of the cliched, run-down hotel into which moves Connie Sproutz, a woman who quite literally *sprouts* vagina dentata potatoes and looks like Jack White trying to play Enid in GHOSTWORLD. Next door lives the world's most clean-cut hooker, the perfectly-named Trixie Turner, whom Connie likes to spy on through a vagina-shaped hole in the wall. Connie is being tailed by a guy from a top-secret organization for which she used to work, before an alien parasite implanted itself in her skull and pushed her brain out, which she keeps in a jar. Connie occasionally goes out to spray guys with goo and melt them or something, but mostly she stays in her room and tends to her vagina potatoes.

Looking at the film again now, more critically, there's really nothing that happens and very little forward momentum. It's only 77 minutes but plays much longer. Nevertheless, there's a consistent charm to its lo-fi, high school play aesthetic that I just can't get out of my head. It's like someone scribbled down their waking nightmare on paper and then filmed it as-is. The (I presume) 16mm cinematography is nice and crisp, and it's great revisiting it in this new transfer. Some new added VFX sequences aren't nearly as obtrusive as these things usually are, and I thought it was neat the director kept the original 1.33 frame for the feature and then opened up these new FX and title card shots to a full 1.78. I just wish they had included the original cut for posterity, as I'd like to revisit it and see if it plays better or worse. Thankfully I still have that VHS, which was $2 very well spent.

Guillermo Tato

★★★★½ Watched by Guillermo Tato 22 Mar 2023

“Disembodied” es un delicioso ejemplo de cine underground de los noventa, muy cercano a películas como “Pi”. Pero en la película de William Kersten todo tiene un tono mucho más Trama pero a la vez extremadamente onírico. Una propuesta única que es la hija no reconocida de David Lynch y David Cronenberg. Con estos referentes y un cuidado trabajo visual y de tono es muy difícil que “Disembodied” no sea una película única. Tremendamente imperfecta en muchos aspectos pero con una honestidad y una capacidad de abrazar lo extraño realmente hermosa. Una película única, olvidada, de las que merece la pena visitar y recordar que el cine pequeño puede ser extremadamente mágico y único.

---

"Disembodied" is a delightful example of underground cinema of the nineties, very close to films like "Pi". But in William Kersten's film everything has a much more plotted but at the same time extremely dreamlike tone. A unique proposal that is the unrecognized daughter of David Lynch and David Cronenberg. With these references and a careful visual and tonal work it is very difficult for "Disembodied" not to be a unique film. Tremendously imperfect in many ways but with an honesty and an ability to embrace the strange that is truly beautiful. A unique, overlooked film, one of those worth visiting and remembering that small cinema can be extremely magical and unique.

Mike

★★★★ Watched by Mike 17 Mar 2023

impeccable 1990s low budget movie energy with this body horror from william kersten. a friendly sex worker neighbor at the shitty motel named trixie turner? forget about it. it also definitely has a vision and even if the execution was slightly off, it was entertaining throughout. george randolph as the determined Doctor Sigmund Sylvanus was operating on a different plane than everyone else. loved the 1950s b movie performance he gave.

the music felt like i was watching a cable original movie and it was a very pleasant viewing experience (there is a lot of silly gore).

4 likes

Michael R. Muller

★★★★★ Watched by Michael R. Muller 14 Mar 2023

This is really something special here, folks.

Nasty ass body horror, claymation, quaint 90s computer visual effects, and a maid who dresses like Lucille Ball and smokes these like 2 foot long cigars.

Connie is this goth girl who dresses like Corey Feldman and she has to hide out at a hotel so she can give birth to pulsating flesh potato babies. It all feels like Eraserhead if it was a late-90s indie flick and I mean that in the best way possible.

Worth mentioning one of the characters in this movie is a guy who tries to pick up the ladies by offering to show them an educational film on electrons.

hiddenspeakers

★★★★ Watched by hiddenspeakers 12 Mar 2023

Wish I could drink coffee through my brain.

1 like

videoscum

Watched by videoscum 28 Feb 2023

Hi-yah!

Miedox

★★★½ Watched by Miedox 14 Feb 2023

So, um, imagine if Frank Henenlotter and David Lynch somehow teamed up to make a microbudget late-90s version of a 50s throwback sci-fi alien possession film. Disembodied is so damn hypnotically weird that it's hard to look away from the sheer randomness.

molly🐶

★★½ Watched by molly🐶 08 Feb 2023

Not a film I can say I really fully "get" (if there is anything to get, even), but one I can appreciate in a lot of ways regardless. I don't particularly understand why anything in this movie happened, or even what exactly happened in general, but the gore effects are great, and the atmosphere of it all suits...whatever the rest of it is. I'm almost inclined to call it a feminist growing-up sort of answer to the parental fears of Eraserhead from everything I can gleam from this, but that feels honestly weird to say about a film directed by a man with no *blatant* social commentary that I picked up on. Regardless, I had a good, grimy time with this.

kelseytabbert

★★★★★ Rewatched by kelseytabbert 04 Feb 2023

This is my kind of queer cinema.

𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔵𝔞

★★★ Watched by 𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔵𝔞 31 Jan 2023

this is the movie that when I rate someone’s “favorite most best movie ever!!” with one star and review it with “dumb” they will dig out of my profile and be like “oh ok, says the idiot that enjoyed disembodied. that movie didn’t even make sense and neither do you. idiot.”

edit, 1 second later after briefly looking at reviews: a lot of people actually really like this movie so maybe I’m not an idiot or… maybe I am….

natalie

★★★★½ Watched by natalie 31 Jan 2023

she’s just like me fr

samu3lk

★★★★★ Watched by samu3lk 22 Jan 2023

IT NEVER MISSES

2 likes

PHLOGITSON

★★★★★ Watched by PHLOGITSON 22 Jan 2023

This feels like the exact midpoint between David Lynch and Brian Yuzna. Sadly, the bluray remaster doesn't have an option to include the original score, which is ridiculous.

2 likes

El_Chubbycabra

★★★★ Watched by El_Chubbycabra 21 Jan 2023

I saw a freind who's opinion I value greatly and share very similar taste with had watched this and liked it.So,I read the synopsis...then I read it again,to make sure I had read it right.Then I read it AGAIN,then I watched it.

A very odd,entertaining, shall I say unique little film.I say "little" because it obviously had the kind of budget where the craft service table,if there was one,consisted of Ramen noodles,baloney sandwiches and Kool Aid.That being said,I did really like it.Going back to the synopsis,what you read is what you get,plot-wise.Apart from that,the single main character is engaging ,empathetic well performed and the supporting players are stereotypical without being boring.Decent effects and a fairly random but,as I said,entertaining plot.

It was made in 1998,which is when the network ended it,but I think this one was tailor-made for TNT's 100% WEIRD! Give it a shot,it's only an hour and 15 minutes so you got nothing to lose.

Ben Gallegos

★★★★★ Watched by Ben Gallegos 17 Jan 2023

I'm almost certain that the parasite in this is what inspired the face fetus in Terror Phone. Oh! And it was fucking great.

Alienkeyes

★★★★ Watched by Alienkeyes 14 Jan 2023

This has a nice gross grimey vibe and a bizarre premise that is wonderfully executed. The dream sequences are weirdly beautiful and all of the actors deliver pretty solid performances and the story is insane. Definitely worth watching.

½ Watched by Nevaeh Morissette 13 Jan 2023

This felt very Cronenberg meets Lynch, which is to say, I hated it and it made me deeply uncomfortable.

1 like

AntiSocialHero

Watched by AntiSocialHero 31 Dec 2022

Watched on Tubi.

S̷ ̷Y̷ ̷S̷ ̷T̷ ̷E̷ ̷M̷ ̷T̷ ̷E̷ ̷R̷ ̷R̷ ̷O̷ ̷R̷

★★★★½ Watched by S̷ ̷Y̷ ̷S̷ ̷T̷ ̷E̷ ̷M̷ ̷T̷ ̷E̷ ̷R̷ ̷R̷ ̷O̷ ̷R̷ 13 Dec 2022

This is the kind of outsider art I want injected into my veins on the daily. Singular, unique and uncompromising weirdo vision that is simulatenously so bad it's good and art house horror. Very reminiscent of Eraserhead though apparently inspired by a different film called Dementia. Oh and the director composed all the music for this movie and it's excellent.

3 likes

j_nge

★★★★ Watched by j_nge 10 Dec 2022

A girl recommended in a cafe recommend this to me after a short chat and genuinely no one has ever pegged my taste as quickly or effectively. I really loved this film.

While they are not really alike both Disembodied and Death Bed (1977) have the same heart and commitment to a concept.

While at times a little silly and janky you can definitely see the care and earnestness with wich this film was made by everyone involved. I actually also thought the effects were really well done (even though some of them were clearly made from playdo). As a whole it's actually quite a heartwarming story about a weird girl making a friend.

Yu can get this film for €2.99 on Gumroad so definitely go check it out.

Kersten still seems to be producing work so I'm very excited to see some of his other stuff.

3 likes

ELECTRICWIZARDx

★★★½ Watched by ELECTRICWIZARDx 06 Nov 2022

Cronenberg ode precursory-COTF Basket Case worship, transplanting the sleaze Hotel and dingey backstreets into a desert now hosting care routines to disembodied ET brain thru wire'n'potato electro-shock liquid chem and coffee methods, extending past the fleshy mass through the ether into the corporeal. Beholden the 90s cheapo windows '98 fx as hosts to dreams that must be kept from entering the world like pulsating grim from vaginal stomach wounds, lest they change the fabric and produce dripping stalagmites and stalagtites in hotel closets so awful they'd actually make them better looking. Rapist electromagnet film weilding proprietor and the sinister boiler in the sickly green basement rooms are not to be feared, not with the existence of the depth of the dark on the outskirts and the clay sentient globules and murdering dream-volcano-motif-shadowing growths on our aptly named leading alien/lady hybrid, ejaculating acid and melting faces; something done probably thousands of times before on this eternal run from Plasmaster corps' scientist-cum-investigator who has the weakest and funniest "hi-yah" in motion picture history and loses fights to chirpy dreamer prostitutes, yet will not stop the pursuit, even as he wanders out and unknowingly sits on the cocoon of too-far-gone out yonder in the windy barrens.

TonyCanoli

★★★ Added by TonyCanoli 4 Nov 2022

Brain damage at home

Matfield

★★★ Watched by Matfield 03 Nov 2022

I'm not quite sure what was going on here but I like the goopy bits.

1 like

Freddy73

★★ Watched by Freddy73 04 Nov 2022

That was a long ass cigar!

1 like

saltyessentials

★★★★½ Watched by saltyessentials 31 Oct 2022

Enjoyably Good

jc1

★★★★ Rewatched by jc1 31 Oct 2022

The ICC Super Scary Movie Challenge 2022

31/31 A Horror Film You Love, But Don't Think Enough People Watch

Barely known but endlessly creative. You've got stop motion animation, body horror, oppressive damp rooms, surreal landscapes and space fantasies and a crazy scientist who delivers the most unexpected karate chop in all of cinema. Check it out.

Michael Carroll

★★★★½ Watched by Michael Carroll 14 Oct 2022

Some absolutely beautiful images, a great movie to fall into and out of sleep to. Watch at 3am.

Darrell Swainston

★★★★ Watched by Darrell Swainston 13 Oct 2022

A captivating low-budget Cosmic Eraserhead both freaky and funny in equal measure.

jimmyoc

★★★★★ Watched by jimmyoc 12 Oct 2022

Film #7 of The Halloween Marathon 2022

The Colour Out Of Basket Case.

If Belial was a hidden face penis of alien origin rather than an angry ex-conjoined twin, you’d be someway to understanding this. Disembodied takes us on a trash Cinema odyssey, populated by similarly seedy characters in a hotel - including a mad scientist that looks like Colonel Sanders and a peeping Tom who meets a grisly end - and occasional surreal flights of fantasy involving stop motion alien worlds and multiple vaginas. Largely dialogue free, Disembodied eschews diegetic sounds for several periods, leaving only a parodic grandiose soundtrack that mimics silent film and serves to heighten its strange, ethereal nature.

12 likes

Ali👻

Watched by Ali👻 08 Oct 2022

Certified queer freak horror banger

1 like

💀 ᴄɪɴᴇᴍᴀ ᴇxᴄʀᴇᴛᴀ 💀

★★★ Watched by 💀 ᴄɪɴᴇᴍᴀ ᴇxᴄʀᴇᴛᴀ 💀 01 Oct 2022

HOOPTOBER 2022 - Night 6, Film 9:

Disembodied (1998, dir. William Kersten)

Pre-Watch:

DEVIANT. PSYCHOTIC. DEMENTED.

I am officially stoked for this one!

I mean, just read the synopsis and a couple of very enthusiastic reviews, and if you’re into wild, high concept freakouts I’m sure you’ll be as intrigued as I. I’m expecting to absolutely drink this shit up. Sounds amazingly nutso and weird and nasty! I read more than one review comparing this to Frank Henenlotter’s output, of which I am a gigantic, pulsating fan.

I hope I can fit my brain into my weed jar when this is over and I, too, am overtaken by a parasitic skull-dwelling critter.

Post-Watch:

Henenlotterian, indeed!

Had this been either cut down into a half-hour short film or simply been gifted with more meat from its creators, this may have been a new favorite. It certainly has some wild ideas and some awesome lo-fi effects. What it lacks, though, among things like better editing, pacing & writing, is a convincing lead performance. As delivered by Anastasia Woolverton, who has an androgynous and striking appearance, it’s a performance that is almost entirely devoid of expression, and it’s surrounded by more energetic and believable and expressive actors who seem more on the level of what this movie is trying to be. (Except for the neighbor, who is obnoxiously overacted by Hannah Nease, never hitting a single right note or beat.) It’s got some great, gooey effects (I really will never forget the many births of what look like slimy vaginal doughnuts sliding out of her abdominal vagina - hello, Videodrome!), but damn I wish this had more of the wild energy on the screen that went into its conception.

The pacing, look and the general feeling is like Henenlotter’s Basket Case filtered through a cheap, colorized Eraserhead (including a clone of Lynch’s pervasive-droning soundtrack) and shot in the basement of Doris Wishman’s apartment building. It’s got some fun ‘50s mad scientist gadgets, too, and the unforgettable Doctor Sigmund Sylvanus (George Randolph), who looks like Colonel Sanders if he worked as a private eye.

I mostly dug this, and I’d watch it again. I wouldn’t be surprised if future viewings work better for me.

Grade: C+

Hooptober 2022 🎃🔪🩸💀

YourNeighbor

★★★★ Watched by YourNeighbor 22 Sep 2022

it's cheap but the vision is there and for that you have to admire the artistic value of it. i'm da plasmaster baby

Jon Hillman

★★★ Watched by Jon Hillman 16 Sep 2022

I have to admit that I don't know what was going on.

1 like

John

★★★ Watched by John 24 Aug 2022

extra-terrestrial acne 🤮

1 like

BenBoyte

★★★★★ Watched by BenBoyte 06 Jul 2022

Eraserhead 2

2 likes

cortney 🧷

★★ Watched by cortney 🧷 06 Jul 2022

The director clearly loves Eraserhead. Somehow this movie makes even less sense though.

This should have been called Potatohead 🥔 🧠

6 likes

Alixandraw 🦇🕸️

★★★½ Watched by Alixandraw 🦇🕸️ 05 Jun 2022 2

Phallic and yonic body horror and gore. Scummy hotel atmosphere. Bechdel test pass. Yes please.

Patrick Wright

★★½ Watched by Patrick Wright 04 Jun 2022

Joins the rare ranks of Love God as anither grimy weirdo-ass hotel-set movie heavily inspired by the films of Frank Hennenlotter. I didn’t like this one nearly as much though. It’s got the right scuzzy 16-mm vibes, there’s just something about it that never quite clicked with its disparate elements. Not that Love God functioned as an entirely coherent narrative but at least it all fit together to me.

TheMenuButton

★★★½ Watched by TheMenuButton 03 Jun 2022

It's so sincere, so committed, so on the right wavelength. Movies were invented for people to be able to make movies like this. I don't like to say Lynchian but here I mean in the production and sound design.

3 likes

Justin LaLiberty

★★★★ Watched by Justin LaLiberty 03 Jun 2022 1

what if Guy Maddin made a Frank Henenlotter movie with a $250 budget and some of the best visuals you've ever seen? truly an interdimensional experience and one of the more concentrated blasts of art-horror that I've seen in a long time; might be the only time I've properly witnessed *acting*

36 likes

Evan Pulgino

★★★★ Watched by Evan Pulgino 31 May 2022

I want to be trapped into a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells!

Charming, funny, grimy, low-budget, weird AF, and extra gooey. Also this movie had lots of extra vaginal births before Alex Garland thought they were cool.

Poor some coffee directly into your brain, pull out your favorite educational shorts, count your potatoes, and go along for the ride.

Emalie

★★★★ Watched by Emalie 29 May 2022

Eraserhead meets Basket Case with a touch of Quay Bros. in this grimy weirdo low-budget gem about the Grand Hotel and an inventor who keeps her brain in a jar.

7 likes

Ashley Wells

★★★★ Watched by Ashley Wells 29 May 2022

Incredibly charming low-fi mad scientist romp that would make a great double feature with The Stuff! I hope someday technology allows me to pour coffee directly onto my brain!

3 likes

T

Watched by T 28 May 2022

Love to see stop motion twisted into this genre!

Snailor Moon

★★★★ Watched by Snailor Moon 09 Jul 2021

If Lynch and Svankmajer teamed up with Ed Wood to make a Sapphic romance between a mutant scientist and a baker/sex worker.

1 like

Big Cheese

★★ Watched by Big Cheese 16 Apr 2022

But she tap dances!

Definitely near the best body melt movies. Though the ones I’ve already seen are some impossible to beat fun movies. But this movie has a lot of charm too.

I couldn’t tell it was SOV most of the time, it looks pretty good. [Found the movie on an SOV list, but it seems to be film—watched on a laptop so missed any filmic details.] The effects are definitely done in digital software because a movie on film with this low of a budget couldn’t do these shots unless they did mixed media.

Everything is fun. Stupid funny dialogue. Stupid funny characters.

Watched while making daal.

duncerat

★★★½ Watched by duncerat 15 Apr 2022

Weirdo movie for weirdos genre displaying characteristics of Cronenberg and Waters forming an idiosyncratic, bizarre mutant pulsating with rage and venom.

Helen

★★ Watched by Helen 11 Apr 2022

Honestly, if you really wanted Eraserhead to make less sense but also be in color… this is for you.

Enjoy!

10 likes

isabelle

Watched by isabelle 25 Mar 2022

movie magic

2 likes

Lars Henriks

★★★★½ Watched by Lars Henriks 23 Mar 2022

This is what would happen if „Under the Skin“ and „The Love Witch“ took acid together.

11 likes

No Christians Either

★★★★ Watched by No Christians Either 21 Mar 2022 3

What in the hellfuck?

Some seriously top-notch lo-fi filmmaking. Highly recommend for so many reasons, from whack practical effects, to hauntingly unique cinematography, to positive portrayals of sex workers, to gnar fucking gore. Some serious art right here and I cannot wait to rewatch it in a proper setting.

If you even mildly enjoy SOV/8mm/16mm trash, this is a must see!

Jude

★★★★ Watched by Jude 18 Mar 2022

just about everything you could want out of a movie, or as i like to call them, "a flick". just bursting with creativity and joy. made my damn day

8 likes

skeettherich

★★★½ Watched by skeettherich 18 Mar 2022

I'm still getting over this movie. Absolutely love how it starts out being incredibly bizarre, then halfway in Dr. Exposition comes along and randomly announces that she's part alien.

queenjimmybimmy

★★★★ Watched by queenjimmybimmy 18 Mar 2022

Wooooahhhh! This was a lot of fun! Goopy, gory, and low-budget (was getting After Last Season flashbacks in the middle!), with a lot of heart to boot. Connie getting really angry that all Trixie knows about Idaho is potatoes is the most I’ve related to a movie since Napoleon Dymamite lmaoo. I ❤️ the brain chomping, arm sawing, scientific genius hero!

1 like

SickeningGore

★★★½ Added by SickeningGore 9 Mar 2022

An extraterrestrial has made its home in Connie's head, causing slimy mutations, visions of alien landscapes, and her to house her actual brain in a jar. She moves into a grimy hotel and begins dissolving/consuming people with melty gore effects to then birth them into alien-like clams, meanwhile a scientist on her trail. A truly unusual oddity with strange body horror, weird characters, and a setting that reminded me of Basket Case/Slime City/Brain Damage. Never has a movie from 98' felt so 88' and I can totally see Vinegar Syndrome picking this up.

Patty

★★★★½ Watched by Patty 24 Feb 2022

There she is, my 2016 in an eggshell. Alive, mutant, just to be needed, using every last word available to transmit what was being transmuted day’s inn and nights out. Heartstrings can be plucked and repotted, repeatedly. I’ll be damned if that ending didn’t make me cry. Tears of: Don’t give up now, we’re proud of who you are. You know it’s never been easy. MOVIE MAGIC!

Magill Foote

★★★½ Added by Magill Foote 22 Feb 2022

A grungy, low-budget mashup of Basket Case and Eraserhead vibes that feels like it was made in the late 70s but is somehow from 1998. Short and sweet, full of fun effects and surreality. I had a great time with this one.

Eeevil

★★★★ Added by Eeevil 21 Feb 2022

I need to know more about the potatoes!

Digital Press

★★★½ Watched by Digital Press 20 Feb 2022

This one is in a league of its own, though if I had to guess, I’d say it’s inspired by two parts David Lynch and one part Frank Henenloter. It’s got a similar indie/grunge vibe to Basket Case, but separates itself from too much comparison by delving into futuristic concept-art dream sequences. The stark imagery and droning hum that pervades the background is very Eraserhead. Whatever the case, it’s… different.

A strange woman takes a room in the most run-down hotel you’ve ever seen. She’s got all kinds of strange science equipment and collects rocks and potatoes. She’s also got some crazy stuff going on with her body. I won’t spoil it, but you’ll be wondering if she’s a monster, an alien, maybe even a mad scientist.

The supporting cast is equally colorful, from the creepy hotel manager with a passion for 16mm educational films to the prostitute next door, to the scientist who’s tracking her activity, this is a mystery for the ages.

I’m kinda surprised this isn’t talked about more often. It seems like it would have no problem getting a loyal cult following. It is wild!

18 likes

cult_rain

★★★½ Watched by cult_rain 20 Feb 2022

Lots of awesome and nasty effects here, well worth the watch

orcpussy

★★★★★ Rewatched by orcpussy 13 Feb 2022

essence

1 like

Byron Miller

★★★½ Watched by Byron Miller 08 Feb 2022

Beautifully dirty production design meets no budget grimy surrealist body horror. Awesome movie. Thank you Bleeding Skull for recommending it!

hauntface

★★★½ Watched by hauntface 30 Jan 2022

What a gem, it’s sleazy, dirty, Ott, with great stomach churning practical effects.

I can’t believe this was made 1998!

I will have to watch it again soon.

Lexi

★★★★ Watched by Lexi 21 Jan 2022

This was exactly what I wanted tonight. Omnipresent filth and grime, dripping meatscapes, claymation monstrosities, Tanguy dreamlands, psychedelic nebulae, nonsensical parodies of 1950s educational films. Writer-director William Kersten shares many of Cronenberg's bodily fixations, but without his philosophical ones, which means that everything here is a horrible mouth-vagina and there's no particular reason for it. That's okay, though, because Disembodied is a movie that operates on vibes, not on discourse. In fact, long stretches have no dialogue at all, just Kersten's lush Bartókian score. (Apparently the original music was done with a Korg; Kersten redid the entire thing in 2002, using the then-new Vienna Symphonic Library, and it sounds startlingly good given the technology of the period.)

The setting — a dilapidated hotel full of weirdos, complete with a peephole hidden behind a painting — brought to mind Paul Bartel's Private Parts. Here, though, the protagonist is no naïve runaway; she's a taciturn gothic witch-scientist who could out-weird anyone in Bartel's movie. The movie is also, perhaps, an antecedent to Danny Perez's glorious Antibirth, which is also about a woman on the margins of society whose body is undergoing a hideous transformation. But that's enough comparisons, because Disembodied is really a singular vision, from its vast alien volcanoes to its dancing bottles of mysterious colored liquids. It's also, incidentally, one of the few horror movies I've seen that portrays sex workers in an unequivocally positive light; that's surprising enough when it happens now, let alone in the 90s. Thanks to all of you whose reviews pointed me in this direction!

5 likes

Aliza

★★★★ Watched by Aliza 11 Jan 2022

so creative and fun!! exactly the kind of movie I want to make

cryptofgloom

★★★★½ Watched by cryptofgloom 11 Jan 2022

"Give me my brain!"

No way of explaining just how out of this world Disembodied is. You have to take the acid spitting tumor trip through the cosmos of a filth plastered hotel and to the void the stars are suspended in to glowing ember pink and purple lands filled with neon sludge and burning ethereal imagery of Fantastic Planet heights all by yourself to truly grasp the weirdness.

Extraterrestrial goop pods that house parasitic beings are born through the open gashes in Connie's body, plopping in a pool of slime and blood at her feet over and over again and thats not even the most bizarre part. The whole thing is a surreal shot to the brain and much like the brain Connie keeps jarred up in her luggage it has you feeling suspended and floating through a twisted reality of horror meets sci-fi that after watching makes perfect sense why so many call it "Lynchian".

William Kersten went all in on this, making the best thing he could with the budget he had and it looks fucking phenomenal. Pure passion behind everything here and unreal looking effects in the form of hideous face mutation, cosmic trips, victims turned to puddles of mush, arm amputation and a bonkers story that transforms into a crazier and crazier entity the more it goes on.

12 likes

orcpussy

★★★★★ Watched by orcpussy 09 Jan 2022

shes just like me..

3 likes

Clawheld

★★★★½ Watched by Clawheld 08 Jan 2022

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

3 likes

Bowie

★★★½ Watched by Bowie 30 Dec 2021

An obviously reverent and unique 50s' sci-fi homage with the alien as protagonist. So dedicated to replicating the contours of its inspirations that it feels slow at 75 minutes. Nonetheless, highly recommenced watching if like me you watched The Brain That Wouldn't Die episode of MST3K so many times that you begin to admire the actual film and become resentful of the riffs.

CDY93

★★★★★ Watched by CDY93 19 Dec 2021

A perfect movie thank you so much

Wu

★★★★ Watched by Wu 18 Dec 2021

Perplexing and truly alien film about a cool anti cop bimbo sex worker and her goth gf having potato babies

4 likes

Morgan

★★★★★ Watched by Morgan 14 Dec 2021

This is the kind of shit that keeps me enthusiastic about film; the knowledge that somewhere, out there in the wastes, movies like Disembodied simply exist in the same universe as I. Methodical banger of lo-fi goopy body horror weirdness which, appropriately, feels completely disembodied from anything I've ever seen. Really powerful vibes throughout; something like camp sci-fi Cronenberg filmed inside an Oingo Boingo music video. Even by that metric I cannot stress enough how strange and singular and incredible this experience comes across. Sad this is Woolverton's only screen credit, because she's batting one-fucking-thousand with a leather-decked, bug-eyed performance for all the disaffected goth queers of the world. What an odd and fantastic movie. Wow. Wow wow wow!!!

4 likes

damosuzuki

★★★ Watched by damosuzuki 30 Nov 2021

if you are here for competence and coherent plots and all that, then this isn't for you, seems safe to say.

but if the idea of a movie that's:

- a bit like basket base but better (imo) &

- that has effects that look like a c+/b- grade 8 science fair project...

sounds like something you'd enjoy, this may be what you're looking for.

it's on tubi for all to see.

it's 76 minutes long.

i think it was great fun.

Ryan DeWerth

★★★ Watched by Ryan DeWerth 27 Nov 2021

Had no idea when starting this that it would be so similar to a story I’m working on. Enough details are changed and the tone is different enough where I wasn’t bummed about the concept already existing, but it definitely made for an interesting watch!

Also had no idea this was from 1998 until just now. Totally looks like it could be straight outta the early 70s.

The plot was a little too ambiguous but the wonderful practical fx and that low-budget ambition made up for any criticisms I may have for it. And at only 78 minutes, it’s easy enough to just push through any of the slower parts that don’t work as well.

STFish

★★★★★ Added by STFish 31 Oct 2021

this is one of the dreamiest, coziest movies i've ever seen and trixie is my best friend.

samu3lk

★★★★★ Added by samu3lk 31 Oct 2021

Absolute banger every time I watch it. 5/5 every goddamn time.

David Muenchrath

★★★ Watched by David Muenchrath 31 Oct 2021

An interesting throwback to the films of the 1950s. It’s worth checking out if you enjoy the fringes of cinema.

krhhmg

★★★½ Watched by krhhmg 24 Oct 2021

Slow paced but utterly insane sov gem. From the first few seconds until the end, this flick takes you through a series of grimy and sometimes downright revolting scenery which gets more and more outlandish as it progresses.

Minor spoilers ahead

- a creepy receptionist looking one moment like frankenstein's monster and then like his assistant igor. As if that wasn't enough, his doings add nothing to the plot, at all.

- cone-shaped protruding cysts in the face which blast slimy goo on innocent bystanders

- half a bathtub filled with.. i didn't quite get what they are, offsprings maybe? Either way they look nasty!

- a half-crazed scientist torturing a brain in a jar with electric shocks

- a john reaching through a peeking hole in the hotel's walls and getting his arm sawed off cleanly

There's more, but i believe this list should be reason enough to give it a shot

1 like

Rabia

★★★ Watched by Rabia 24 Oct 2021

Octoberween

Steve P

★★★½ Watched by Steve P 20 Oct 2021

Eraserhead of the late 90s with a heaping helping of body horror on the side.

Cameron Maitland

Watched by Cameron Maitland 20 Oct 2021

Feels like a cursed film but in a good way. I'm glad this is the film that got me and welcome the weird goopy volcano death.

1 like

Nate

★★★★ Watched by Nate 17 Oct 2021

Really needs a DEVO soundtrack. No other notes.

Justin Decloux

★★★★ Watched by Justin Decloux 17 Oct 2021

I also have my brain in a jar on my desk.

7 likes

johnconn

★★★ Watched by johnconn 17 Oct 2021

This movie had me at "acid spitting face tumor."

1 like

Philip Decloux

★★★★ Watched by Philip Decloux 17 Oct 2021

By the power vested in me, I hereby bestow upon 1998's Disembodied, the descriptor "Lynchian". Few films have worked harder to deserve it.

24-Hour Horror Movie Mind Melter (2021) #13

8 likes

A.J. Kishta

★★★★★ Watched by A.J. Kishta 17 Oct 2021

I've been watching movies for twenty hours straight at this point, and I'm so tired that I don't think I can articulate a single thought about this one other than I think it's great.

1 like

SamSpear

Watched by SamSpear 17 Oct 2021

Cronenberg-lynchian mix (not as a buzzword, clearly what this movie was trying to riff on), pretty great, mucky hallways, a lot of excretions.. lot of stuff with dick and pussy and stuff like that yeah yeah yeah this was kind of awesome.

J B

Watched by J B 17 Oct 2021

Horror Movie Mind Melter (?/x)

Dozed off through the last few movies, but woke up in time for this lovely oddball. Full-on mind melt territory.

twogreatships

★★★★ Watched by twogreatships 17 Oct 2021

Goopy, paranoid and dreamlike. I can't believe this film was made in 98, it captures an incredibly specific aloof 70s horror style (which I can't quite put my finger on) perfectly.

1 like

BDA_

Watched by BDA_ 17 Oct 2021

24 Hour Horror Movie Mind Melter

tfw your acne is so bad it kills people

Koschei the Deathless

★★★★ Watched by Koschei the Deathless 17 Oct 2021

A loose Corman film template with obvious echoes of Yuzna, Henenlotter, Lynch, Cronenberg, Svankmajer, and Waters in its details. Very low-budget but sublimely disgusting in its design, and infinitely endearing. For my own two cents on my favourite design choices, I like how the sickly hotel rooms all look like sets from famous CBBC game show 'Trapped'; this film just really taps into my ideal mucky aesthetic.

I've been reliably informed that the cracking writing is very Motern-Like, which now… more

reality dog

★★★★★ Watched by reality dog 16 Oct 2021

Words cannot convey how much this movie rules. Made for paranoid mutants.

Klon

★★★★★ Watched by Klon 11 Oct 2021

This was exactly the kind of movie I was dying to see in 1998 - unpredictable and indescribable and attempting to create its own homemade language. Up there with Frank Grow and John Michael McCarthy when it comes to underground filmmaking from this era. The MIB character and sci-fi laboratory effects recalled Corman’s Not of This Earth without a campy throwback tone. This is aware enough of its limitations in production elements like sets and effects; stop motion blobs, bloody stumps, and threadbare hotel rooms seem to highlight those limitations. It’s also unconcerned with holding the audience’s hand through narrative checkpoints, stops in the story to have a quick dance or a dream sequence are much more welcome than dull expository dialogue.

13 likes

Tyler

★★★★★ Rewatched by Tyler 09 Oct 2021

Gross, daffy, sincere and poignant. No-budget desert highway Cronen-Lynch outsider art. Atrocious in many of the ways that make for MST3K fodder but I can’t stop myself from being absolutely charmed. Like if the B-52s went looking for Area 51 while in a collective k-hole

1 like

greatbigfatguy

★★★ Watched by greatbigfatguy 09 Oct 2021

girl melts people with acid and keeps her own brain in a jar, the classic cliche. amateur actors, low quality film, but silly and weird enough to actually be kinda cool. the effects arent good, but theyre stuff like brains crawling out of tummies and pus volcanos, so its fine? also the cgi is kinda boss? a film of many contrasts.

bee

★★★★ Watched by bee 06 Oct 2021

i saw a japanese trailer for this movie during the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema J-Horror Blood Bath Double Feature a few years ago, it was entirely in japanese so i had absolutely no idea what it’s title was (the only english text was “killer virgin” lmao)  and i spent weeks trying to find out ANYTHING about what this movie could’ve been. after lots of searching, i finally found its title and the Brinkvision blu-ray shop for Disembodied. i wanted to watch this SO BAD!!!!!! the japanese trailer made this seem so weird, almost liminal.

now that it’s finally available to stream on tubitv i can gladly say……. THIS WAS ✨EVERYTHING I HOPED IT WOULD BE✨

this flick is loaded with charm. it’s so fucking weird bro!!!! the effects are great given the budget and time it was originally filmed. you can feel the love and inspiration every second of the run time. i honestly have no idea why this isn’t up in the ranks with so many other camp classics of its same speed. like seriously why doesn’t anyone talk about Disembodied!!!! this shit was awesome and for its short run time it’s absolutely worth a watch.

please go watch this fucked up pu$$y monster alien movie !

2 likes

coles84

★★ Watched by coles84 22 Sep 2021

I'm always gutted when I don't find the love in a film so many seem to and that is the case with the 1998 ERASERHEAD meets BASKET CASE (if only somehow slightly crazier) inspired DISEMBODIED. A gorgeous looking film no doubt, with some excellent effects, kooky performances and probably the best karate chop (or at least most off the wall) I have ever witnessed.

Reading about the film online is an interesting story, while the movie was originally from 1998, the director has added in some of the aforementioned effects and also a new music track over the top which was completed in 2016. So the version I watched was over a 18 year period and it probably showed. The story never quite grabbed me despite its playful nature, the characters are exaggerated (like our hotel manager obsessed with an old instructional video who looks like the villain from any 50's/60's backwoods horror but hell he does have a projector so I would probably indulge his company and grab my popcorn) and the surroundings are vivid and thats before we even get in to the dreamscape sequences. There is lots to drag during the movie which is never a good sign for something just over an hour long. Hannah Nease who plays Trixie is fantastic and entirely charasmatic, certainly the best part of the film. It's obvious the movie is tongue in cheek and isn't shy of paying tribute to its influences but a solid script could have gone a long way to matching its visual flair.

To accompany this viewing experience I watched the following 3 trailers.

Blood Cult - SOV

The Body Shop - WTF

Dr Caligari - Body Horror

Hooptober 8 - Film 5

15 likes

Travis⚠️

★★★★ Watched by Travis⚠️ 20 Sep 2021

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

2 likes

remdwgakahooey

★★★½ Watched by remdwgakahooey 12 Sep 2021

The aspect ratio switching is fun. Otherwise, it’s very eh, feeling a lot like a ho age to something more then an actual thing.

Lance Schibi

★★★½ Watched by Lance Schibi 15 Aug 2021

Strangely part Eraserhead, some Brain Damage, and maybe a bit of Barton Fink with some Bad Taste & Rabid sprinkled on top, Disembodied is a fucking trip with so much going for it. I know throwing out comparisons like this can annoy some but Disembodied has a lot of my favorite things melted in. It definitely deserves more eyes on it. It seems to posses an almost diabolical intelligence, and does a damn good job at putting your brain to work. Better than being in a jar, right?

10 likes

futurian

★★★★ Watched by futurian 30 Jul 2021

I need to know more about this movie!  Where is the behind the scenes clips!?

1 like

Coyote Fugly

★★★★ Watched by Coyote Fugly 22 Jul 2021

One of those genre-savvy works from the heart that really nails the technicals so you can lowkey wonder how its all put together while enjoying the ride. I am not a fan of deliberate horror comedies as a general rule—overt winking is gauche, people—but this manages to ride the fine line and comes out on top. The sets and props are works of art, honestly.

Once again, the fleshapoids need not atone for their sins...

1 like

Manish Agarwal

Watched by Manish Agarwal 14 Jul 2021

🧠🧠🧠1/2

https://letterboxd.com/steviesbrainrot/list/rotters-reviews/

SteviesBrainRot

★★★½ Watched by SteviesBrainRot 07 Jul 2021

What did I just watch?? 😳

1 like

kaylyn

Watched by kaylyn 06 Jul 2021

I really dug this one! It's totally overlooked!

1 like

Jacob Stutts

Watched by Jacob Stutts 06 Jul 2021

The fact that both the practical and computer generated effects in the parts shot on film look so amazing really highlights the fact that the strangely modern interstitial shots of space and such just don’t mesh with the material all that well. Overall though it’s hard not to admire; the mix of ‘70s and ‘90s styles is super charming, and the set design is so grimy you can practically smell it.

3 likes

Strong Knotz

★★★★★ Watched by Strong Knotz 29 Jun 2021

Absolute banger. Forget about Mandy-- this is the psychedelic nightmare world I want to live in. If Brett Piper and Sarah Jacobson fell down the K-hole with a 16mm Bolex in one hand and a copy of Jung in the other, the result would probably smell a lot like Disembodied. Pure ambitious energy from start to finish. Even when it slows down in the later scenes that focus more on the Russ Tamblyn/George Buck Flower hybrid Dr. Sigmund Sylvanus, there is an amiability to the ambling that could charm the monocle off of Mr. Peanut. An irreverent blend of monster movie, hangout flick, gross-out comedy, and too many other amazing things to try and further convince you to watch. POTATO POWER!

glitchbirds

★★★★ Watched by glitchbirds 24 Jun 2021

I’m finding it really hard to put into words my thoughts on this one so I’ll keep it short for once: I’m a little bit in love with this, it’s a short and fun little piece of schlock, the acting isn’t great imho but it’s bad in a way that’s incredibly endearing and made me just kind of adore the main two characters, fun Cronenberg-esque body horror elements, I don’t know for sure if we the audience are supposed to believe Connie and Trixie fall in love but that’s absolutely the vibes I got, 10/10 in my heart will watch again

1 like

Andy Baughman

Watched by Andy Baughman 09 Jun 2021

Interested in seeing the earlier cut but this is the “real deal”….

William “Max” Womack

★★★★ Watched by William “Max” Womack 02 Jun 2021  1

100 Movies Over Summer Break - Movie #32

Finally some good fucking food.

If you like Eraserhead or if you're like me and you LOVE Eraserhead, this is for you. This is basically Eraserhead meets Basket Case and I loved it! Some incredible atmosphere, some fun characters, some general weirdness and a hell of a lot of passion went into this.

I'm only giving it four stars because I started to get kind of bored with the film and its comedy element was lacking in my opinion, but if I had made this movie I would feel so proud and accomplished. This is a weirdo surrealist call-back to another era of horror done perfectly well and I'm absolutely prepared to like it more upon second watch.

If you consider yourself a fan of weird surrealist body horror and you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

2 likes

samu3lk

★★★★★ Added by samu3lk 5 Jun 2021

One of my all time favorite movies. No-budget horror, weird dreamy atmosphere, bizarre images. I've seen this movie dozens of times and it's always a delight to me. The BluRay remaster is great, but I wish there was an option to listen to it with the original score.

1 like

kumquatdeath

★★★ Watched by kumquatdeath 01 Jun 2021

So, after a marathon of Eraserhead, The Brain that Wouldn't Die, Basket Case, 2001 and a Georgia O'Keefe retrospective, a man read a Mad Magazine, got drunk on potato vodka and said "egads, I've got it!"

Recommend?

MarkusMidnight

★★★★ Added by MarkusMidnight 31 May 2021

"Would you girls like to watch a movie on electrochemical induction?"

goregoregirrl

★★★★ Watched by goregoregirrl 24 May 2021

Buena película desconocida que va de la línea con basket case y Brain damage.

1 like

kasarin

★★★★ Watched by kasarin 22 May 2021

Wednesday Adams gets some weird hobbies as she gets older!

This movie is a love story to 50s brain in a jar sci-fi/horror, John Watters's school of scene chewing acting, and Frank Hettenlotter's vision of sleaze.

It is goofy as sin and an absolute blast.

1 like

Tyler Hendrix

★★★ Rewatched by Tyler Hendrix 16 May 2021

HIEEEEE-yA!!!

1 like

Buckshot_McGee

★★★★ Watched by Buckshot_McGee 02 May 2021

Reminds me of Frank Henenlotter films with the trashy 42nd Street setting and gross body horror.

2 likes

Scrambled Face

★★★½ Watched by Scrambled Face 22 Apr 2021

Part of Halfway to Hoop-tober 2021

This is the kind of thing that keeps me indebted to all you dedicated Letterboxd trash diggers, another one I would never have heard about if it weren't for a flurry of enthusiastic reviews on my feed. This Reno-lensed 16mm sci-fi/horror tale from writer, director and composer William Kersten follows furtive scientist Connie (Anastasia Woolverton) as she checks into a fleapit hotel and commences spawning toothy globules from an alarming orifice in her abdomen. Eventually, the whole wild story of Connie, the acid-spewing facial growth hiding behind her hair veil and the jarred brain she tends with a strange electrical rig is unveiled. However, Kersten teases out the details as Connie goes about her mysterious business in the crumbling, cardboard-walled hotel, befriending her chatty sex worker neighbor (Hannah Nease) and awkwardly dealing with the gross, invasive clerk (editor and SFX artist James Diederichsen), all the while evading a rumpled scientist (George Randolph) from a shady corporation. Disembodied's currently circulated version is a remastered director's cut with added footage, music and effects, but I imagine the original late '90s release was striking enough to have stood out in any era. While capably building an immersive little mythos of its own, its DNA shows traces of bizarre movie mainstays like Corman (the plot), Henenlotter (the setting), Cronenberg (the rubbery aberrations) and Lynch (the pacing), plus a vague sense of kitschy Americana in the overall design that kinda reminds me of both Waters and the Coens. I don't want to spoil anything else, but I promise there's both slippery practical gore and some real sketchy CGI to boost the sci-fi elements. As someone who tends to ignore a lot of horror made in the late '90s, I'm thankful to have been alerted about Disembodied, and hope to spread the word to anyone who appreciates regional, DIY stuff made with a clear weirdo vision and the drive to see it through.

10 likes

nathaxnne [hiatus]

★★★★★ Watched by nathaxnne [hiatus] 23 Apr 2021  10

There are movies that you know you are going to love within the first few minutes of the film. Disembodied is such a film. It starts out totally amazing then only gets better from there. Disembodied is a kind film, a caring film, a film that loves you and hates cops of any kind. Disembodied knows that you are a damaged freak who will never be able to function in day-to-day society but you are totally brilliant at like five things that only you care about and that being good at is entirely consubstantial with being a damaged freak who will never be able to function in day-to-day society but the awesome and amazing thing about being that but like persisting in being that actually alters the world. your presence, your movement in this world alters it, makes it more like you. if you are aware of this you can attempt to mitigate or counter the stuff in you that if the world was more that way would hurt people and make it bad for them to live under but you can also try to show the world things it has never seen before if you were not in it and may never see again after you pass from this life. no matter how fucked up or hurt or wounded or deformed or injured or not-right you are there is something in this world that loves you and that something is a someone, by virtue of it loving you, it must be, and by loving in return you complete the circuit you let the other know that yes, they are a person even if they don't always feel like a person just a collection of things in a junk drawer, a child's shadowbox hurriedly unpacked, a haunted house, a swarm, an infestation, a vent colony, a constellation. like constellations we become through naming, through being seen and being named. unlike what we know of constellations we can see and name ourselves even if if takes us a very long time. we can see and name you, even if the name we use is your name the name that you give us to call you by. once you are seen and named by another and that another answers to your call and turns its awareness to yours, and knows you, and does not run or vomit or panic, these are the conditions under which we can be known. if we can be known we can be loved, by others, by ourselves, by our own names, even if they are unpronounceable in all human tongues. love is that which moves the sun and other stars and all of that which orbits and trails in their courses, which pulls them to them with bonds of love and affection and desired closeness sometimes so close as to be inside and this is calming and this is soothing and it is homelike even if you never thought you would have a home even if you thought you would just drift through endless space forever, half-dreaming, what you are finds purchase in another, finds a place to be, to become, and what you were you never have to be again because now you have the space to flower outward in an endless unfolding of calm radiant joy, in ecstatic trance, in the flow of dreams overflowing a bathroom, an apartment, a hotel room, a dry ancient seabed floor, a continent, a planet whose name you know and who knows you in return. what you are spirals outward and in this spiral movement parts of you are lost and erode into dust and this dust gets into the cracks and the small places of a world so small and fine as to be unseen effectively an invisible action and this dust finally there in its place of momentary rest sleeps to unfurl what you are contains all of what you can be given the right circumstances the proper alignment the opening of the gates and everything now covered in iterative aspect of you a gentle rain of petals that does not stop until there are tidal movements of these petals in their fulsome decay and as they dissolve they emanate the sweetest odors constantly modulating a pheromonic shower switching genes on and off in the environment, in the environment that is you a river of constant change and flux and erosion worn down until you are a dry riverbed indistinguishable from the surrounding desert and in you even in the absence of visible water new life that is you that is what you have always been but never have never been able to know except in fractured dreaming sleep will come forth and you will be as you have been and are now and further on into ceaseless becoming forever and ever a river flowing to the sea eroding the land carrying with it all that has been and all that is to come within its ever-churning body its terminus consonant with itself as above so below amen & blessed be <3 <3 <3

66 likes

♡ ˒ ⊹ ݁ lecchi 🐰❀ ₊ ׂ ִ

★★★★ Watched by ♡ ˒ ⊹ ݁ lecchi 🐰❀ ₊ ׂ ִ 04 Apr 2021

^^

Wiccaburr

★★★½ Watched by Wiccaburr 29 Mar 2021

This was truly a weird ride for such a short run time.

Reminded me of some of those schlock movies in music and tone.

The characters were cheesy and corny for sure but definitely watchable entertainment. The effects wasn't huge but decent for sure. It might not hit all cylinders for many though.

Also, that maid was smoking the longest cigar I have ever seen.

Are we sure it wasn't a churro?

3 likes

belial_carboni

★★★★ Watched by belial_carboni 18 Mar 2021

"The weirdest woman the earth has ever seen!"

Wow Disembodied just dismembered my brain and hurled it straight into a low budget dungeon of the deranged! I'm impressed 1998! You done good! I skipped over this one in my watchlist a lot but I'm glad I finally arrived because this is a sneaky little lofi gem. A grimy 90s nightmare that harnesses the spirit of 80s body horror and splatter films alike.

Poor Connie Sproutz has a problem. She's developed a bizarre deformity causing mutated spores to protrude out of her face! And what's causing the spores? Well it's a galactic parasite that's inhabited her skull! And there's plenty of room now because she keeps her brain in a jar on her bedside table! When a crafty little scientist discovers her deadly endeavors he embarks on a collision course with the ferocious facial reckoning of Connie's killer spores!

I really loved the psychadelic clay motion looking space visuals! Paired with the creepy piano melodies it was absolutely divine. Like if Tim Burton took too much acid in 1987 and fell asleep into most surreal nightmare. Wish there was more of those scenes!

The special FX are highly ambitious as we are treated to a wide array of goopy alien atrocities. The body horror elements were reminiscent of early Cronenberg while the dingy apartment settings and quirky characters were straight out of a Henenlotter creation. And while the influences were there Disembodied still maintained it's own unique identity.

A dissonant galactic gorefest for the ages.

37 likes

youreundrarrest

★★★★ Added by youreundrarrest 14 Mar 2021

Between the splices of cosmic, and sometimes hellacious, imagery, the potatoes, the Gelatinous Mass and all the other bizarre events, it's the karate chop that stands tall.

1 like

chibitachop

Watched by chibitachop 08 Mar 2021

charming trashy thrift-store fever-dream genre melting-pot lifting elements from a wide variety enough of sources to succeed as its own quirky riff. really love the stop motion bits. if there is a version that does not have the clearly added much later music and digital effects I would have much preferred that as neither added to the movie for me altho I suppose it does add to the cumulative liminal cognitive dissonance. underneath the wooden acting and gross-out practical effects there are some interesting ideas - like one scene with the doctor listening to his own recorded notes is kind of backs its way into a fusion of The Hidden and the sunken place from Get Out that I can easily imagine an alternate vers of the movie making its entire focus.

1 like

Mazinkaiser

★★★★ Added by Mazinkaiser 5 Mar 2021

Ma'am are you trying to smoke a cigar or a churro

7 likes

poppet

★★★ Watched by poppet 03 Mar 2021

my favourite thing here is the atmosphere, very disgusting and i love that. otherwise im left wanting more from the characters. it stagnates when you arent attached to anybody...and when nothing makes much sense.

they made lots of jelly things and yet opt to make the parasite itself dry clay? when it lives in her head? how would it possibly be that dry? ah, well.....i know i would have liked it all more with a romance subplot, even a doomed unhappy one. but im glad they made this and had fun ^^

2 likes

scottyclell

★★★ Watched by scottyclell 19 Feb 2021

I really appreciate the exploitation of yesteryear aesthetic that is going on here - even if it pays a little too much homage at times. Think Brain Damage with a female driven cast and excessive dream scenery, and we have Disembodied. I would have preferred it focus less on these hotel room dreamscapes and more on how this being interacted in the world, but there it was still a fun and captivating little piece.

1 like

burgworks

★★★ Watched by burgworks 15 Feb 2021

My life is potato...

1 like

len0re

★★★ Watched by len0re 16 Feb 2021

It’s good,weird,really cheesy. It’s fun. I love the stop motion in it. It’s low budget but I like the effects. Some of the dialogue is really funny. I would recommend this movie. I think it has its charm for sure.

1 like

Boxer_Santaros

Watched by Boxer_Santaros 15 Feb 2021 3

Has major sov energy despite clearly being shot on film and more generally being very very nice to look at, win win! Definitely belongs in the ''omg, he/she is literally me!'' canon, and I guarantee that whatever assholes won best actor and actress in 1998 did not give nearly the performance Anastasia Woolverton does here, even if half her look and mannerisms are literally just swiped directly from ''Dementia''AKA''Daughter of Horror'' (an underrated all time great, watch it!).

10 likes

Something_Weird

★★½ Watched by Something_Weird 12 Feb 2021

Not quite sure what I just watched lol had a bit of a basket case and eraserhead feel to it minus the charm and humor found in a henenlotter film. Worth checking out out of you want a strange and unusual midnight movie

1 like

Cliff

★★½ Watched by Cliff 01 Feb 2021

Weirdo body horror - made in the late 90s but not completed until 2016 - in which a quiet, mysterious young woman rents a very skanky basement room in an insalubrious hotel, where she puts up a cabinet filled with organic compound samples, looks after a large brain in a glass dome, and gives birth to bizarre alien creatures from a hole in her belly. I was immediately reminded of Frank Henenlotter's films, in particular the grimy and surreal Brain Damage, though Disembodied isn't a straightforward rip-off or homage; it's definitely got its own style.

Unfortunately it's also very inconsistent. The movie's lengthy gestation suggests that it was filmed over an extended period, but simply watching it gives that impression too. At its best it's icky and odd in the way that only low-budget horror can be (think Eraserhead as the exemplary case), but at other points it's silly, amateurish and perhaps trying too hard to be a "cult" film. I really didn't enjoy the character of the desk clerk, played by James Diederichsen, who seems to belong in a broad, gross-out comedy rather than this. However, Diederichsen also provides the special effects, which are always entertaining, if rather shoddy at times.

There are some cute ideas here, but ultimately it's just too lacking in coherence. At times it feels like a collection of cool scenes that have been stitched together by somebody with no overall vision. And some of them aren't even that cool, and outstay their welcome. I never got bored of watching the beautiful Hannah Cooper, though; she plays a sex worker who's full of beans and has a great wardrobe, and for me is the highlight of the movie.

8 likes

Samuel Peirce

★★★½ Watched by Samuel Peirce 28 Jan 2021

Delightful goofy splatter nonsense.

1 like

Evan “Kaizō Haya-shill” Pincus

★★★★ Watched by Evan “Kaizō Haya-shill” Pincus 28 Jan 2021

The director says his primary points of reference for this were Basket Case & Daughter of Horror - two of my favorite oddball American indie horror pictures! This are obvious influences shouted out rather directly in the film, but it’s spiked with desert-rat weirdness and is equally informed by the filmmaker’s love of the Quay bros - endlessly charming combo. Do not know what the deal with the directors cut I watched is - switches from 4:3 to 16:9 for new VFX sequences occasionally (which are fine and just as full of personality as the rest of the movie), but apparently much of the score is new as well, and I found that to be an overly bombastic weak link; not a disaster, but imagine this going super heavy on synth squiggles! If Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee were open (or even had a brick-and-mortar location at all) these days I’d try to see if they had an original VHS to check out ASAP, very curious what the differences are. Do love that this movie, despite sporting the dual release years of 1998 and 2016, largely feels like a transmission straight from 1982.

20 likes

Seth Goodkind

★★★½ Watched by Seth Goodkind 27 Jan 2021

High concept, low budget and home-made sci-fi-horror fun that skips all the jaw-flapping filler that characterizes many films in the same ilk.

While I personally think it treads a little too close to the "women's bodies are both intriguing and repulsive" (and must be dissected/exorcised) trope, it's still fun and doesnt fuck around.

2 likes

Parker

★★★★★ Watched by Parker 26 Jan 2021

Absolutely delightful. Really feels like something special.

5 likes

Ben Buckingham

★★★★ Watched by Ben Buckingham 26 Jan 2021

Nigh impossible to not go full Kim Newman & start listing films 2 at a time that are even tangentially related. The film invites it. This is firmly a work of homage, remixed cohesively to often mesmerising effect. It is very clear that this curio was born of a childhood drenched in 50s era scifi, trom Ed Wood on up, or down, depending on your perspective, & liberal helpings of HG Lewis. Where it goes modern weird, there is still much familiarity (not to its detriment). Hennenlotter is a clear referant, for numerous reasons (& yet one also feels that Hennenlotter may have homaged this a little himself in Bad Biology). Lynch is easily name dropped. The films it closest resembles are Liquid Sky & Xtro; if they were fused together & directed by an alternate timeline Tim Burton, whos's career tanked after Pee Wee's Big Adventure opened to an undeserved box office disaster & so he had to resort to amateur filmmaking in Reno. Cinema may have been better off, & perhaps Tim, too.

4 likes

Elric Kane

★★★ Watched by Elric Kane 24 Jan 2021  2

Somewhere on the shlock spectrum of Ed Wood, HG Lewis, Private Parts, Basket Case & Slime City this film seems lost in time for ‘98 but has an odd charm that grows on you like the acid spitting tumor on the girls face.

22 likes

fortypopp

★★★★ Watched by fortypopp 22 Jan 2021

such an odd accumulation of conspiracy thriller, body horror, urban grime, and hazy hangout cinema that comes closest to Drone Henenlotter (ft. a dash of Svankmajer, what with those wonderful stop-motion alien landscapes) but ultimately moves according to its own groove.

perhaps unintentional on the part of its makers but we chose to read the whole mad affair as a parable for living on the Spectrum (others here have commented on its allusions to gender dysphoria, which are equally valid); there’s something so refreshingly internal about the world that the film conjures that almost directly supports these notions.

anyways, this is something very special and it’s on Amazon Prime so, as they say, get to it!

7 likes

Tyler

★★★★½ Watched by Tyler 20 Jan 2021 1

masterpiece?

3 likes

EricYvon

★★★★ Watched by EricYvon 19 Jan 2021

Disembodied feels like the long lost love child of Henenlotter and Paul Bartel and that’s such a beautiful thing.

Where have you been all my life, Disembodied?!

2 likes

Scott Kaczynski

★★★½ Watched by Scott Kaczynski 13 Jan 2021

Saw a lot of love for this movie online, so I thought I would check it out.

It's very non-sensical and abstract. It's also not very well acted, but all of those things work in it's favor.

This was the director's cut which adds a bunch of new animations of volcanos and starfields. It's a trippy experience.

There's a lot of vagina metaphors in this thing, along with some cool violence and brain eating.

Dose up and check it out.

1 like

Alex Proft

★★★★ Rewatched by Alex Proft 14 Jan 2021  1

When the investigator does a karate chop out of nowhere.

2 likes

Alex Proft

★★★½ Watched by Alex Proft 14 Jan 2021

I uh....hmm.

Hard to review, this one. I guess I'd call it a bizarro-world cross between Henenlotter and Lynch even though having to specify the bizarre-ness of that is a little redundant. A chick who kinda resembles Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge era Gerard Way has an alien in her head and also a weird volcano pimple that digests people on her cheek. She also keeps her brain in a jar and keeps it lubricated with various liquids. And her name is also Connie Sproutz because of course it is. There's also a hooker who lives next door to her in the shitty hotel she moves into named Trixie Turner (ha!) and there's also lecherous clerk who has a fondness for educational film reels. There's also lots of potatoes and vagina flesh monsters. And some incredible foley art throughout.

It's not really even particularly "good" but boy it sure is memorable. Wish the director did other stuff.

2 likes

Jayne

★★★★ Watched by Jayne 13 Jan 2021

Weird, confusing weird. Did I mention weird?

2 likes

ndrodeo

★★★★★ Watched by ndrodeo 12 Jan 2021

ma stiamo scherzando?

audrey 🌑

★★★★★ Watched by audrey 🌑 11 Jan 2021  16

A conqueror worm twists and writhes through the cosmic debris of a hotel that feels more constructed than real buildings do. Down the narrow artificial hallways we find ourselves trapped in a world without words; a film probably not made by humans. No help is given to the viewer, but we can mostly orient ourselves by the genre allusions — the inevitable death trap a dingy hotel room becomes in this kind of paranoid DIY freakshow. This is something so fundamentally off-kilter that everything takes on a sort of alienating effect, like Eraserhead meets Manos or (Insert Your Choice of Abstract Regional Indie Exploit) but that’s only part of the picture. This is a journey through muddy bathwater into the most obscure recesses of the brain stored in the jar beside your bed, a vibe that is just as menacing as it is outrageous. Films never make my eyes this wide but I watched this in a total state of awe.

24 likes

Algor49

★★★★½ Watched by Algor49 12 Jan 2021 4

Sometimes I worry I’ve seen all the best hidden gems, but then I watch something like this and realize there’s still more out there. This is a nasty, gooey, unsettling little horror film shot on 16mm. Seriously feels like a Frank Henenlotter/David Lynch project. Occasionally we cut away from dim moldy rooms to shots of the universe and strange alien planets. Nasty vagina creatures, a brain in a jar, stop motion effects, acidic zit pops. Falls into one of my favorite horror genres: Movies that feel like actual nightmares.

4 likes

you’resleepingnotwatching :(

Watched by you’resleepingnotwatching :( 11 Jan 2021

*Me reading the reading the plot*

Same.

1 like

maggie siebert

★★★★★ Watched by maggie siebert 11 Jan 2021

it was when the investigator briefly muttered about having an mkultra flashback that i realized this was a fiver for sure

15 likes

nornir

★★★★ Watched by nornir 10 Jan 2021

American Denpa, pre-digitized delusion, obsessions of vacuum tubes and film strips and latex. Ends in the big nowhere of the southwest, going back to ground in Roswell country, Lou Ferrigno-style. The mind literally discrete and accessible by outsiders.

1 like

kurttt

★½ Added by kurttt 7 Jan 2021

Huh?

2 likes

hyperjack

★★★ Watched by hyperjack 07 Jan 2021

What's going on

4 likes

pd187

★★★★★ Added by pd187 6 Jan 2021  15

"you call that living? being trapped in a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells??"---become dense with dreams & densities of endless transcendence~

79 likes

E

★★★ Watched by E 29 Dec 2020

" Who were you Connie Sproutz ? "

Meet Connie Sproutz , she has a alien in her head and her brain in a jar. She also has a volcanic zit that spews people melting goo and she births weird pod things to soak in the tub. And that's just the beginning... there's dancing , potatoes, a hooker named "Trixie Turner" , more potatoes and outerspace volcano flashbacks.

9 likes

Battyjess

★★★ Watched by Battyjess 25 Nov 2020

This movie is weird AF.....

Watch it! Watch it! 👏🏽 👏🏽👏🏽

10 likes

Tyler Hendrix

Rewatched by Tyler Hendrix 17 Oct 2020

Watched the new director's cut version and enjoyed it a good bit more this time. Not sure if it was the new music & shots added, or if I was just in a better mood. David Lynch by way of Frank Henenlotter, on a much smaller budget. It's supposedly the director's attempt to thread a bunch of nightmares he had together into a story, and that's pretty much what it feels like.

5 likes

Bryan Hayworth

★★★½ Watched by Bryan Hayworth 11 Oct 2019

This film was so bizarre. I am not sure if I actually loved the movie or not but I definitely enjoyed the effects throughout the film. It is a shame that lead actress Anastasia Woolverton did not continue with acting after this film.

4 likes

Doctor Borpo

★★★ Watched by Doctor Borpo 02 Sep 2018

If Henenlotter directed an almost silent film, it’d be this. Utterly unique, cheap, and terrible, this film possesss an unearthly and disturbing charm that I don’t quite get but I think I love it?

3 likes

Ralphus

★★ Watched by Ralphus 03 Aug 2018

Connie Sproutz has a hollowed out noggin' coz an alien is up and living in there. Her cheek boil squirts deadly goo and her stomach slit spits out vagina-shaped thingamies that she keeps in the bathtub. She keeps her brain in a jar connected to a tube amp. Oh, and she farms potatoes in pots for the 'shine she distills. Colonel Sanders, meanwhile, doesn't have a problem with Connie per se but he sure don't like no stinkin' noggin' aliens and he's out to get Connie.

Disembodied is very low-budget. It looks at least a decade older than it is. But it's enjoyable in a demented kind of way.

2 likes

JP Fournier

★★★ Watched by JP Fournier 07 May 2018

"all characters in this photoplay are fictious" it says at the end of a film with a lady who grows acid filled boils on her cheek, feeds a brain in a jar, and spawns vagina shaped donut creatures that she plants in dirt. Perfect!

6 likes