Disembodied Reviews - William Kersten

Mike Malgieri

★★★½ Watched by Mike Malgieri 04 Oct 2025

Sufficiently weird and goopy, alien gross out with some Twin Peaks vibes

DemiKane

★★★★½ Watched by DemiKane 02 Oct 2025

In terms of scale, set design, atmosphere and plot, this felt like a longer episode of an anthology horror series, and I say that in a very positive tone. Before the title dropped, I was hooked as I knew the movie wouldn't let me down, and it didn't. Especially since we were treated to various gross things like brains in jars. Really solid movie.

1bl15

★★★★  Watched by 1bl15 01 Oct 2025 2

Wednesday Weirdness 114 during Hooptober XII review {9/45}

| In short:

This tale of Martian volcano dreams and (occasionally cyclopean) potato obsession may not be a AAA production—but let he who has never squirted bodily fluids in a doctor’s face be the first to cast a stone!

It’s got grey matter theft, a discount Colonel Sanders moonlighting as genocidal private eye/scientist, a tender bed-soiling sequence, claymation-and-paper-mâché evolution vignettes, and hooker heroics—what more could you ask for?

| This movie teaches us:

The sound of a bath-farting brain.

That sentient sludge is probably plotting something.

| In slightly less short:

The story unfolds in a Henenlotter-level scuzzy hotel, where a lone wanderess takes up residence in the basement of ill repute. Like any traditional gal, she values her privacy—especially since her spore-emitting surplus face-tit has a habit of liquefying bystanders and reshaping their remains into something… drippy. That ought to teach people to knock first.

Her skull, meanwhile, is currently being squatted by an extraterrestrial stop-motion starfish. So she keeps her dream-regulating gizmo and a nightstand-jarred brain close at hand.

Her ablutionary sanctum is a shrine to hydration—lined with vagina-gourds stuffed with compacted cerebral matter, all lovingly “moisturized” for freshness.

| Verdict:

Like a crockpot of atomic-age brain-parasite paranoia grappling with Lynchian strangeness, Cronenbergian body horror, and origin-unknown dark humor—all stewed together on a sub-Troma budget—this is an acquired taste. And I can’t get enough of it

Disembodied is an adorably goofy, visceral, and gooey unsung indie gem—where every person involved was clearly spinning multiple plates, duct-taping the weird together, and conjuring movie magic with sheer willpower.

Some of the production design reminded me of Hotel Poseidon with its bleak dreaminess, while the more violent, birth-adjacent outbursts triggered sweaty Possession and Baby Blood flashbacks.

If you’re drawn to off-kilter, low-budget body horror cult gems like Love God, Killer Tongue, or Brain Damage—and you thrive on the strange, the sticky, and the steadfastly unhinged—then Disembodied deserves a prime spot in your cinematic sewer.

| Listed: Favorite first seen 2025, Overlooked Gems, and Bathtub Flatulence Features.

18 likes

🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝

★★★  Watched by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 01 Oct 2025

In the Month of Madness: The Return

rara_rx

★★★★ Watched by rara_rx 26 Sep 2025

I loved the atmosphere through and through, from the creepy hotel to the desertic landscapes. I don't think I can ever forget the shade of green of Connie's hotel room.

The jokes and silly undertones really sold the movie for me, right up my alley!

Great start of a bountiful cinematographic weekend!

Trace

★★★½ Watched by Trace 28 Sep 2025

Exists in a weird space between Frankenhooker and early David Lynch. Bleeding Skull's 4K restoration made the already surreal film even more dreamlike. I dug it!

Maybe leaving my brain in a jar before bed every night would solve my mental health issues. Further research is needed

MovieMusicPhase

★★★★ Watched by MovieMusicPhase 26 Sep 2025

Fourth Annual Cincinnati Psychotronic Film Festival Movie #3

Very influenced by early David Lynch. Not even just Eraserhead but Six Men Getting Sick and especially The Grandmother. The cinematography also felt very Svankmajer the absolute legend. A silly time that knew exactly how much it needed to wink at the audience to let them know that we aren’t supposed to take everything too seriously. Really enjoyable time.

Andy Simpson

★★★★  Watched by Andy Simpson 27 Sep 2025

I think what really gets this one going from the beginning is the impressively dynamic and full sound of the synth score.

A well directed and serviceable cast (I can’t believe Hannah Nease as Trixie Turner has no other credits), this showcases unique and cleverly achieved  visuals, impressive stop motion animation, and a killer balance of laughs and gross out’s.

DerTodesking13

★★★★  Watched by DerTodesking13 26 Sep 2025

It's like Eraserhead run through a Frank Henenlotter filter. Definitely worth watching

maddie

★★★★  Watched by maddie 26 Sep 2025 1

its oozey its gooey its squelchy its sticky! its as if ginger snaps and basketcase got married and gave birth to an eraserhead baby infected with aylmer from brain damage

6 likes

Spencer Jones

★★★½  Watched by Spencer Jones 26 Sep 2025

Took a minute for me to get into the groove of this movie but it really flowed after that.

2 likes

Luke Ross

★★★★  Watched by Luke Ross 26 Sep 2025

Shes like Wednesday if Wednesday wasnt a little bitch!

4 likes

Morast

★★★★  Watched by Morast 18 Sep 2025

Yeah this is genuinely good. Scuzzy, weird, funny, creates memorable visuals out of almost nothing (modelling clay, color light and goop) and fancy stuff like camera framing you rarely see at this level.

claudia

★★★★  Watched by claudia 16 Sep 2025

i love my braim

skirdge

★★★★½ Added by skirdge 15 Sept 2025

Lo-fi, super gritty, silly yet not to silly, and artsy-fartsy in the best possible way. But damn what was the cleaning lady smoking.

Emma 👽

★★ Watched by Emma 👽 13 Sep 2025

It is in fact very goopy

Matt

★★★★  Rewatched by Matt 13 Sep 2025

I love showing this to people who have no idea what they are in for.

PabloDiablobeck

★★★ Watched by PabloDiablobeck 12 Sep 2025

This was a weird viewing experience.  I will need to come back to it some day.  I read comparisons to eraserhead and Brain Damage, but I was getting strong The Jar vibes.  This is an odd one where I kind of wish I’d seen this on VHS instead of 4K.

Carlo V

★★★½  Watched by Carlo V 11 Sep 2025 1

Could afford to dip below feature length, but I guess it comes with the territory and there's a combination of things going on here you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere but early Henenlotter, so that's an easy endorsement. Feels like it was beamed in from 1982 and sometimes even 1952, rather than 1998.

vspuleo

★★★½ Watched by spuleo 24 Aug 2025

Disembodied is an extremely underrated surreal body horror film, best described as the "Lynchian-Cronenbergian on the cheap."

Not without intellectual aims - prodigy scientist Connie Sprouts becomes host to an alien parasite that threatens to use her body as a site of reproduction. This metamorphosis includes a variety of creatures and spores, including a disgusting phallic petrusion on Connie's cheek and a number of offspring that the character nourishes in a coffee bath. A deeply scientific film about a research who becomes intimately involved in her pursuit of knowledge and an emergent species never before seen on this plant. Serious cult-classic potential.

★★★★  Watched by hammerhead44 28 Aug 2025

Released originally in 1998, this hard to find low budget flick got remastered with a DC in 2016 that added an updated score and new effects with expanded stop-motion work. For this first viewing I decided to pass on the new stuff in order to watch it in its original grimy 16mm Reno, Nevada glory.

William Karsten wrote, directed and composed the score for this film.

It's 16mm but with direct audio and the audio track is clean. The music is a great mix!

Set design reminds me of Eraserhead. The story has some of the quirky mannerism of Henenlotter and is reminiscent of Brain Damage. We get some body horror but not Cronenberg style instead more akin to Henenlotter and Lynch.

Our lead character, Connie, checks into a dump motel that has a ghoul like clerk that seems friendly enough. She gets the extra dumpy basement room but she's more than happy with it. Connie has a backstory of being an inventor at the Plasmaster Corporation but she's now on the run from them. Connie really likes rocks and potatoes. Yeah, there's something wrong with Connie.

There are dreamlike scenes and for good reason. It's creative and trippy.

Overall I would describe this film as being primarily influenced by Henenlotter but with experimental undertones of Lynch and a hint of Coscarelli.

I like this a lot. This is an indie after my own heart. I won't forget this film. It's unfortunate that William Karsten didn't make any features after but he has my gratitude for mading this hidden .

8/10

I'll have to check out the remastered DC.

15 likes

★★★½  Watched by brentmadison 21 Aug 2025

Fun strange creature feature.   Some cool stop motion and fun low tech effects.  

Great score.  It had some Basket Case (1982) vibes.  Very surreal at points with some crazy visuals.  

This movie along with Basket Case and The Deadly Spawn (1983) would make a great 16mm 4k triple feature.  

Watched the 4k release from Bleeding Skull great restoration.

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by Lilith 19 Aug 2025

The mutant baby of Basket Case and Repo Man and I fucking love it; maybe because I too have a drawer full of random metal and electrical scraps 樂

No likes yet

★★★★½ Watched by JosefinaSL 14 Aug 2025

watch out for what emos hide under their hair/bangs

2 likes

★★★★ Watched by Geoffrey 10 Aug 2025 1

I didn’t know what to expect going into this and was kinda blown away, not only by how unique and enjoyably bizarre the whole thing was, but I still can’t get over how gorgeously vibrant Bleeding Skull’s 4K restoration looks!

2 likes

Watched by suspiriastrider 09 Aug 2025

This review may contain spoilers.

Please take care of this brain and keep it safe and supply it with electricity when it needs it <3 Kill it kill the THING! I know u said i cant have friends bcoz im not capable of loving anything and thats what u learned from your science films but maybe there are things science cant explain and just are in spite of them, like a jarring cut-in from fantasy, Everything is powered by electricity even things like roses and plants and people r being given the illusion of free motion by constant electric shocks like a voluntary seizure. I kill people 2 survive but i promise that i care for them and when i birth their vagina pod cell forms i keep them around with me so they dont get too lonely. Someday ill meet the person who knows me for what i am and doesnt judge me or berate me 4 it and even though ill have 2 leave them someday bcoz my form doesnt permit constant contact i hope theyll continue 2 dream about me, knowing that ill be dreaming about them, and our forms will transmit eachother into our separate dreams where we’ll keep dreaming, FOREVER! Hibernation time i have 2 turn into a rock now. Did David Lynch APE this for Twin Peaks The Return? Noticing the similar symbols of electricity and especially the big boiler… I think it could be possible. This is a rly hypnotic and strange movie that features less human melting than the description would have u believe but makes up 4 it by following the life of a very strange alien girl who is a joy 2 watch! Forming potatoes in2 a pyramid and counting them! I guess i dont really know what this Means but i dont think its a good idea 2 get too caught up in trying 2 solve art. I think the best way 2 approach surrealism and unconventional narratives is 2 just let it flow through you and attach to the symbols and the atmosphere and try 2 feel it instead of trying 2 crack it open like a logic puzzle. I feel this movie very deeply… That bathroom is so GROSS! Every scary movie with bloody guts that has a gross bathroom i will always think the bathroom is nastier. Just brown poop water… I like science gizmos that transport colourful liquid from one tube to another via crazy straw. The sets in this kind of remind me of John Waters or Terror Toons, especially the volcanic hell for the latter… Everytime i watch something like this i think this is all i should be watching. I dont think i need anything else but surrealist horror with people melting in2 goo. The other stuff is nice and i like it too but nothing beats this… 190 proof alcohol is a lot right? Im a little baby that cant handle when drinks taste bad so im not entirely sure. To be honest any alcohol thats entirely clear raises alarm bells in my head that tell me i shouldnt be drinking this… Its like the closer it gets in appearance 2 water the more it tastes like poison. I love brains in jars. I want to get a glass fill it with some kind of liquid and then pop a silicon brain in there, like one of the ones from that video of the guy fingering the brain fleshlight. Maybe not that exact one. I actually dont know how much sex toys like that cost but im assuming very very very much. The weirder your fetish is the more rich you need to be to indulge it.

3 likes

Watched by Alex 19 Jul 2025

An ultra-low-budget 16mm flick shot in 1994, released in 1998, feels like it's 1983, aiming to be an homage to the 1950s, that really, really caught me in its grip. Eraserhead gets brought up frequently when talking about this movie, but for me, there's not a ton of similarity between the two past a certain amount of aesthetic. The frequent likening to Basket Case is fairly apt, but this movie is far less concerned about sex than it is about existential weirdness. And potatoes. It's pretty concerned about potatoes. I even watched this movie a second time and listened to the commentary, but the director would only say he thought the potatoes were funny, and he's still not sure what they mean.

The effects sequences are absolutely awe-inspiring for anyone who has ever wanted to create otherworldly imagery without leaving their house. The multiple exposure 16mm shot in uber-dark environments adds up to a whole fiesta of grain on in the 4K presentation that just kind of elevates the whole thing.

It also has the best karate chop I've ever seen on screen. Love love this movie.

1 like

★★★½ Watched by MargeSimpsonFan 05 Aug 2025

“She may not be the cutest thing on the planet, but she sure blows your shit out of the water!”

Me about my friend who looks like Gerard Way but is also a parasite that keeps their brain in a jar.

Real freak movie. Some sick practical effects and beautiful visuals interspersed throughout, otherwise grimy as fuck and disgusting. Haven’t seen one like this ever.

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by se13an 04 Aug 2025

You Call That Living? Being Trapped in a Pulpy Nodule of Undifferentiated Cells?

Imagine if Ray Dennis Steckler made a mashup of Eraserhead and Brain Damage in the 90s. There is a dreamy slacker mad science vibe to everything as Connie deals with the need to turn winos into slime to consume and her friendship with the awesome Trixie Turner. Then there is Dr Sigmond Sylvanus and his legendary judo chop. There is a dreamy otherworldliness to the whole thing as we follow Connie, Anastasia Woolverton, seriously there needs to be a law where the actor’s actual name can’t be cooler than the character’s name, drifts through twilight existence living it for something else that tends to try to explode out her body. There is that particularly 90s kind of ennui in every frame of the movie. It is a totally unique, weird but incredibly lovable story about alienation, weird old men, and skuzzy hotels.

Daily Horror Hunt #86 (August 2025) 04/31

Horrors of 2025 - 290

8 likes

★★★★  Watched by Cropsy 30 Jul 2025 1

This has been said a million times already but this movie is probably the closest anyone has ever channeled the magic of Frank Henenlotter. It has the same grimy look and vibe as Basket Case.

8 likes

★★★★½  Watched by blind_bnild 03 Aug 2025

Dude the karate chop actually started frying me I had to rewind to see that shit again

1 like

★★★★½  Watched by Ry Ry 02 Aug 2025

An awesome blend of goofy weirdo acid trip and 90s goths, art vibes and body horror. Throw in stop motion animation, fun goopy gore, and Dr. Sigmond Sylvanus - who is quite frankly, amazing.

2 likes

★★★★★  Rewatched by StudiousStoner 02 Aug 2025

This movie is better every time I watch it.

1 like

★★★ Watched by Andrew Furtado 01 Aug 2025

David Lynch by the way of Don Dohler

1 like

★★★ Watched by lectroid 29 Jul 2025

Connie Sprouts has an alien parasite living in her body that consumes people and transforms them into weird, semi-conscious blobs. Connie would probably be bothered by this, but her brain is being stored in a jar on the bedside table.

Filmed in 16mm, there’s a super low budget, handmade charm to this acid-trip horror comedy, very akin to the grubby works of Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, The Stuff) or Frank Henenlotter (the Basket Case series). Gooey latex effects and primitive stop motion animation complete the atmosphere.

If that sounds at least interesting enough to you to want to have a look, then there’s a lot of fun to be had. It’s certainly an original concept, and even within its own weird genre, it definitely doesn’t go in any sort of expected direction. But really, this is for the sort of folks that used to haunt the dusty corners of video stores, or attend things like Midnight Film Festivals and wax poetic about Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

I can’t imagine many people taking the trouble to seek this out, and that’s ok. It will absolutely be worth while for those who would bother doing so in the first place.

3/5 tentacles emerging from facial deformities.

1 like

Watched by Josie J 28 Jul 2025

Admittedly was only half watching this while making music in my living room but I really liked what I saw, will have to come back with full attention another time

2 likes

★★★★★  Watched by sophieensang 28 Jul 2025

Oh my god. Absolutely in love with this one. A sweet sad goth gross girl movie, a silly mad scientist story and a trashy Henenlotter-esque body horror experiment all at once. A perfect storm of different things that I adore all merging into a really cozy warm blanket of a movie. So glad I blind bought this one. Definitely going to be one I regularly want to revisit.

6 likes

★★★★ Watched by FKAGoregirl 27 Jul 2025

You don't have to have a large budget to make art, and this is really a creative 16mm delight. It's psychedelic, dark and moody, with hints of Henenlotter and Cronenburg yet clearly it was made with a shoestring budget. It's a brief little sci-fi horror film, yet it's entirely captivating and the cinematography is so on point. The acting is well, somewhat questionable in places but Anastasia Woolverton does a believable job of playing Connie. She is possibly the easiest to please young lady ever, agreeing to stay in the spooky dirty basement of a hotel. She enjoys the bizarre cast of characters living in the hotel (one might say she is a voyeur), I mean one is called "Trixie Turner" guess what she does for a living? Anyhow, let's just say Connie has some unusual secrets of her own, and soon we find out why she wants to stay on the down low. The effects are surprisingly great (and gross) and the absurdity of some of the scenes makes it super memorable (although not super deep). This works on so many levels and is definitely a gem for those looking for a horror movie experience more then your average slasher. It won't be for everyone, but I thought it was a dreamy bout of fun that exceeded all expectations.

26 likes

★★★★★ Watched by jakesimmonds 23 Jul 2025

Absolute freakshow. 5 stars.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Cain cox 20 Jul 2025

The bastard growth of Henenlotter and Cronenberg’s Rabid culminating in a 16mm gross out body horror nightmare that would fit right in the no wave freak scene. A bubbling viscera of out of this world humanoid lumps and bumps.

Bleeding skull once again knocks off another film long on my watchlist with an amazing restoration.

No likes yet

★★★★★  Rewatched by amelia 19 Jul 2025

connie ilysm i would keep your brain jar safe and give it fluid regularly with an electrical charge 12 volts dc for one hour every monday morning just give me a chance

8 likes

★★★★ Watched by Kyle B. 18 Jul 2025

A really great mindmelter. Plot is eschewed for great visuals and warped vibes. Plenty of great special effects too.

3 likes

★★★★  Watched by Jonathan Gelatt 14 Jul 2025

Excellent Lynch/Cronenberg/Raimi low budget homage that doesn’t take itself too seriously, recommended for low budget film fans!

…it’s nice and grossssss too

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Paul 09 Jul 2025

For all the greatness that this has, my favorite gag is the eye on the potato.

I love how it's edited. From the aforementioned potato gag cutting to an offer of potato salad to the mention of "you've got brains" to the cut to the brain on the nightstand. It's just perfect.

The pit stains on the night clerk were too real and it disgusted me more than any of the gore.

1 like

I recently found a very large torrent with some 350 VHS rips of forgotten, out of print movies, so I've decided to slowly work my way through them. Disembodied is the first of that collection, but as I discovered browsing LB while watching it, it has actually been re-released through Vinegar Syndrome, and it has some fans. It's definitely a uniquely weird piece if schlock, and beside the obvious disparity in quality, the comparisons to Eraserhead and Frank Henenlotter movies are pretty apt. Hopefully the trailers attached to the VHS release are also included in the new one, since they add a lot of nostalgic personality and run about 10% of the total runtime.

Not 100% sold on this one yet but I hope the improved quality of the new release will also improve my viewing experience upon a rewatch.

4 likes

★★★½  Watched by jassybb 04 Jul 2025

Women in stem 鹿

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by evan gordon 02 Jul 2025 1

Short, sweet, and delirious 16mm lensed freakshow. Pure hypnagogic vibes with the occasional violent interruption of lysergic madness. Really loved pretty much everything about this - the amazing clay miniatures, the sparse droning soundscapes, the top notch practical FX, and the incredible writing that feels plucked from a later period Phillip K Dick book once he's fully in his amphetamine mania. At my day job I dissect, freeze, and manage a library of postmortem human brain tissue, so any film whose primary prop is a brain in a jar (just like the one we have at work!) is gonna get some accolades from me, but when they go a step further and have the protagonist pour coffee into the jar with the brain it's a slam dunk. I really loved the ramblings of Dr. Sigmund Sylvanus - it's hard to state how funny it is in a movie where it's rare to hear the main character more than mumble a sentence at a time for this dude to pop up every now and then in a lab coat and deliver 2-3 minutes of pseudo-scientific soliloquy with gusto.

7 likes

★★★★  Watched by James 01 Jul 2025

Feels like it shares a world with Eraserhead, Brain Damage, Dr. Caligari and The Dark Backward. I absolutely loved it.

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by Damon 28 Jun 2025

A little slow, but some killer, oozy FX work keeps you entertained.

No likes yet

Watched by chatdecocteau 29 Jun 2025

Leone jump scare. All you need to make a movie is a good room (the girl helps too; gun optional). Rabid & Videodrome. Talking potatoes (Idaho represent). Some possible military use. Sniffing spuds. Keep out. I’ve almost completed my report. Out of the grainy blacks. Kiyoshi jump scare. Randolph putting in Kenneth Tobey or Marshall Thompson level work, salute to that man. Lost highway.

1 like

★★★★ Watched by Eb 28 Jun 2025

Lynch for girls

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by JD 22 Jun 2025

If I could spend more time at the Grand Hotel I would. Such a great minimalistic set in a colorful, goopy and grimy body horror film, heavy on the vibes. We watched a few minutes of the vhs version. It nails the aesthetic, but the 4K really makes the vomit-like technicolors pop.

3 likes

Watched by Nick 23 Jun 2025

Not what I was expecting at all. Some of the most beautiful colors ever expressed on 16mm.

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by nonphenomenal 22 Jun 2025

Just bought a poster for this movie yesterday, knowing it was on my watchlist. So I watched it. And it's great! Totally see the Henenlotter influences.

No likes yet

★★½ Watched by milton 20 Jun 2025

não é ruim mas deve tá no top de filmes que eu tenho certeza absoluta que o lynch assistiria batendo uma punheta com um sorrisinho no canto da boca o que por vezes meio que me irrita

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by CTM 18 Jun 2025

To whom it may concern:

Please keep this brain safe and give it fluid regularly with an electrical charge 12 volts D.C. for one hour every Monday morning. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Connie Sproutz

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by salem Tiramisushi 16 Jun 2025

la primera mitad es una suerte de lynch y la segunda es una peli de ciencia ficción del 50

la banco es re asquerosa de ver

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by Daniel 17 Jun 2025

irresistível.

No likes yet

★★★  Watched by Jorge 17 Jun 2025

Well, this was unique to say the least. A young scientist infected by a head parasite carries around her brain in a jar and turns people into slime before eating them. This is like a weird comic book horror story come to life, with mad scientist, lo-fi body horror meltings, a zombie looking hotel manager, hilariously cheap gore and even moments of stop motion animation. Its a low budget affair of course, despite being shot ln film, it’ll make you wish it had a wilder tone, like a Hennenlotter film, to make its slow pace more tolerable. Its still a hilarious low budget effort and hey, points for trying #horrormovies #horrormoviefan #horrormoviereviews #bleedingskull #vinegarsyndrome #horrorcollector #horrorcommunity

2 likes

★★★½ Watched by J.V. Jowett 06 Feb 2025

Disembodied is a cozy Lyncian Frank Helenlotter-esque tale through a dark psyche. Spreading its budget as thinly as possible the film manages to create an off kilter vibe with genuine moments of special effects bliss. Nowhere near pitch perfect Disembodied frays at the seems giving viewers little to enjoy during its driest moments. That is not to say though it doesn’t manage to be engaging, constantly leaving one scratching their head as to the deeper truths that lurk inside those dingy rooms.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Ryan Jackson 14 Jun 2025

Björk-coded cinema.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Will Krupinsky 09 Jun 2025

Lynch by way of Henenlotter.

Beautifully shot on 16mm, this wears its influences on its sleeve but still manages to be its own thing.

I loved it.

1 like

★★★★ Watched by Thehoennhippo 12 Jun 2025

So fucking cool man I love movies. Connie Sproutz is an icon.

3 likes

★★★  Watched by Cobus15 12 Jun 2025

Great body horror. It felt really impressionist and I think that kind was delivered through the excellent atmosphere. And the Cronenberg style effects were creepy and effective. Unfortunately it falls into the same traps Cronenberg movies fall under for me: plot so boring I couldn't stand it. The beginning is really great at hooking you but ugh I just felt it slogged the rest of the way and I didnt like that ending. But the end credits were great.

2 likes

★★★★★  Watched by Cire 05 Jun 2025

Do not read the description for this movie, don’t even look at the poster just watchlist it and/or watch it right now.

2 likes

★★★★ Watched by David 02 Jun 2025

Eraserhead meets Brain Damage meets Georges Méliès meets David Cronenberg, with just a splash of the Coens… these are a few of my favorite things.

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by Jordan 31 May 2025

Strange film but fun

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by myredguts 31 May 2025

Stunned at how little attention this has. Effortlessly crosses the lines of art and body horror with a gloomy flair.

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by Jordan King 30 May 2025 2

I was watching this thinking “man, this is like a perfect mixture of Henenlotter and Lynch.”

Then I read the case insert and it said the same exact thing. Now I’m struggling to figure out if that was an original thought, or if I had already read the case, forgot that I read it, then had the thought as if it were original.

Anyways, this rules!

8 likes

★★★★½  Watched by Elle 23 May 2025

This is exactly the kind of ambitious low budget film making I live for.

7 likes

★★ Watched by softdress 23 May 2025

this felt like i was watching “eraserhead” but in colour (derogatory) and sure enough their inspiration for this low budget trip was lynchian

1 like

★★★★  Rewatched by obsessedcultfan 25 May 2025

Fucking weird and unique.

No likes yet

★★ Watched by dtranter1 24 May 2025

Wowzer.

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by lordhotdog 23 May 2025

love the alien goop and the chow down on that brain

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Garrett DeNardo 22 May 2025

Bleeding Skull 4K

You always see the lines of text for box art on a underground release that you've never heard of before right? "Taking cues from Henenlotter" or "vibes of Lynch's Eraserhead". And then you watch it and its just cheap amateurish slop with nothing of substance, no mystery and even if there is gore you are uninterested and therefore isnt even worth the card stock its printed on.

Thank goodness Bleeding Skull brought this to my attention due to a wonderful 2 disc release. Because it actually lives up to the hype. There is so much artistry and humor and an interesting plot that never quite goes where you think and is subtle enough to raise questions, answer some and still leave many up to interpretation.

I hope that anyone reading this will realize what a fucking grand recommendation those statements above are from me. I'm saying nothing else, because this is one that should be experienced sight unseen, just know that its a fun micro budget film with a lot of heart and knows how to use influences without simply repeating scenes from other movies.

7 likes

★★★★ Watched by Tyler D 18 May 2025

Wow. Lost 50s sci-fi in pacing and plot with Henenlotter, Slime City, and a million other things mixed in. Restoration is such a beautiful thing because there’s some really amazing imagery that I’m sure was mostly obscured in crappy vhs rips. Real eye melting color. Two cool chicks with big dreams just dealing with some bozos. This is one that’s going to pop into my head for the rest of my days.

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Chris Brown 16 May 2025 2

What a wonderful world we live in where long forgotten oddities like this are being given beautiful presentations with tons of special features.

Too bad about the rest of the stuff going on in the world though...

16 likes

★★★★  Rewatched by aidan 14 May 2025

viewed with commentary from director William Kersten and Lance Schibi

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by Gav 08 May 2025

Cosmic, boil-spurting weirdness in 16mm. Couldn't fully sync with the vibe throughout until the mildly poignant ending.

2 likes

Watched by Kevin Connell 09 May 2025

Weirdos only! I love home-maders like this. The sets and effects looked great. Looking forward to whatever Bleeding Skull brings us next.

1 like

★★★  Watched by SCHADEY 06 May 2025

Real weird b movie with Connie who is part alien. It’s strange all the way through, kinda slow at points even though it’s short.  It picks up towards the end and finally when everything is shooting goop at the ‘now, after a little incident’ one armed man including the protrusion that comes out of the side of her head and it was satisfying.

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by Avalyn Wu 06 May 2025

Avant-garde B movie par excellence. Those surrealist sequences are so beautiful. Connie Sproutz is my goopy queen. Her and Trixie should be lesbian lovers.

Seen on my computer

20 likes

★★★½ Watched by Justin 05 May 2025

Excellent soundtrack and goofy practical effects. This is a fun one with some really gnarly body horror

No likes yet

★★★  Watched by Risky_Business 04 May 2025

Wonderfully Weird. A free night stay should be offered to anyone who gets in that bathtub.

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by KurtisTyndall 30 Apr 2025

When your mom discovers the brain in the jar

1 like

★★★★½  Rewatched by Francisco Ochoa 30 Apr 2025

Watched on 4k from Bleeding Skull.

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★★½ Watched by theyellowdart 30 Apr 2025

This film is trying to be the 16mm colour version of Eraserhead and I am here for it.  This film is very trippy with great visuals for its low budget.  

Very surprised this director didn’t go on to bigger things.

2 likes

★★★½  Watched by Trav Linthicum 27 Apr 2025

It wears its influences on its sleeve and can be a little derivative but it’s lovingly handmade quality, 16mm photography and being a product of its decade make it rise above the sum of its parts.

4 likes

★★★½  Watched by Johnny T 23 Apr 2025

Eugenius Brainerd has got to be the best name of a scientist ever

1 like

★★½ Watched by Jilly 23 Apr 2025

Too much squirting, not enough hatching

No likes yet

Watched by hareesh 22 Apr 2025

This is so beautiful and weird and crazy I don't know why it isn't more well known

1 like

★★★½ Watched by Samantha 22 Apr 2025

god tier "hi yah!" gets said in this movie

1 like

★★★½ Watched by MelancholyMasq 21 Jan 2025

Saw this for its first film premiere at Alamo Drafthouse SF. One of the cast members was in attendance and did a Q&A after the movie.

The movie was fun. I love all things body horror. There was an element of aliens in this film as well.

Adding my review much later after watching it, as I forgot to log it long ago.

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Bob McCully 18 Apr 2025 6

Now THIS is a V.I.B.E. The type of flick that feels like it was found in the bottom of a dumpster full of toxic waste, with a reel that's disintegrating and changing colours at the same time. Total DIY excess strained through the limitations of trying to be another straight-up B-horror banger. This is far from standard, shivering each time it reveals its true identity.

Kinda like if Roberta Findlay remade Tetsuo: The Iron Man, this Eraserhead-indebted piece of sci-fi/body-horror is at its most potent when it's oscillating its most instinctual vision. Connie Sproutz is a sinister woman who checks into an even more sinister hotel for a permanent stay, integrating herself with the other weirdos and sex workers that are shacked up there. There's a Colonel Sanders-esque scientist searching for Connie, as she hides a protruding parasite on her face and might have consumed a body or two using her mysterious powers. The characters intertwine, the search continues, but most importantly - the world seeps further outwards into an enigmatic blob.

Takes a few minutes to lock into its groove, but once the synth presets move from corny horns to Lynch-ian ambient drones, the atmosphere becomes one of the leads in this vaporous nightmare. Whenever the plot tries to move forward, the film slightly trips over itself, teetering too far into self-aware territory, but its saving grace is the textural cloud that swallows you whole if you let it. Henenlotter-esque goop accumulates cosmic condensation as we move through hallucinogenic motifs. The FX, the set design, and the overall mystique are just so damn effective and infectious, like a parasite is laying eggs in the most nostalgic part of your psyche.

The low budget hiccups and campy theatrics might push some away from this one, but if you're down to absorb it all as part of its genre-heavy tapestry, then this is like an ethereal blanket that'll resonate deep into your neon bones.

42 likes

★★★½  Watched by Eltopo68 19 Apr 2025

Lynchian gets thrown around a lot when describing weird cinema and it's just usually because there is no other way to describe it even if it doesn't fit. In this case, that description is completely apt as this gives off "Eraserhead" vibes at every turn. It also brings to mind classics like "Basket Case" and "Videodrome" though it's not nearly as good as any of those. When it slows down for some exposition, it loses some of its magic, but when it is just concentrating on it's amazing visuals and all around what the fuckery, it is a true low-fi marvel that we can all thank Bleeding Skull for resurrecting. "Disembodied" in 4K. What a time to be alive.

11 likes

★★★½  Watched by ㏲ ames 20 Apr 2025

adding this to my small but growing list of phenomenal films made in reno (one of my favorite places on earth), high mountain desert 16mm body horror with a lynch-like trepidation of the mundane versus the twisted and a cronenberg penchant for oozing gooey slime, all woven together with a foreboding score by the director himself (who composes a lot of other beautiful music by the way!!!)

this movie to me speaks about the beauty of friendship forged through suffering, the unlikely but also very likely bond between connie and trixie, who maybe would have never given eachother a second glance besides the fact they both wound up in the same sordid roadside motel, quiet goth girl with secrets taken under the wing of a confident and fiercely loyal queen with a past of her own, i was cracking up when connie was saying something absolutely insane and creepy and trixie goes, “connie, you’re a lot smarter than your average dope. you got BRAINS!” and then it immediately transitions to a shot of her bedside brain jar……, i would’ve killed for a friend like trixie

1 like

★★★½ Watched by Damonstein 19 Apr 2025

Clearly made by someone with a huge love for Hennenlotter and Lynch. Bursting with creativity, but I wish it had more of a story. Lots of crazy gross out stuff. Has a really weird tone that I liked.

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★★★★ Watched by Mike 17 Apr 2025

This film exists at the intersection of science fiction and body horror with a decidedly lo-fi production design, and it's great. There's a serious dose of punk rock attitude in the production, the characters, the story. It's mean and it's gross and it doesn't take itself too seriously. A real hidden gem of nineties low budget trash art.

Degrees of Tom Cruise: 2

Disembodied - George Randolph

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Emilio Rivera

Collateral - Tom Cruise

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★★★★½  Watched by b_noire 18 Apr 2025

Spacey weird as hell body horror! Not quite sci fi, but the color grading used does make earth look like an alien planet. The story is absolutely bizarre, with detached brains and Street Trash style body melting, and weird vagina organisms that used to be people before they got nutted on by this chick's highly acidic alien zit. Yeah... (btw she's still super cute even with her grotesque alien parasite thing 路)

For such a low budget film this is actually gorgeous and so worthy its 4K treatment. The set design is simple and there's only like three locations in the film, but they take advantage of what they have. That hotel is not a place I'd want to stay.

Topping things off is the incredible synth soundtrack. It's not foreboding, anxiety inducing, or intimidating. Instead it's whimsical, fun, and oddly upbeat. Which given how whimsical the film itself is, makes sense.

I see a lot of Frank Henenlotter comparisons in the reviews, and Lynch, etc. Which it absolutely spot on. But here's a vibe I want to add: 90s point and click video game. Day of the Tentacle, Phantasmagoria, Myst, etc. The combination of the familiar and the uncanny, the soundtrack, the simple yet engrossing setpieces, it just set off some part of my brain.

29 likes

★★ Rewatched by LunaJuice 18 Apr 2025

Shakin' Henenlotter. RW 2205

1 like

★★★★  Watched by kt______seyb 18 Apr 2025

Gore puss and slime, filthy texture and alien landscapes. I adored this movie, incredible DIY filmmaking

2 likes

★★½ Watched by Lino_Art_25 17 Apr 2025

Cinematic masterpiece 

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Westy Bigelow 17 Apr 2025

The budget is low but the awesomeness is high

2 likes

★★★  Watched by DonnieGarbonzo 16 Apr 2025

All the goopy slop is well complimented with a properly piss stained color pallet. It’s pretty good! I’d just delete all the stuff with the old doctor guy out of the movie completely.

11 likes

★★★★★  Rewatched by jlapeire 14 Apr 2025

Low budget creativity cannot be matched

3 likes

★★★★ Watched by Eric Peacock 13 Apr 2025

Frank Henenlotter's ERASERHEAD. Big ups to Bleeding Skull for putting something like this out there for more people to actually get to see.

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Mannu喝 12 Apr 2025

I mean... how can I explain this? You really need to watch it to understand. A bizarre aberration made of filth, rot, putridness, pustules, acid pus, walls tainted with shit, blood and cum, bodily excrescences, a hungry alien parasite like the one from Brain Damage, marvelous otherworldly dreams, it's body horror, cosmic horror, gory horror, it's goop and slime, it's everything and nothing at once, a dance of decay, a grotesque spurt of deformities, juicy brains preserved in a jar and then devoured, a descent into madness or maybe an ascent into a higher state of being, I don't know what I'm saying anymore, my brain is completely melted.

11 likes

★★★½ Watched by Comrie 12 Apr 2025

Green coloured, dank, wet and nasty corridors set the scene in Disembodied, always leaving you on edge with how it is going to go. It moves from a Bioshock nightmare to a more hospitable tone when it moves out of the protagonist;s room, but it is always nasty body horror with gaping wounds that look raw to the touch.

Very if Henlotter did Eraserhead, with a DIY aesthetic to the gore and dank covering the walls.

Definitely a film that has an inspiration from a number of directors- Lynch, Cronenberg as expected, but has enough style and an interesting enough premise to be able to stand out on it's own.

5 likes

★★★★★  Rewatched by N3V3RW00RLD 11 Apr 2025

Finally convinced yui to put their brain in a jar, will give updates on the experiment sometime in the futures past

29 likes

★★★★★  Watched by comrade_yui 11 Apr 2025

the mutant woman who lives to terraform this planet into a new venusian garden -- opposing her is the logocentric science-detective, missing the human-shaped rock for the desert of the real. connie sproutz is the herald of a powerfully radiant order, we all walk blindly into her dream-time.

63 likes

★★★★ Rewatched by Nathan (I Hope You Suffer Podcast) 11 Apr 2025

Commentary track with William Kersten and Lance Schibi.

1 like

★★★ Watched by andrewriegel 09 Apr 2025

The story is weird and doesn’t make much sense, but the vibes are good enough, from the odd characters and acting, to the fantastic practicals and throwback music choices, that it all works in the movie’s favor. And let’s get real: aren’t we all just like the hotel clerk, wanting someone to watch film with? That is until a decision he makes towards the end.

1 like

★★★★½  Watched by Jurassic Domination 09 Apr 2025

A moment of silence for those who will never discover this incredible movie 

An insanely charming, goo-soaked, deranged, disgusting, micro-budget, rarely seen 16mm gem.

Like Henenlotter and Lynch had a beautifully horrific baby. This shit has nuts in it.

What a find. Loved it. Pure indie bliss. I can’t even begin to imagine the amazing vibes this set had.

6 likes

★★★★  Watched by edojyo_ji 09 Apr 2025

Frank Henenlotter meets David Lynch with an (un)healthy splash of early Cronenberg.

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A woman arrives at a seedy hotel with some mysterious luggage and a man in pursuit. Combining everything beloved about 70s/80s grimy horror, including stop-motion animation, in-camera effects, and gloopy prosthetics, this short-but-idea-packed feature meanders a little in the second act but comes together for a satisfying climax (in the Henenlotterian sense) that leaves enough mystery to all but demand rewatching.

The fact it feels like it could’ve been made in the late 70s or early 80s is very much to its credit, it captures a timeless fever-dream atmosphere and look (fully exploited in the fine new 4k transfer) which, like the best of Lynch, is untied to any specific period while combining elements from many.

It did also leave me wanting to re-watch Dementia (1953), a film it shares a certain tone with.

2 likes

★★★★½ Watched by hatredinmygut 08 Apr 2025

this is such a wonderfully strange film i loved every second, it feels like a mix of eraser head and basket case… the goopy gross effects were also really good i loved every second. this movie has such an odd tone it feels alien throughout the entire movie which makes sense for this one…. also LOVED the weird ass random space sequences they look fantastic those and the stop motion scenes were done so well and add so much to the movie even if it’s not by way of plot or any actual substance…. those scenes elevate this movie so much

1 like

★★★½  Watched by Victor Foresta 06 Apr 2025

This won me over the further it went on.

Body snatching alien horror with acidic pus spewing, body melting action.

It starts slow and the micro budget doesn’t provide much in the way of swanky set design, or notable actors.   But as we go deeper this turns into a well written little story, that makes up for its shortcomings with simple storytelling, and killer, Grindhouse style effects work.  

The two female leads really carry the whole film.

You have to love low budget, scumbag horror…but if you do, this will hit the spot.    Not something I’ll want to watch on a regular basis, but Im glad I saw it.

2 likes

★★★½ Rewatched by chrichez 04 Apr 2025

my first rewatch of it. i loved this movie for its effects, relationships, and ending. will probably listen to the commentary

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★★★½ Watched by JustaJunkie 05 Apr 2025

Amazingly cool and surreal Henenlotteresqe horror-ish flick shot on 16mm in Reno. How did I miss this back in the day?

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★★★★  Watched by gaijinrando 05 Apr 2025

An obvious labor of love and a WTF delight. Influenced by Eraserhead, Basket Case, and Beetlejuice without feeling derivative. There's some gore and a lot of freaky imagery but the movie is much more whimsical/playful than disturbing. I adored the scene where the goth inventor heroine performs a little tap dance routine for no reason.

3 likes

Fun, lo-fi 90s pastiche that’s a great reminder how tactile, no-budget, handmade things can feel when you shoot on 16mm with everything being practical and sometimes in stop motion. Really turning into broken record but it looked better than most of what A24 and Neon put out this year.

4 likes

★★★★½  Rewatched by Carrot King 03 Apr 2025

Gross

Also sweet karate chop

3 likes

★★★★  Watched by ConjurePhotos 31 Mar 2025

Yeah this was great. Awesome special effects that are inspired by any great body horror film. Very Lynch feelings in this and just an awesome atmosphere and an experience all around.

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Biscutbuu666 30 Mar 2025

I remember first hearing about this flick in 2016-ish, stumbled upon the (at the time) new blu-ray release and took note of its red/blue lit screaming head in a jar cover art and just kinda forgot about it until it's recent 4k release from Bleeding Skull resparked my interest. An extremely particular film, just from the first few seconds I could tell that Disembodied is operating on a whole other level, otherworldly as hell, I bet Eraserhead was an influence here. I love the film's atmosphere too, it's just so surreal and confined, how the hotel where most of the film takes place looks and how it's shot really makes everything feel crampt and claustrophobic. Some insanely cool colorful dream/hallucination sequences as well, vaguely Henenlotter vibes going on, the cinematography ans framing reminds me quite a bit of a silent movie. The plot? It doesn't matter, trust me, see this body horror bad trip as blind as possible for the best results.

10 likes

★★★★ Watched by Stephen Gillespie 30 Mar 2025

Truly, and quite brilliantly, bizarre. It’s all bathed in scuzz and discomfort, a hostile filmic world that sits perfectly next to the viewer’s confusion. This is one of those films that works very well experientially yet also provokes the viewer to explore its sounds and images beyond (probably) the intent of the filmmakers. A slice of surreality that can’t help but be openly evocative.

A story about a young woman with a violent, monstrous secret (note: this autocorrected to ‘secrete’, which is actually very apt), inherently coalesces with ideas about the feminine experience. In this way, the film rhymes with works like Possession and Juliet in Paris, and also interestingly points its body horror to the horror of a body. A generalised dysmorphia is certainly shown, really effectively, coming to believe your self as monstrous or feeling separate to your physicality — or just far removed from that you that is seen by others.

All of this is couched in strangeness and odd rhythms. There are perhaps stretches that strain too far, pulling against the cohesion, but — like many successful works of surrealism — the incongruity becomes a feature. It all stems from atmosphere, which this evokes so well. The central figure is also strong enough to ground the film, and to make it easier to forgive the rougher performances around the edge.

Goopy and gross. Abrasive and grotesque. The cinema of sensation where disgust is used almost philosophically, where digressions just leave room for thought. Fertile enough, in that the imagery is powerful, to map out your own meanings. You could watch it again and divine a different film with another tantalising thesis.

17 likes

★★★  Rewatched by OlDirtySchmerz 29 Mar 2025

Why yes I sing baritone in a barbershop quartet, but I don't see why that's relevant

1 like

Watched by cody 29 Mar 2025

this certainly bathes in its repulsive aura, committing itself fully to a nature i'd usually shy away from, and yet it somehow breaches a threshold that resets its approach, like an analogue clock striking twelve. the grotesque and the beautiful become indistinguishable. it's mesmerizing..

11 likes

★★★★½  Watched by Ben 29 Mar 2025

You’ll either watch this and want to bleach your eyes, or you’ll cheer at each nasty, gloopy moment. I fall into the latter category. Gross, but great!

20 likes

★★★★  Watched by Bea 29 Mar 2025

Wrap me in scuzz and pop me like a pimple

7 likes

★★★★½  Watched by videobath 27 Mar 2025

It oozes into your brain through your eyeballs, leaving a green smear over everything. Truly one of a kind.

4 likes

★★★½ Watched by Dustin Baker 22 Mar 2025

Rests at an intersection of Frank Henenlotter and cosmic hippy existentialism, with plenty of goop to give it a tangible feel. It feels like what you'd get if elitist art students made something interesting for once.

2 likes

★★★  Watched by Tim 24 Mar 2025

Enjoyably strange body horror and 50s horror riff- unusually low on dialogue at times, which I did enjoy as a choice, and capable of a few pretty genuinely atmospheric moments. Lots of gooey weird effects that are effectively pulled off and sometimes surprisingly attractive cinematography. It’s fun and lets itself have weird dance scenes and just barely be explained, so if you want icky sticky gooey party then this is one you can invite yourself to

8 likes

★★★★  Watched by Jack易 24 Mar 2025

Lo-fi horror as texture, as atmosphere, as grotesque poetry. An Eraserhead-style suffocating limbo, where flesh ruptures and sickly giallo hues stain the edges of a decaying cosmic dream.

A brain sits on a desk,

sleeping in a jaaaaar!

10 likes

★★★★★  Watched by jlapeire 23 Mar 2025

Ur fav director could never

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti" 22 Mar 2025

"Disembodied" is a 1998 film directed by William Kersten. A low budget oddity, the film does a good job tapping into the trends of isolation to the point of out-of-body and interdimensional experiences. The whole film follows a character named Connie Sproutz who checks herself into a seedy hotel to seek some solace. There within the confines of her room, a display of oddities commences, specifically spurts of goo that pours from her face and other worldly elements that are essentially birthed from her. There also is an absurdism side plot with UFO truth seekers and backroom scientists, something that most are going to have to catch if they ever take in round two because the first viewing probably has you captured by the visual presence of it all.

Plenty of other reviews will have the direct mentioning of David Lynch's "Eraserhead" (1977) as a direct influence on this and that is absolutely correct upfront. The isolation of being in isolation but also being transported beyond time and place is a strong theme at play here. We will throw our body horror influences like Cronenberg in there or maybe more kitsch aesthetic like Henenlotter, once again another aesthetic commonly called out. Ironically, I do want to strangely throw out one more name which might feel left field to a degree but also got a hint of Bill Rebane in this film as well. This is especially within the atmosphere of the trashy budget surrealism but with the nod to atomic age scientific measure. Rebane's movies might not be as visually staunch as this, but the whole elemental design of the narrative and the backroom scientists relaying underground secrets easily gave me some nostalgia in that direction.

In the end, I found "Disembodied" to be interesting visual experience that really stands on its own. Although I stated half a dozen other directors' works to give someone reading this a visual presence in their mind, this is still a film that is confidently of its own energy. It didn't insanely wow me because I've gone out of my way to see a crazy number of absurdist films, but this is pretty admirable to be done in the 90's before I feel this aesthetic was overused in the 00's.

58 likes

★★★½ Watched by Bret 22 Mar 2025

Great blending of body horror / surrealism. ‘Disembodied’ is disgusting, playing out like a hybrid of Cronenberg, Henenlotter, and early Lynch. This one kept me engrossed the entire time. Although, it does get a little hokey at times — that out of nowhere karate chop.

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by BEATSANDBLOOD 22 Mar 2025

SURREAL, ARTFUL, BEAUTIFULLY FILMED, CREEPY DESERT MAD SCIENTIST TALE INVOLVING GENETIC EXPERIMENTS WITH ALIEN TRANSHUMAN ORGANISM(S).

Another winner from Bleeding Skull.

Excellent filmmaking here.

Strong performances, fascinating story, and creepy-as-fuck basement location give this sleeping giant some spooky vibes.

Shot on scientific 16mm.

Top-notch stop-motion animation, and viscerally psychedelic fleshy practical effects make DISEMBODIED champion style film.

Highly recommended.

4 likes

★★★★  Watched by Andrew 21 Mar 2025

With a vibe of eraserhead and some Brothers Quay, this intriguing story that takes place in a dingy hotel room which becomes the newly acquired home to a Ms Sproutz, her offspring of sorts, a sack of potatoes and a whole whack more, is an intriguing watch. in some ways it tries to explain the backstory to things, but I don’t know how much of a help that was to me. I just dug the vibe.

1 like

★★★½ Watched by Sad.n.Creepy 21 Mar 2025

I feel like this, Joe's Apartment, The Dark Backward, and Freaked all take place in the same universe, a universe which I will call "the gross nasty shitiverse." Might as well throw Basketcase, and fuck it, Mouse Hunt in there as well.

Anyway, this one was quite fun but I don't have any idea what happened - score was fun though!

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Izzy_Dedyet 21 Mar 2025 2

"That's some zit you've got there, Connie."

A creatively bizarre, micro-budgeted, indie-artsy, horror/sci-fi flick with an indescribable aesthetic; a looney-tunes plot; a goofy, synthesized score; and indelibly endearing, low-rent performances. Most low-budget fare doesn't do it for me, but this had vision, however off-the-wall, with little dabbles of Lynchian, Cronenbergian, Henenlotterian influence.

The plot follows Connie Sproutz, a pleasant but mysterious nomad who checks into a seedy hotel and sets about tending to a scientific experiment shrouded in secrecy. Come to find out, she is harboring a parasitic, extraterrestrial lifeform that has commandeered her skull (her brain is kept externalized in a jar) and grown a phallic, acid-spewing pimple on her cheek and a vagina dentata on her stomach, for birthing little alien globules. And anyone who gets too close to the truth becomes a gelatinous puddle of ooze.

The tiny budget is both evident and impressively on display with ambitious and mostly successful gore and creature effects that leave just enough to the imagination so that you don't feel cheated. Helping immensely to atone for any budget-related lack of resources is a tone of sly, tongue-in-cheek humor and regular excursions into trippy, microcosmic dream sequences and stop-motion hallucinations. It's a heady mixture of cinematic techniques and inspirations that keeps this experimental B-movie constantly intriguing, inventive, and most of all, amusingly over-the-top.

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21 likes

Watched by monkey movie maniac 20 Mar 2025

Reboot I love the 90s so I can come on and talk about this movie

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by Peter L. Barr 20 Mar 2025

Watched on: Bleeding Skull 4K UHD

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Jason M 15 Mar 2025

Fucking brilliant. Indie body horror surrealism with an off-kilter mood and dense atmosphere. Actually, I relly want to say, if you managed to get behind the radiator of Eraserheaed and mashed that world with lo-fi sci-fi, then you'd be spot on. But with a cutie and her monster pimple disintegrating people, munching on their brains, giving birth to teethed vagina like oddities and tap-dancing happilly while her brain lays in a jar next on the counter.

As said, fucking brilliant.

4 likes

The Pee Wee Playhouse stop motion effects is the cherry on top.

Disembodied is a 1998 surreal horror b-movie by William Kersten. Kersten spent 3 years filming this. His two stars Anastasia Wooverton and Hannah Nease went from being 18 to 21 year olds. He used multiple 16mm cameras, different film stock and had to recreate some of the sets from scratch.

Passion projects can go two ways. The Samurai Cop/Miami Connection way or the Soultangler/Science Crazed way. If you have seen any or all of those movies you know what I'm talking about.

Luckily Disembodied is more of the latter. The 4K case mentions Eraserhead and David Cronenberg, which is definitely the target audience for this. The 4K issue by Bleeding Skull via Vinegar Syndrome looks fantastic. The practical special effects and body horror is excellent. But this is not for everybody.

Just how someone can see something like Sledge Hammer or Things and see some sort of strange outsider video art installment. There are people that are going to see garbage. I think it's great, but not in that it'll blow your mind way great.

I appreciate it's looseness and how it leaves what is happening a little vague so we can project or interpret it any way we want. Kersten states in his commentary that he was influenced by Eraserhead, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Plan 9 From Outer Space. All of that comes through in spades.

Disembodied is a 78 minute trip full of gory effects and strange body horror with a heavy synth score. Something weird is happening all the time and only gets crazier as it goes along. Definitely for the lovers of the strange and weird. Highly recommended.

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Meg Shields 16 Mar 2025

Finally, Under the Skin for people with strong opinions about Herschel Gordon Lewis.

3 likes

★★★★½  Watched by SHAWN GUERRERO 16 Mar 2025

Written/directed by William Kersten in 1998, "Disembodied", also referred to as Aberration (as indicated on the title card for the feature presentation version included in the latest video release), commences with a scene depicting a man who wanders into the Nevada desert, only to collapse and die shortly thereafter, his body disintegrating into a gruesome mass. Following this unsettling introduction, we are introduced to Connie Sproutz (Woolverton), a reserved goth scientist and inventor from the 1990s, who checks into a rundown establishment known as The Grand Hotel. Initially, the unsettling clerk with poor skin and a wandering eye (Diederichsen) informs her that the hotel is fully booked, but he offers her a room in the basement, provided she is not deterred by the presence of a boiler and the room's unclean condition. Connie agrees and begins to settle in, unpacking cases filled with peculiar rocks and electrical apparatus, which she connects to a brain preserved in a jar. She also spies through a hole in the wall at the neighboring room's occupant, a prostitute named Trixie Turner (Nease) – a clever touch! – before squatting on the floor in her nightgown and… giving birth to an unknown entity. As Connie pursues her experiments, she and Trixie develop a friendship, while a scientist from Connie's past, Doctor Sigmund Sylvanus (Randolph), uncovers her true identity, her activities, and the means to halt her. Blending low-fi stop-motion effects, surreal Lynchian elements, and Cronenberg-inspired body horror with a generous dose of insanity reminiscent of Frank Hennenlotter, "Disembodied" presents a truly bizarre experience. We get an insatiable alien monstrosity, an array of peculiar stop-motion animated bodily openings and generated offspring, spores and acid are present, alongside a disembodied brain, a congenial sex worker residing next door, a deranged scientist, and a sickly hotel clerk with a penchant for watching educational films on high school science. Additionally, there are bizarre dreams of extraterrestrial realms and entities that distort reality. Despite its low budget, the film is engaging, featuring amusing and eccentric characters. It presents a surreal blend of horror, science fiction, and arthouse eccentricity, unified by distinctive directorial choices and a compelling performance from the lead actor. Highly recommended!

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by Westley N. 16 Mar 2025

What?!?!

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by Grace 16 Mar 2025

Honestly? Hell yeah.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Harry EC 02 Mar 2025

Extremely my kind of thing, pretty easy predict that I rewatch this before too long and consider upgrading the rating.

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Georgia (Gogo) Steff 08 Mar 2025

Is it just me or can you guys also see David Lynch in every frame?

That was actually beautiful and hypnotic

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by StrdstHandshake 06 Mar 2025

What if Hennenlotter made a movie with the money he found between the couch cushions.

No likes yet

★★★  Watched by Lucas 02 Mar 2025

My taste versus your taste in film.

Please consult the graph, chud.

Film should be creative, it doesn’t have to make sense.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Alex 02 Mar 2025

Sure, this didn’t put together all the cinematic ingredients into a seamless experience, but what it does pull off is memorable and, honestly, disgusting. Highly recommended.

1 like

★★½ Watched by E L I 02 Mar 2025

STRIKE ME DOWN! YOU MAY SMITE ME, BUT I WILL NEVER FALL! BILLIONS MUST DIE!!!!

Connie gone save da world with this little gipper tummy creatures, she on some divine intervention shit.

No likes yet

★★★★  Rewatched by MaxRenn82 01 Mar 2025

A very stylish indie arthouse sci-fi/horror, shot on beautiful gritty 16mm, with a truly bizarre Henenlotter-esque story. Shades of Basket Case and Brain Damage, even some Blood Feast/Blood Diner, and a hint of David Lynch vibes like Eraserhead or Twin Peaks; Trixie's cherry pie seemed positively orgasmic. You can throw in a little Street Trash as well when things begin to melt from the acidic projectile puss!

It's pointless to try to explain the synopsis any better than it already is, but basically Connie Sproutz (clever name) has some genetic secrets that literally explode on screen. She lives in a strange apartment around loads of equally strange people. Her neighbor Trixie, the friendly pie eating hooker with a heart of gold, is a true ride or die type friend. I really liked her character in this.

Some truly impressive visuals and sound design grace this homegrown passion project. It's really well executed considering what I assume was a very low budget. The atmosphere it creates is odd enough that it stays entertaining start to finish. I liked the screaming potato that sheds an eyeball when bitten. I liked the weird little stomach birthed organic pussy boxes that you plant in a flower pot. Leaves the ending sort of ambiguous and doesn't concentrate TOO much on explaining the whole mythology or science behind Connie's secret. Honestly it was better left as is because it makes you draw your own conclusions.

Recommended to fans of low budget, quirky regional horror and weird sci-fi. Watched the main cut (78 minutes I think) on the Bleeding Skull blu-ray.

3 likes

★★★★  Rewatched by curtymcdervs 27 Feb 2025

Even better the second time around. What a batshit insane flick.

8 likes

★★★½ Rewatched by Charles Pieper 26 Feb 2025

Oh I do dig this lofi eraserheadian riff for sure. The new 4K of it looks great!

3 likes

★★★ Watched by Big Al 26 Feb 2025

Feels like a czech director attempted an American b movie

1 like

★★★½  Watched by twoyamamaa 25 Feb 2025

I can kinda see why this film wasnt widelt distributed - but simultaneously wish it had been. What a kooky creative gem.

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★★★★★ Watched by ed 24 Feb 2025 1

a very wild time than ends on a long shot of a newspaper article with the headline “suspected murderer eludes arrest” but all of the text is about benjamin netanyahu. obviously this isn’t a political film in that way, but hits weird in tyool 2025.

anyway, it’s goop-tacular!

3 likes

★★★★½  Watched by Brad Duncan 20 Feb 2025

Due to circumstances out of my control I had to watch this across two days and I was tired as hell for the second half. So, I was extremely discombobulated and kinda truly don't know what the fuck was going on. It felt akin to getting to discover this halfway through, bleary-eyed and half awake at three in the morning while it plays on cable, which truly feels like how movies like this should ALWAYS be discovered and taken in.

Triple feature with Liquid Sky and Brain Damage.

3 likes

★★★½ Watched by DamnEnchiladas 23 Feb 2025

Very Hennenlottery, complete with weirdo loner lead, cartoonish body horror and a grimey old hotel.

2 likes

★★★★★  Watched by James Harding 23 Feb 2025

Bleeding Skull #1

Great now I need to rewatch Erasehead

Love it love it love it so much this is masterful  piece of surreal art horror, you have so much going on, a lot of lynch in there specifically in terms of Erasherhead, you also have a bit of guy maddin too, this film is brilliant in everyway

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by buffalobossie 23 Feb 2025

Like a weird mix of Eraserhead and Twin Peaks. Not quite on the level of those things, but still entertaining and impressive for an independent production. Great choice of film stock makes this 90s production feel a bit extra grimey in a good way.

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Kingman 22 Feb 2025

This review may contain spoilers.

Delightful and bizarre, it was a strange movie. I enjoyed my time with it. It had just the right amount of cheese for me to really enjoy. It did just kinda through you into the mix of it, but once I got my footing I had a really good time with it. It had a sublime score and elevated a lot of the scenes.

Overall a solid film. It's one I'd watch again. Maybe in some double feature with Eraserhead or basket case.

1 like

★★★½  Watched by Branden 22 Feb 2025

I feel like I discovered a lost treasure in watching Disembodied for the first time. It starts out unquestionably curious at first, but continues to spew more and more symbolic weirdness upon you. If I had to describe it to an outsider, I'd say that it's a spirited little sci-fi horror artfilm. There's some subtle humor in it that I couldn't get enough of. The central location, a seedy little off-the-grid building named Grand Hotel gives this movie so much additional spunk.

From the night clerk, to the cleaning lady, to the professor who's cleverly named Sigmund, to the prostitute in the room next door named Trixie Turner, and to our leading lady, the ever-so odd Connie Sproutz, Disembodied delivers a small cast full of total screwballs. Connie's performance is especially weird and you know there's more to unpack with her from the very beginning. I always admire a film that goes above and beyond to create its own little world, and that's what I feel they've done so well here.

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by Jason Adams 22 Feb 2025

The leaky surrealism of Lynch, the body horror of Cronenberg, the camp of Waters - while it applies all its influences with the subtlety of the trowel that little girl applied to her mother’s face in Night of the Living Dead these are the correct influences for any movie I will enjoy to have, and this was a total hoot

No likes yet

Watched by Francisco Lacerda 22 Feb 2025

4K UHD from Bleeding Skull

This is Xtro 4. ♥️

2 likes

★★ Watched by ArlaBarlaBoo 21 Feb 2025

A very clear tip off of lynch’s career up until that point, eraserhead abstraction, twin peaks score and lost highway/blue velvet style plot devices.

Sadly it has none of the charm or point but nonetheless they made a film with no money.

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Tyler Zane Salyers 20 Feb 2025

Imagine if Henenlotter combined No Telling & Eraserhead - obviously I loved it.

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★★★★★  Rewatched by SpOoky Lukey Video  09 Feb 2025 2

Watched the VHS version on the fully loaded Bleeding Skull! 4K release.

There is a moment in this film where prostitute bestie; Trixie Turner (iconic name) reaches towards our extraterrestrial-ridden heroine; Connie Sproutz as she lays unconscious on a table, and corporate detective; Dr. Sylvanus proceeds to karate chop her wrist and yell “Huy-Yah!”

It comprises about 1 second of the 78-minute runtime.

I would watch Disembodied at least a dozen more times just for that moment.

75 likes

★★★½ Watched by dylan 19 Feb 2025

Schlocky, lo-fi, low budget body horror. You can feel how much love went into putting this together

No likes yet

★★★★½ Watched by deftonesrcool 18 Feb 2025

Disembodied digs its talons into the open sore Eraserhead left me with twenty years prior. More than a blatant copycat, the film bleeds with 50s scifi and Henenlotter pumping through its veins. Think I even smelled some Švankmajer in there.

Punching well beyond its shoestring practical effects and spotty performances from everyone but the two main girls, Disembodied hits like a dubious karate chop. Just wish it were about twenty minutes longer. Only an hour in legth, more flesh on the bone was needed. Late 90's video nasty bliss: the perfect medicine after subjecting myself to 5.5 hours of James Cameron Avatar slop. Man, I need some coffee.

5 likes

★★★★½  Watched by Chrystof Senkow 11 Feb 2025

Oh my god, how I love private, unexplained rituals in films. When Connie Sproutz (Anastasia Woolverton) checks into her repugnant motel room, a place so foul it looks like it was set-decorated by the crew of Combat Shock, we think she’s going to sit timidly and nervously on the bed, wondering what brought her to this low, low point. But she doesn’t. She immediately unpacks her duffel, and out come:

Jars!

Rocks!

Small knick-knacks!

Tinctures! Vials! Colored liquids!

What’s she doing with all this stuff? To be honest, I still don’t know! Not even a third of the things strewn around Connie’s room are explained as part of the movie’s story. It’s one of the things I love most about William Kersten’s crazed, underrated 1998 film.

Connie wears a black leather jacket, dark lipstick, and a long shock of black hair covering one part of her face. Very 1998 goth-adjacent, for sure, but we see a few times that the hair is covering up something pretty large and angry-looking. She sits on the edge of the room's filthy, biohazard-grade tub and drops potato-sized egg-sacs with full sets of vagina dentata-like chompers on them, and these things grow unbidden out of her abdomen. And I could be wrong, but that big liquid-filled jar by the dresser seems to have a brain in it. And…is she pouring coffee in there?

Even if some parts of Connie’s look (and especially the fashions of people around her) are time-delimited, there’s something so outside of its own era about Disembodied. It's got ‘80s Sam Raimi gore-humor vibes and late-‘90s indie drama, but there’s also flashes of practical effects and miniatures showing big, weird volcanos and swirling galaxies that look like they’re out of Ib Melchior’s The Angry Red Planet. The film is body horror and gutter-gore and it's grimy and Bechdel Test-tastic, but best of all, it manages to be a lot of loud and brassy film types while also keeping most of its narrative cards near its vest.

For example, by the time we’re approaching the 60-minute mark, we're only getting the first clues of what Connie Sproutz’ deal is, and by the finale, we still don’t exactly know how this all started, or understand most of Connie’s private rituals, the ones she engages in to keep her specialized skill-set in check. Of course, it’s nowhere as austere and unwelcoming as something like The Limits of Control, but there’s a similar feeling of being thrust into a mission mid-assignment without a brief. This intensifies our gaze into a combination of voyeurism mixed with surveillance analytics. What *are* we seeing? Has anyone experienced this person before me? Can Connie see me watching her? Am *I* in danger? It’s in this prickly newness and lack of surety about the deployment of conventional narrative signposts that made this very, very, VERY fun for me!

This might make a good double-feature with another late-‘90s horror film, tonally different but similarly inventive: Jeremy Kasten’s The Attic Expeditions. In fact, you’re required to…look at the director names! Kasten…Kersten...c’mon, do it! Watch ‘em back to back! Go on, treat yourself!

2 likes

★★★★ Watched by Zak Shannon 17 Feb 2025

Disembodied is an avant-garde psychosis low-budget horror. Bizarre and gross yet mundane and silly. Ask yourself, what if Ed Wood had directed a Charles Burns comic?

1 like

★★★★½  Watched by Travell 16 Feb 2025

Erase-her-head

Pri-brain-in-a-vat Parts

Brain Rabid-ge

4 likes

★★★★  Watched by Ethan Mitchell 15 Feb 2025

Disembodied is the textbook example of a hidden gem, its mind boggling that this came out in 1998 but feels so true to the time periods of the films that inspired it. Most of that probably comes from the 16mm film it was shot on, but there is an over abundance of influenced style here also that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The film manages to be both trippy and coherent enough to enjoy narratively, and I love the scene by scene fade to black style of storytelling. The body horror aspect is charming and well done, but the true standout is the setting. I could spend days watching films set in the Grand Hotel basement, room 7B, a filthy and grimy masterpiece.

Disembodied checks off all the big boxes and is a fun, fast paced ride. If anything it could have used more! I also wish there was more gore and kills, but the lack there of doesn’t hold the film back much.

Highly recommend!

8/10

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by TonyToniToneLoc 15 Feb 2025

Movie Madness rental

Wow, that was fun. This felt like grimy, '90s Henonlotter. Frank definitely had an influence on this (which is what everyone says when they see this movie, I'm sure). Cool stop-motion effects and great overall DIY spirit. Nutty characters and performances, a quick runtime and fun effects make this worthwhile. 4 stars. Maybe 3.5, but I was impressed and entertained more than expected.

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by SpOoky Lukey Video  25 Jan 2025 2

A vastly overlooked gem of lo-fi trash-art. Feels like a missing link in the chain of bizarro body-horror brain-fryers.

Some lo-fi oddities like Hallucinations, Black Devil Doll From Hell or A Night To Dismember have no aspirations of avant-garde auteurism, yet somehow achieve it through sheer coincidence or accident.

Disembodied feels like it spawns from the same VHS alt-dimension (Quadead Zone?), but its intentions are clearly art film on a low budget.

The surreal dreaminess and arthouse weirdness of Eraserhead. The seedy locales and parasitic alien of Brain Damage. The sexualized body mutations and corporate sci-fi mystery of Videodrome.

Yet Disembodied never feels derivative of these films, but rather like a lost classic in the same sub-genre. Like the fourth film in a set of scuzzy netherworld strangeness.

Immaculate psychedelic sludge.

Thank you, Bleeding Skull! for yet another new favorite. 

86 likes

★★★★½  Watched by Matt Yablonski 13 Feb 2025

This fucking rules!

Like Brain Damage but somehow extra sleazy.

A decent amount of melt movie body horror too!

Seriously go watch this immediately!

4 likes

★★★★  Watched by Ghoul Gruel 履‍♂️ 北 13 Feb 2025 2

Low-budget, sci-fi body horror with an interesting main, goopy effects, campy space-volcano sequences, and a thing for potatoes (all positive), constantly punctuated with weird 90’s slapstick beats and score (negative). Gets in some neat stop-mo too.

Henenlotter inspired, surely. A lotta Brain Damage, a lil Basket Case, and a bunch of something else entirely.

When it was good it was great, but there were parts that stalled and some quirkier dream sequences that felt like a different movie altogether. Plus I just wasn’t a fan of the Dr’s character or storyline. Loved Woolverton and Nease though. A shame these are their only roles.

33 likes

★★★★★  Watched by Pisswizard 12 Feb 2025

5/5, no notes.

6 likes

★★★★½ Watched by Jon 12 Feb 2025

This was a rare blind buy for me and its real good. Its really special and it looks great all things considered. Its got a bit of body horror mixed in with some sci fi and about 5 other genres. Very bloody with some great face and body melting and some great goopy messes. Bleeding Skull puts out some of the best stuff.

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by malcolm m 12 Feb 2025

SLAYYYYYYED as fuck. very hilarious but like in the best way, not in the "oh my god this shit is so bad that it's funny" way... this movie rocks... so hard... it's camp! they picked the wrong main character tho, i wanna know the cleaning lady's tea... from late 90s but feels a lot older for some reason. reminds me of early john waters if he tried to make a cronenberg movie. special effects were so good... slay idk

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Rock CHUDson 12 Feb 2025

Looks like all the ideas in the directors head were fully realized. A very potent and beautifully crafted soundscape, with perfect sets, fun effects and haunting/kooky imagery. Makes your brain feel like it has an itch you can never scratch, in the best way.

1 like

★★★★ Watched by kris 11 Feb 2025

connie sproutz & trixie turner are great. everything about this movie is very strange.

lots of potato dialogue & visuals.

soundtrack by the director that sounds like some kind of mix of the music made for cafe flesh & nekromantik.

i really enjoyed this one

1 like

★★★ Watched by RZRZINTHENIGHT 12 Feb 2025

Connie would have loved Ethel Cain

3 likes

★★ Watched by skyemendelson 11 Feb 2025

Two for simply her tap dancing scene ….

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Corey 11 Feb 2025

Henenlotter’s Eraserhead lodged in the flooded basement sludge beneath the rotting wood of an H.G. Lewis cutting-room floor. Faintly grotesque, yet sporadically jaunty and squelchy—extremely unusual, but fascinating in its minimalistic, often silent approach to stirring visceral responses out of a controlled hand of what-the-fuckery without posing questions for reason. Instead, it dissolves into a night sky while Videodrome chest gashes migrate downward into the stomach and birth cyclops potatoes and phallic face growths—delightful!

1990s | Favorite Horror | No Mans Land: Regional Horror Oddities

23 likes

★★★½ Watched by Carlin Cook 11 Feb 2025

A weird wild ride that wears its influences on its sleeve. Pacing is slow, but you never know where it’s going.

2 likes

★★★½ Watched by stealththought 10 Feb 2025

Low budget high concept electro-goop freakout. Real weirdos will eat this up.

2 likes

★★★★½  Rewatched by Lance Schibi 07 Aug 2024

With Bill.

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by DrewRausch 09 Feb 2025

An insanely creative mix of unique characters, stop motion, Bava stylistic lighting, and brain-munching otherworldly absurdity.

This late-nineties gem shares a lot of the same DNA with Eraserhead - but more straightforward and less symbolic, with 100% more vagina potatoes.

Recommended.

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by belial_carboni 08 Feb 2025 4

"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! 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.

66 likes

★★★★  Watched by Justin Shaw 10 Feb 2025

Beautiful is not a word I expected to use to describe Disembodied going in, but here we are. Like a Lynch and Henenlotter collaboration that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Pretty happy to have this on 4k in my collection.

4 likes

★★★★  Watched by MrMustache 09 Feb 2025

Honestly kind of a masterpiece of weird low budget filmmaking. Among its many virtues, it is consistently very interesting to look at

4 likes

★★★★  Watched by lor 08 Feb 2025

Listen. I knew from the description I would love this and I'm only disappointed I didn't know about it sooner. It's like they wrote this for me. It's cozy, it's gross, it's got stop motion!! Volcanos!!! A dude named Eusapius Tourmaline!! I want it tattooed into my brain.

3 likes

★★★★  Watched by AreYouJoeBanks 08 Feb 2025 1

Clearly indebted to Lynch (but maybe Lynch is indebted to it too ‘cause that extravagant heater in Connie’s room looks suspiciously similar to the Phillip Jeffries tea kettle in The Return) and yet ends up being its own thing entirely by the time the end credits roll.

Hope I can see this on the big screen someday where it belongs thanks to some of the most interesting, how’d-they-do-that-with-no-budget visuals I’ve ever seen.

The hard cut to the housekeeper suddenly smoking the biggest fucking cigar on the planet made me laugh out loud.

4 likes

★★½  Watched by Wesley Hemmann 08 Feb 2025

Great campy, weirdo fun. A short but fun watch.

No likes yet

★★½  Watched by Antonio Quintero 28 Jan 2025

WATCHED IT AT TERROR TUESDAY AT THE ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE

A low budget body horror movie with big ambition.

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by Nicole Veneto 08 Feb 2025

Phallic protrusions and vaginal orifices. I love when my body horror is about gender, which is just body horror I know.

7 likes

★★★★ Rewatched by NobleCollector 08 Feb 2025

Disembodied (1998, U.S.)

I watched the 2025 U.S. 4K UHD + Blu-ray release by Bleeding Skull.

1 like

★★★½ Watched by DoubleshotJ 06 Feb 2025

The comparisons I've seen people make to Frank Henenlotter are absolutely spot on. It captures that unique vibe that makes Henenlotter's films so memorable. I loved the hotel/apartment setting. It’s a movie that is weird and trippy in all the best ways.

The new 4K release from Bleeding Skull is fantastic, showcasing the film beautifully. I always enjoy discovering hidden gems like this one, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. If you appreciate the quirky and bizarre, this movie is a must-watch!

5 likes

★★★★  Watched by Normand 08 Feb 2025

Meilleur dans la categorie : 90s DIY Cosmic body mineral horror

1 like

★★★½ Watched by sprankjt 06 Feb 2025

Such an incredibly fun and bizarre movie! There’s a lot here dealing with isolation and alienation (also aliens…) that’s handled with genuine care and sympathy. The effects are an absolute standout, made even better by the really wonderful restoration by Bleeding Skull. All in all it’s a great time to be had.

1 like

★★★ Watched by onetrackmind77 06 Feb 2025

And to think, a woman giving birth through an open wound in her belly, to some kind of alien seed pod that she immediately buries in soil might not be the weirdest thing that happens in this movie.

2 likes

★★★★★ Watched by jacob_kresak 06 Feb 2025

Incredible.

A stomach fleshy vaginal belly button that gives birth to other strange fleshy vaginal mounds. Incredible. A strange shot of about 20 potatoes hitting the ground. INCREDIBLE.  

Comically large cigar? Check

Dresser drawer filled with rocks? Check

Bleeding Skull’s 4K restoration of this is insane. This looks amazing! This is such a fun hidden gem. It’s avant- garde and fucking weird. It’s trying so hard but not enough at the same time. It feels very akin to Eraserhead in certain visual and shadow elements. The colors are so vibrant while simultaneously being so dull. It’s kooky and weird. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. It’s a strange body horror sci fi art piece.

3 likes

Watched by FilmWhiz 05 Feb 2025

Really impressive visuals. Def big low budget 16mm inspo. Great props, lots of humor and fantastic atmosphere. Just saw Eraserhead, so maybe that’s why it felt a little too close for comfort for me.

1 like

★★★½ Watched by MandyGoore 06 Feb 2025

freaky-goodness

1 like

★★★½ Watched by Suqei 05 Feb 2025

What if Cronenberg and Lynch made a movie?

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by Jacob Davison 03 Feb 2025

A woman infected by an alien parasite goes on the run and devours any victim she can while being chased by an obsessed government scientist. A gutterpunk slice of bizarre underground body horror and sci-fi sleaze.

4 likes

★★★★★  Rewatched by N3V3RW00RLD 05 Feb 2025 3

Isaiah 57:1 ►

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.

So we can all agree this is better than Basket Case right? Heresies I know but I've been waiting for weeks to pick this up on DVD because Im a slave to the ritual of --->{disk in} -----> [disk out] formed by the old world bluray super conglomerate cult of video formation. I just dont want to >>>Reallly>>> watch a movie unless I can conduct it with material conduits. Like I love my tubi movies but its not the same engaging with a so wholly corrupted by size and shapes of separation, to act through these sites in order to engage the visual you must accept a degree of invisible separation between you and the vision. These kinds of sites are conceptually/spiritually outdated and driven by holding your need to view over you without letting you touch taste or smell anything that would make the film reach realness. "Remember your watching this sickly 2004 film called Rapist extremo bull shite spectacular 3D directed by John Luke Gotard here on TUBLI TEE VEE" just pounds through my mind no matter what I watch on there, like I know you want to pretend like the internet access age has brought forth the riches and treasures of the world for the online populace's viewing pleasure but thats just not the reality of the streaming transaction. You can not access a part of a stream, you must submerge yourself in entirety and see where the stream leads you, you can jump in at a certain point then jump out and you will be further down the stream. Streaming, is about seeing what the stream will carry, and what will carry the viewers with it. Streaming is a method of data determination, subtraction by addition; using coordinated nodes of presentation allows for info collection used to then shape the marketplace and consumer base in basic cost analysis ratios and performance improvement data and all sorts of racism/sexism/eugenics that have been adapted into the new forms of perceived honest interpretation for modern times and therefore applicable to all. They have the data to generate new forms of stereotypes and racismsms to apply upon anyone and feed these expressing factors into the stream in order for people to follow out of mandatory involvement for being in the stream with it(SEE: King Bach)

I mean has much really even changed about the decorum of online since the invention and foreclosure of Vine when they realized 7 seconds of visual/audio enclosed information is the equivalent of passing straight through the blood brain barrier for americans who have so little time to exist within the business of their lives. This kind of thing is just the logical process of the country (SEE: post office) as in if theres a penny to be made where a penny is lost, a long list of business rituals and laws will be enacted to dutifully extract both the gained and lost penny for the dignity of business over that which it presides and manages. The optimization of this form of value extraction adds justifications for even allowing us to enact transaction, fee's of the mind body and soul applied just to watch a 2.5/5 star film AND the wifi connection radiating from all the box shaped things in your home costs 100 dollars a month on top of the necessary boxes to purchase for the right of rental viewing, you are renting perception marked up 100 fold from a creation made with the intentions of derealizing the labors of the constructed arts by temporal streaming methodology. This is where AI comes in to determine all content accessible for us, for the laws of AI are as follows.

1. If made by AI it is

2. AI is the is

3. All that is real is a determinate of AI

4. Creation itself is a product of AI

4a. All humanity is a consultant of AI

5. AI is our ultimate united form as a species

And this is why it is so integral for the internet and AI to merge into one, to take the scale of the open "wild west" the internet once upon a time was and condense and amalgamate all that enters into 1 large continuous stream. No more human determined allowances, no more self discretionary measures available to take. You can only see what you are shown, and its all gonna be bullshit!

When I was I kid the only thing I wanted to be was a pirate and when I grew up I became a pirate. Thankfully tubi is so weak to piracy I can *****[redacted] any film I want to watch that they host and burn it onto a dvd and put it into a player and BOOM! ritual success, but for oh how much longer will we be allowed the tools for preservation to be used for ourselves upon the density of soul within our creations? Even as new and old methods reinvent themselves to circumvent the feeble attempts at control the distribution of information a new world is begging to be born from our ashes and the ashes will be born from AI. So even when I "own" this film already I made sure to check with my local vinegar syndrome shop right here in colorado to see when the bleeding skull release would show up in store and I had to pretend like they dont comb over my account for trashy undiscovered films to engage rights with and release on an overpriced 4k/bluray combo and then i wait the three weeks for it to show up in store when I could just buy it online and have it at my door in 3 days I just had to go down to the store the day it arrived and proclaim my love for this film as the best thing ever and better than basketcase to the 4 other people in the store and the kind lady at the register who had no clue in hell what movie I was talking about when I first asked 3 weeks ago but can now tell me "heres your cool film dude, thanks for your business" after the 36 dollars are exchanged and I can feel like a human who has passed through the world and made a mark on the enacting of experience by doing it in its most simple and mundane forms lest I forget again like I tend to do. And if it all comes down to the end I have my offline tv and my offline bluray player and my official cohesive "for your viewing pleasure" true bluray of this film to watch until the fire and flames engulfs all till the end of eternity. #the-smallest-of-blessings

OKAY so now to actually talk about the film, this film, the best film ever thats so much better than basketcase and not just because its about the interiority of a woman lost on her own vs the pressure of exteriority as honest self represented in basketcase, but because this film works as a silent film before it has to work as a film with sound. Movies where you can understand all you need without audio are important because they then understand the importance of audio as a companion to video. The video, the motions of expression, the positioning of these expressions are key to communicating in relevance to where and why we view is what develops our film-empathy form. The interiority of Connie Sproutz our potential potato woman is one of the mystical and cosmic and technological and profound; DREAMS and their potential realness. We dream every day of our lives and into forever for all eternity it will become one big dream made up of the truest feelings and actions enacted by the body heart mind and soul, but this is beyond the potential of our earthly realm, the capabilities of the human body, for dreams are a procession beyond that of the body, dreams exist separated from our bodies and lives, which is why so few of us will actually achieve our material dreams in this realm and the mechanisms of the world are more than happy to accept his and encourage or enforce it.

HOWEVER

We as people make eachothers dreams come true, in ways we can never know or understand, your very existence here has made the potential for a new world possible. It has created the pathways for freedom in the steps made behind you. It took me a while to realize that time works backwards to how we interpret it, and thus the actions of life itself. I think of time as moving forward, not backwards, but the impacts left as people are remembered backwards in order for us to keep moving forwards. Life is a death march, but does it have to be lived as so? The nihilistic annihilator in me says yes for my own sake, the lover in me says no for the worlds sake. And so while I cant quite know exactly what or why I mean to the people who read my reviews and writing and look at my photos and tell me they love love love everything and anything I do, I see the future as it moves forward and feel I have done nothing to change the world in a way Im satisfied with. Quite frankly if I was worth anything at all I'd be a paramedic or a firefighter or something that has immediate results for the work done. But thats not what writing is, thats not what living is, thats not what life will be remembered as, I just like the speed of life at max, the moments where there is no time to think, just do, no trying, just doing. I like pretending Im Icarus for a day while I take up more work than I'm capable of doing and attempting to get it out early before the end of the day to feel like I've surpassed the modality of the standard world, like I've completed the extra ordinary at the expense of self for all around me who needed it. Saving peoples moments before they succumb to the norm and becoming forgotten, I'm being overly dramatic for a job that consists of >printing paper all day but I'm much more focused on the mentality behind why I labor and for what. If getting a rush job out the door is important to the others around me who need it, then it is important to me, and so I do to the best of my ability.

I guess I have a similar mentality with my art. I dont want to "try" art, I want to do art, I want the freedom of doing. I write on letterbox because I can do so freely to a degree, on my own schedule, with my own choices and spelling errors and incoherence and inconsistency because thats the thing, I cant try to be consistent because I have no basis for consistency in anything I do, I can only do via my own determination and have no wishes to be a consistent tryer because it interrupts the ability to do.

AI in its iterations and generations is the very embodiment of trying, of idealizing the tenets of control in order to try and contain them. It spits in the face of my very existence and so I have absolutely ZERO respect for any of it or any of its human embodiments. Sterilization sciences and the antibiotics of the soul are everywhere and potent at that. There are no worse people than those who enforce their self involved shoulds as is in order to deny you the pleasures of self. It causes an inner unconscious suppression, a desire to hide ones self from the world and conform to the "is" that best disguises you as one of everyone around you. AI try's to make everything around it conform into another trying aspect within its amalgamation. Just as AI can not understand the inner self of a person whom creates art for art, there are people among us who operate in a similar state of trying in order to diminish art and the expression of self into something more comfortable for them to witness. In this understanding AI loses its 'intelligence" and can be revealed to actually be the whims of the uncomfortable tryers who wish to control that which is beyond their celestial composition, in fact their aims are much more material and sterile than intelligences true definition would imply. Its for the stupid and the weak and those who do not wish to do anything whatsoever.

What we do as both the conscious and unconscious self, is for all those around us whether we realize it or like it or even want to realize it as truth, but it is simply a fact of existence, no matter how small or menial or repetitive or dull or seemingly worthless, we labor on endlessly as people. Im sure like my dad I'll die working before I die, but I will be damned if even a fraction of my labor does not contribute to the next persons ability to do onwards. I hate all the talk of "the end times" or the apocalypse as a universal all encompassing truth. You must ask "whose true apocalypse might this be?" as in what aspects of your self can survive these potential bi-weekly apocalypses thrust into the world as ultimate unyielding factors to lie down and submit to. Quite frankly I dont think my smoking weed and playing nba2k habit will last the apocalypses nor my lack of ambition nor most of the skills and information I've learned, so what selves are left to survive? None of us can know really, like REALLY really, this is one of the few times where the mad max movies wont improve your perceptibility. But I do like this bit from Cus D'Amato -

"What's the difference between a hero and a coward? There ain't no difference. Inside they're both exactly alike. Both scared of dying or getting hurt. But it's what the hero does that makes him a hero. What the other guy doesn't do that makes him a coward."

I like that it understands what it means to do, because to do is to try, not the reverse, for you cannot try to live if you already do live, and so to do your life is to try life for what it is. Be what you desire to be, even if just for a momentary glimpse, even if only 2 people ever see what you truly wish to do and be for what it is and know that in the eyes of god and all that is cosmic and all that is holy and all that is green and floating in saucers above the pacific and all the angels in heaven and all the demons in hell and all the inbetween mysteriis known and unknown permeating the ether beyond our realm, you have been and will be witnessed for your truest self upon the labors you have enacted upon it, however small or insignificant or temporary its earthly remanence is. If you can do, others will do in succession. if you open your heart to the beauty of the world, it will find you in the places you least expect it and save you for what you are. I say this knowing that sometimes the true you is the true enemy to all you wish to be, and will prevent you from being what you know you can be. Its easy to try and be what you can be, but to do what you can each day a bit better than you did yesterday, is to try, and will help you become the you you wish to be, for yourself and all around you who love you more than you are able to know.

Im in part writing all of this for myself, because I often forget myself and wish to leave what I was to ruin, perhaps im writing this because I want it to be true in order to justify living as myself, that I can be better than my isolationist naïve psycho paranoid self. I hope that in writing these words they can maybe help even just one of you be the kind of kind, compassionate, caring, people the world seems to be losing so quickly.

whatever this life is, or is going to be, or will be made into, please live as you do, and breath the life you want to live in the world into the air so that it may be converted into the passion another breathes to live. please, please, live

climb the mountain

The end is always the beginning

32 likes

★★★½  Watched by Andrew Moncrieff 04 Feb 2025

Henenlotter does Eraserhead. A goth lady with her own brain in a jar and a dick on her cheek that spews acid checks into “the Grand Hotel”, and meets its inhabitants and hallucinates about potatoes with eyeballs and volcanos. Another scientist is after her.

Surprisingly fun and fast moving - like a remake of a sixties B-movie by a 1990s film student.

5 likes

★★★★★  Added by Jare_ith 4 Feb 2025

I fucking love this movie. The deranged B movie little sister to Eraserhead.

The new bleeding skull release is a dream come true for me because I could never find the original version on vhs and I greatly preferred that to the directors cut, but now I own them all!

The new transfer is gorgeous...but I have to admit I think my favorite version of this film is the vhs one, which is included in its entirety commercials and all on this! Just something about the filth and darkness of the sets read as more oppressive and atmospheric in lower resolution and practical effects look disgustingly real with that darker palate.

Also learning that Anastasia Woolverton was a teenager when she shot this is fucking mind blowing because shes so much cooler than anyone that age has any right to be, genuine Gen X cool.

7 likes

★★★★ Watched by . . 02 Feb 2025

This review may contain spoilers.

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It has that slower Lynch vibe, so it's not as goofy or fast paced as I might have liked, but the vibe is successful.

I really enjoyed the main actress. She's kinda perfect in the role.

The stop motion is fun, the little blob creatures are fun, the gross squirting dick face thing and excreting stomach and head vaginas are great. All ooey and gooey. The space effects and lava cave stuff is all very low budget and super charming. The bluray is good and those scenes are soooo grainy its kinda crazy, but I dig it.

The directors cut has new 16:9 (despite the movie being 1:33) digital effects which for the most part just aren't as charming.

The interviews with the 2 actresses present day are fun.

I enjoyed this and wish everyone involved had worked more.

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by SlasherReviews 03 Feb 2025

Sooooooooo this was wild and weird and made no sense.

Just how I like them.

3 likes

★★★½  Watched by TommyTheDude 02 Feb 2025

lmao this is so goofy, it rocks

"and this is how you repay him for his tutelage and kindness?!?"

1 like

★★★½ Watched by Shinigamijingle 02 Feb 2025

A spectacle of practical effects. The plot of this one is simple but I don’t think it’s meant to be amazing. The movie itself is an experience that needs to be seen to be believed. The creepy vagina beings that come out of her stomach are wild!

1 like

★★★½ Watched by Eric Majewski 02 Feb 2025

Decent, good random purchase.

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by izabe1 02 Feb 2025

i liked that she ******* the guys ****. favorite part

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by seinfolding 02 Feb 2025

If she is such an advanced speciman, she would stay at a Radisson Hotel or an extended stay. Standards are not exclusive to the Milky Way galaxy!!!

1 like

★★★★★  Rewatched by paisleyculottes 01 Feb 2025

The new Bleeding Skull release of DISEMBODIED is a revelation on so many levels: the original 16 mm print is crystalline, perfect, and the color spectrum from sludge green mold stains to Connie Sproutz's rainbow of chemicals to keep her brain alive SPARKLES and POPS. It's fun to compare the very low-fi original version with the updated director's cut with a new lush library music orchestral score and tweaked special effects.

The wealth of extras includes an interview with stars Anastasia Woolverton and Hannah Nease: they were BFFs in real life, which explains the very real chemistry their characters have. This interview reveals their daughters are close friends and have a dream of remaking DISEMBODIED playing their moms' original roles--SO MOTE IT BE.

I love this movie so much it makes my heart hurt: it's a perfect mix of yonic body horror, grime, 90s fashion moments, and the profound transformative power of friendship between women. William Kersten is the Douglas Sirk of body horror and this is his magnum opus.

9 likes

★★★★★  Watched by 13beersl8r 01 Feb 2025

"There's alot of weird things going on up there. And down here too." Like watching West German bootlegs of David Lynch fan fic Tales from the Dark Side episodes on a loop in a psychiatric ward. Continuity and understanding are meaningless. Yellowed film print and green saturation. The colors of a puss filled boil that tastes salty on the tongue when it erupts. Fish eyed macro cinema that's deliberate, completely outside the norm, and just odd enough to be exceptional. Interesting head fuck that will get the late night stoner head juices flowing. Basically everything you could ever want out of a surprise midnight movie. Good stuff.

43 likes

★★★ Watched by sandwalkerx 28 Jan 2025

Interesting ideas stuck in a low budget void.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by robert2339 31 Jan 2025

Several years ago I took a friend to see “Blue Velvet.” It was not only the first time watching it, it was his first David Lynch film. As the credits rolled he said, “I don’t know what i just experienced, but I want more.”

After watching “Dismembered” I had the same reaction.

12 likes

★★★½ Watched by djintel 31 Jan 2025

Another one for the, “This is hella weird you should totally watch it.” recommends list.

1 like

★★★ Watched by Michael_Elliott 30 Jan 2025

If I ever host a film festival for the surreal and bizarre, DISEMBODIED would appear at it alongside such films as ERASERHEAD, COMBAT SHOCK and BASKET CASE. Those films all struck me the same way as they are weird, bizarre and each contain certain images that when seen it would be impossible to forget.

One of my biggest issues with low-budget movies is that it seems the directors just watch a series of movies, like them and then sets out to try and make one. They often lack any sort of creativity or imagination but that's certainly not the case with William Kersten because this film has one great atmosphere as well as many creative scenes that will disgust some and amuse others.

I'm not going to spoil anything that happens but the plot is rather simple but the director takes it and manages to create some characters that you really like as well as a story that plays out in ways that you might not expect. Of course, the highlight of the film are the gore scenes, which there are plenty of including some "body horror" elements that are very effective.

4 likes

★★★½ Watched by Caroline Bliss 28 Jan 2025

when she said "I need coffee" and then proceeded to pour coffee directly onto her brain... I felt that

2 likes

★★½ Watched by Edward 30 Jan 2025

Like if Eraserhead and basket case merged on a budget of $4

The cleaning lady with the foot long stogie was 

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by samanthawardd 30 Jan 2025

You got brains!

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by StanleyFord 28 Jan 2025

I will always appreciate a passionate dyi done for no money movie but clearly lots of love. Congrats to Annie and Bleeding Skull.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Adryon Thomas 29 Jan 2025

The chokehold that David Lynch had on the DIY community is crazy!

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by Jon C. 30 Jan 2025

Low budget, high strangeness — what a beautifully bizarre little film! Disembodied shares DNA with a lot of early Frank Henenlotter movies, as well as a dash of early David Cronenberg, at least one image that is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, and though I’m hesitant to through this comparison around lightly or too frequently, but there’s a drop or two of early David Lynch in there too (think Eraserhead or short films like The Grandmother). Oh yeah, there’s a sci-fi scientist who looks an awful lot like Colonel Sanders who’s not afraid to use a karate chop. Disembodied is definitely a weird world that I’ll revisit again soon.

N.B. It appears that the UHD of the recent release includes a mastering error, where the video freezes from approximately 8:43 - 9:42 while the audio continues. The Blu-ray is not affected.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Ryan Oliver 30 Jan 2025

Somewhere between ERASERHEAD, BRAIN DAMAGE, and THE JAR lies DISEMBODIED; a truly nerve-frying piece of 16mm outsider art that’s beautiful, strange, funny, and downright head-scratching. Only January and it’s already high on my list of new discoveries for the year. Check it.

2 likes

★★★★ Watched by David A. Delrie 28 Jan 2025

Like if Lydia Deetz grew up to be a mad scientist in a David Cronenberg movie and then wandered into the room from David Lynch’s Rabbits.

The cosmic horror on a shoestring budget was particularly inspired.

1 like

★★★ Watched by Nicole Dunn 29 Jan 2025

This was super fun. I'm pretty stoked to listen to the commentary on the 4k Bleeding Skull disc. Reno is a freaky place.

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by delacreuz 28 Jan 2025

First bleeding skull premiere on the big screen. Dreamy and goopy. 90s goes to 70s

No likes yet

★★★★★ Watched by genevieve 29 Jan 2025

WOWWW

1 like

Imagine giving a 14 year old David Lynch a camera with his high school friends and giving them no direction. A fun and light body horror mixed with some Sci-fi. And the DREAM SEQUENCE!

No likes yet

★★★  Watched by ducksaturdays 29 Jan 2025

A fun labor of love experiment, a fun concept and just a straight up weird premise that only begs for cult status

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by Trilly Wilder 28 Jan 2025

79/100 - Hi-YAH! The kookiest, funniest, and most  kind acid trip of a movie featuring a stomach vagina busting out little vagina monsters and gobbling up people slime.

I haven’t watched many low-budget DIY horror but this has me intrigued to find more. Which I’m sure I will thanks to Bleeding Skull and Terror Tuesday’s.

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by Patrick Monaghan 28 Jan 2025

Shockingly well done and cheers to the lovely Austin weirdos at Bleeding Skull, who championed, purchased, and preserved this little work of love!

The equally lovely weirdos at Vinegar Syndrome are selling their new 4k Blu-Ray restoration!

2 likes

★★★½ Watched by K8 29 Jan 2025 2

Camp central! Love the opening scene in particular

Love to also see claymation, it’s giving adult Gumby

While this definitely isn’t queer coded it’s great to see that the writing was girls supporting girls no matter how freaky they are #ILoveYouHannah

4 likes

★★ Watched by sydkidd02 29 Jan 2025

Nothing could have prepared me for this one tbh

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by Paul Docherty 28 Jan 2025

I was surprised how much I liked this.

I'm not one for kitsch cinema or enjoying things just because they are bad, and Lord knows this is not a technically adept film, but there's something...

The director William Kerston clearly has passion, to have pushed for so many years to complete this. He's inspired by Lynch and splatter horror and goofy 50s sci-fi, but he's synthesizing them into something else. There's a coherence in the structure and the editing that betrays a mind working. I don't know how to put my finger on it...

People who make this kind of film aren't generally encouraged to make more, tho IMDB shows Kerston made some experimental shorts in the 2010s. But I would have loved to see what comes next.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by Kevin Jones 29 Jan 2025

Disembodied (1998) moves fast and keeps things off-kilter. Shot on 16mm, the grainy glory of the print adds texture to a world that feels both cheap and otherworldly. The music pushes everything forward, pulsing alongside the action. The characters, each with a name that sticks in the mind, move through scenes that shift between the grotesque and the absurd. Science fiction, noir, and horror collide without concern for boundaries. The plot twists and turns, never stopping long enough to settle. The whole thing plays like a late-night broadcast from a station that shouldn’t exist. It is magnificent!

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by Persephone Possum 29 Jan 2025

Unlike queen in attendance Hannah Nease I know exactly what this is about and it’s about being a woman. I too am hunted across the country bc I am a silly little dyke who births strange squirming things out of abdominussy and pulls bad bitches by being a little quirky with it. I too pour caffeine on my exposed brain wrinkles to survive the harsh conditions of an alien(ating) landscape. It’s tough work but someone’s gotta do it!!

A goddamn blast. Extra special seeing it up on the big screen for maybe the first time it’s ever been screened? Hannah was a delight I’m happy she’s having a great time. Neon and I screamed when the word “Evangelion” left her lips like a bullet.

8 likes

★★★★  Watched by asha93 28 Jan 2025

Kinda charming

1 like

★★★½ Watched by jotexe 28 Jan 2025

Pour Baja blast freeze in my brain container

1 like

Watched by cole 28 Jan 2025

Gross… Cool!

4 likes

(28-29 Jan 25)

★★★★  Watched by David 28 Jan 2025

Felt like eraser head for the girls!!! Cool freaky alien movie. Very colorful, lots of great visuals. Merges to be a fun but brief monster movie that fulfills everything it needs to. Really great atmosphere, funny ass scientist jokes!

3 likes

★★★★★ Watched by sky 28 Jan 2025

#peaked

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by _disco_ 28 Jan 2025

you ever wanna see wednesday addams go to absolute town on some guy’s brain?

3 likes

★★★★  Watched by Benis 28 Jan 2025

this was so gross!!! i loved it 

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by Ethan Rubenstein 28 Jan 2025

"Well, I am in a barbershop quartet, but I hardly see how that's relevant."

Borderline incomprehensible but its not exactly like we were trying to follow along. Very fun on a scene-to-scene basis even though it has three different endings. Great scenery-chewing cast, just the right amount of gross-out body horror, and extended stretches of 16mm grain so thick that they verge upon pure abstraction.

1 like

★★★★ Watched by Lazarus 28 Jan 2025

Fucking love low budget Lynch inspired grindhouse body horror films!!! ️️️

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by amelia 28 Jan 2025

incredible hidden gem covered in a 10 inch layer of grime. adored all the lynch / cronenberg / henenlotter influences!! need to go bury an organ in the dirt now and see if it becomes a slime spitting tulip

13 likes

★★★★  Watched by floating_away 29 Jan 2025

To whom it may concern, please watch this movie

2 likes

★★★ Watched by transparentbody 28 Jan 2025

No thoughts, head empty.

I’m a bit surprised that I didn’t hate this one. I wasn’t hoping to hate it but I was kinda worried that it wouldn’t be good. While I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece, it was decent enough.

There was some body horror that was a lot to look at. Connie pushes out so many kidney stone aliens. It was pretty fun body horror though. Not the greatest but it could be a lot worse.

It has an interesting story but I also feel like I didn’t fully understand it. Yet I feel like that’s kind of the point. It’s a fever dream.

I don’t know who I’d recommend this to but I had a fun time with it.

No likes yet

★★★★½  Rewatched by Lance Schibi 28 Jan 2025 2

Bleeding Skull’s 4K restoration from the original 16mm camera negative on the big screen. Loved watching this in a packed theater.

16 likes

★★★★ Watched by Jace 28 Jan 2025

All dreams are absurd and this is one sweet little grotesque dream, no doubt.

1 like

★★★★ Watched by Danny 29 Jan 2025

You think that’s living? Being a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells?

In the intro we were told this had heavy Lynch and Cronenberg vibes(which are over used descriptors but as soon as she gets to the hotel the sound design gives off a palpable Eraserhead inspo) but towards that third act I actually had a hint of Ed Wood— maybe due to the scientist and his whole demeanor and dialitic style more than anything. Great surrealist humor here. The usage of fast motion on the potato counting and dancing are gonna be rattling around in my brain for a bit.

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by hannah_aurelia 28 Jan 2025

Cool low-budget lovecraftian strangeness. Eraserhead and Videodrome had a fucked up baby

3 likes

★★★  Watched by JD 28 Jan 2025

Parts Lynch, Cronenberg, and Burton (and Elfman too). Fun DIY low budget horror with excellent practical effects. Never really know what’s going on which is part of the fun and the hyper dramatic acting gave it so much more energy.

No likes yet

★★★★½ Watched by mcholco 28 Jan 2025

Love to see sisterhood transcending intelligence species.

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by Michael_Cao 28 Jan 2025

Why was the cigar that massive

2 likes

★★★★ Watched by howdyjennalou 28 Jan 2025

Trixie is such a girls girl 

Bleeding Skull 4K restoration at Terror Tuesday

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by Soot Monster 29 Jan 2025

Gay and lynchian﫰

4 likes

★★★★ Watched by jzebastian 28 Jan 2025

Campy and great use of body horror.

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by voreths 28 Jan 2025

fossilized lesbian ftw

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by peantbuner 28 Jan 2025

this movie was so funny and cute

No likes yet

★★★★  Watched by plinketo 28 Jan 2025

Finally!! Who knew a little film from 1998 would show an incredibly accurate portrayal of us extraterrestrials who birth little alien plant babies out of our stomach and spit green slime everywhere!!

Fucking amazing!

2 likes

★★ Watched by (*_*) 28 Jan 2025

shitty movie but was a fun time!

1 like

★★★  Watched by LT 28 Jan 2025

whimsy always has a place in horror. where else can you find a movie that combines tap dancing, an investigator with his own theme song, and caring for a disembodied brain like it were a tamagotchi?

4 likes

★★★★★ Watched by Kate Chambers 28 Jan 2025

WOMEN  SUPPORTING  WOMEN 

Chicken soup for the DIY horror lover’s soul and goddamn I needed it

Also, Connie and I are wearing the same outfit tonight and I am LIVING

4 likes

Watched by jimmy_cajoleas 28 Jan 2025

what an absolute delight! brains in jars, evil pus blisters, true friendship, doctor spouting ludicrous dialogue—this movie has everything!!!!

2 likes

★★★½ Watched by thepabsbonbon 28 Jan 2025

Would you still love me if I was a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells?

1 like

½  Watched by curtisjmedina 28 Jan 2025

Fun to watch, but a purposely terrible film of the finest schlock. Do I give it a high score as its reward, a low score... I never know.

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by somariatoday 28 Jan 2025

to be seen is to be loved! this movie speaks to the deepest part of my lil weirdo heart, the intersection between girl hood and self aberration! connie stole my heart, and my brain too ✨

No likes yet

★★★★ Watched by Bear Smith 28 Jan 2025

My immediate thought as the credits rolled was that this has major USA Up All Night vibes and I mean that as a compliment. I would have raved about seeing this when I was 13.

A funky mash up of late 1950s/early 1960s b-movie sci-fi weirdness (think The Brain That Wouldn’t Die) with some late 70s/early 80s avant garde horror (obvious influences from both David Lynch’s Eraserhead and David Cronenberg’s Shivers) with a heavy dash of Savage Steve Holland’s Better Off Dead… all originally shot on 16mm with varying film stocks? Yeah, this one was bonkers. In the absolute best way.

1 like

★★★ Watched by Clint Harris 28 Jan 2025

This was…something else. A lot of this is bad, but that is sort of the charm of it. I respect the clear influence from the likes of Lynch, Cronenberg, etc. — even if it does come across as derivative at times. It’s surely entertaining for what it is, that’s what I’ll say. And it is ambitious; whether or not it really lands is another question.

No likes yet

Watched by j beverages 28 Jan 2025

while low budget and goofy there is a lot going on in this that deserves praise.

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by Ian 28 Jan 2025

if you start paris, texas with wild wasteland! equipped, this happens

i think this movie just made me understand body horror..? beautifully vile in every single way, also the first time i’ve ever said “woah” out loud alone in a theater. clean that fucking tub.

likely canned as an x files spec for being too graphic, traumatic, and what likely would have been misinterpreted (maybe?) as sapphic - but thank god, because what we have here instead is perfect. spooky, campy, surreal, so damn full of love for filmmaking you can feel it in your cortex. the gore is nauseating, the score was inspired (i think original?), and the surreal scenes of dreams were straight up lynch; there is much pain in this world, but it’s gone while you’re disembodied. a low budget villain origin episode from a more fucked and free version of ben 10. there’s an mkultra reference for fuck’s sake. this. shit. rips.

kinda like if that rainbow/goth girl duo from the meme were roommates with david bowie from the return and also ed from mib

3 likes

★★★★  Watched by dej 28 Jan 2025

A film that my two favorite weirdos named David (Lynch and Cronenberg) would love. So absurd, funny, gross, and full of passion. Great weirdo vibes on this one.

3 likes

Watched by WayneDeeks 28 Jan 2025

Trixie Turner.

No likes yet

★★★½ Watched by gnarcissist 28 Jan 2025

if Herbert west wasn’t gay as hell he would be crazy about this girl

No likes yet

★★★★★ Watched by Gio 28 Jan 2025

Very strange!! Very fun to watch in a theater. Got to see the highest quality version of it that’s possible

No likes yet

Watched by Henry T. Casey 28 Jan 2025

The world could use a lot more Trixie Turners.  

Also, I’m gonna need to know what THAT GUY NAMED IN THE ENDING has to do with all of this.

No likes yet

★★★  Watched by Ron Pringle 27 Jan 2025

The Blu looks astonishingly good compared to the murky, fuzzy VHS versions. This movie is well shot and lit, with great use of color and wonderful practical and special effects and animation.

No likes yet

★★★ Rewatched by Jon Hillman 26 Jan 2025

Rewatched this last night thinking it was a first time watch. I have no memory of it.

No likes yet

★★★★½ Rewatched by aunt_martha 26 Jan 2025 1

Showed this to a friend who, when it was over, said “that was not as easy to make fun of as I thought it would be”

1 like

★★★★ Watched by mitchellcorner 26 Jan 2025

Unfolds as a dreamscape of endless expansion, where identity erodes and renews in a ceaseless cycle of decay and growth. It reflects the boundless flow of existence, an ever-changing meditation on transformation and interconnectedness. It also has a brain in a jar on a desk.

1 like

★★★½ Watched by jshopa 25 Jan 2025

Perfectly scuzzy 16mm skid row sci-fi horror, a lady whose body is host to an alien that consumes brains keeps her own in a jar and feeds it with coffee and electricity. She is befriended by a young sex worker, and pursued by a scientist working for the lab she escaped from. Great practical splatter effects, very reminiscent of early Henenlotter with a touch of silent cinema trickery.

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by Joe Price 26 Jan 2025

Equal parts unnerving, hilarious, and gross. Bleeding Skull lovingly described this as Eraserhead by way of Frank Henenlotter, and there are few descriptors more appealing to me than that. A perfect little artefact of DIY body horror.

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by Pluto Gash 25 Jan 2025

Damn, on the 4k disc the image froze for a bit around 9min or so but audio and runtime carried on, I rewound it a couple times and same issue.

Bluray disc worked fine tho!!!!

I just popped 4k back in after watching the blu and still same issue. :'(

Awesome flick tho!!!

Female mad scientist w brain in a jar births weird ass vagina monster thingys sumn sumn sumn hell yeah!!!

Her neighbor chick was mad cute lol.

9 likes

★★★★½  Rewatched by Chris Kirby 23 Jan 2025

VHS Version

First off, praise fucking be to Bleeding Skull. This is the full ass VHS rip which means we get the FBI warning and trailers! Meet the Feebles (which fucking rules and I need to rewatch it and Peter Jackson needs to hurry the fuck up with his remasters), Lycanthrope (a micro budget werewolf flick with Robert Carradine and Michael Winslow? I’d watch it), Animals (no thanks, Linnea Quigley isn’t a selling point for me), and Granny (I would like this unoriginal pastiche of random horror imagery in my eyeballs yesterday, please and thank you).

Ya know, the Bleeding Skull BD of this has three versions included and the AGFA BD of Satan War has three versions. I think I should just bounce back and forth between the two to watch all the versions because I feel like I’m winning with this madness.

I may need to be careful. If I keep watching this as I plan to I may lose my mind and go five stars. This really hits for me on second viewing and I think there’s a lot of reasons why.

There are some changes between this original VHS version and the main version which is labeled as “uncut from the original negative”. I think that’s odd and I wish there was detail somewhere to read. Because, just as Annie Choi said, there’s new effects added and a largely new score added to the uncut version. I can’t recall any other film where there such a fundamental difference in “original uncut” and a previously released version.

Speaking of the score, I do really love the synth score on the uncut version immensely. But there’s something magical about the sparseness in the VHS version. It’s not totally quiet, there’s still a lot of score, but it’s not as funky, no real synth leads. It makes for a very different emotional resonance. I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other but they both hit differently in very positive ways. I also really like the added effects in the uncut version. They’re added during the very Eraserhead styled dream sequence. They don’t remove anything, they’re just added to fill out the weirdness a bit more. So again the relative minimalism of this VHS version creates its own unique vibe that is neither better or worse. But equally as good and interesting in its own way.

With super weird DIY affairs like this that border on the edge of “genuine” quality, rewatches are invaluable. Once you unlock the experience of these films you can just allow yourself to float through them and experience them in a sort of dissociative state. Letting them wash over and around you as you allow yourself to simply absorb and accept what there is without want or question or judgement. It’s freeing and most times these films just get better and better in the personal opinion space as you rewatch them. By virtue of being abstract and weird (derivative or heavily influenced or not) it allows the film to morph and shift like a living breathing thing. I love that feeling.

So yeah, I like the VHS version a lot too. It’s different in small ways but it changes the whole experience. The murky full frame presentation has its own charms. I prefer the cleaned up widescreen look of the uncut version but this low quality rip doesn’t turn the film into an unwatchable pile (I honestly don’t like watching VHS rips anymore because most films don’t look better and they don’t benefit no matter what so many horror fans swear upon their mother’s graves).

I’m really genuinely curious what the heck is even more different with the 2016 Director’s Cut version! Maybe I’ll listen to the commentary one day too because the differences between the original VHS and supposedly the original negative make zero fucking sense to my brain.

But I’m going up a half star. This film is such a strange thing to witness that reminds me of a million low budget DIY films that exude bizarre mystery and I love that shit.

12 likes

★★★★  Watched by Chris Kirby 21 Jan 2025 2

In Bleeding Skull I trust.

What a film. Existing outside the realms of labels such as good or bad. Existing solely in the nether dimension of cinema poisoned brains where everywhere we look we see iconography from Eraserhead set to a visual melange of Frank Henenlotter and a plot contrivance that would make Ed Wood blush. Yes, I just used the same reference points as the new BD’s ad copy and Annie Choi’s review of the film. But that’s because for once in this miserable existence someone actually identified things correctly without stretching the limits of imagination. This was exactly what Annie Choi promised me and I could just soak in it.

Delirious stop motion and primitive visual effects ignite my gray matter with a flurry of otherworldly possibilities. This film feels so alien yet totally familiar and oddly cozy. Never driving through a plot but floating through its own existence. Ultimately crafting a complete story that we’ve only been privileged to witness pieces of.

Stick with it and it all comes together and it feels freeing in a way. Breaking from tradition and logic we witness someone who was obviously obsessed with David Lynch getting the abstraction and weird part down pat and filling out the outer edges with so much bizarre drug like imagery.

I love the lead character Connie Sproutz (looking like a 90s goth Beanie Feldstein). There’s a scene where she randomly dresses up looking like Madeline and does a little dance. Every time she feeds her brain some liquid sustenance she makes the best facial expressions. Totally sells it. Then she spends a lot of time just birthing these…things and dreaming the most bizarre shit.

According to Annie Choi’s reprint of her review on the Bleeding Skull website, the version on this new disc has added music and digital effects. Being my first time seeing it I can’t tell what effects would have been added as they all look terrifically primitive and of the era. But the music totally rules. Absolutely ripping from Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks score with some insane theremin-esque synths and it really pushes that dreamy atmosphere and I, again, fucking loved it. And, thankfully, the original VHS version and some new 2016 Director’s Cut are included on the disc so I totally want to watch those. I see this as like a brain cleanser type film. Hallucinogens for the sober and deranged.

Genuinely interesting piece of deranged outsider art. Well worth the blind buy for me. So very interesting.

7 likes

Watched by bdschultz 10 Jan 2025

Forgive the laziness, but imagine the goth love child of David Lynch, Paizs' Crime Wave, Cronenberg, and a dash of Alex Cox. And it's glorious.

Like Crime Wave, the cinematography of Disembodied utilizes a tight aspect ratio and color saturation and lighting evocative of 50s cinema. This allows the stop-motion and special effects, both make-up and creature practicals, to pulse and ooze right off the screen.

But possibly the best part of this screening was having the lead, Anastasia Woolverton, in attendance. She gave a short but adorable intro, and then pointed out that her kids' were in the audience, seated behind me. At the first appearance of one of the spectacular throbbing slimy effects, when her character looks down at the fleshy mass lovingly, I heard her whisper to her daughter, "That's how I look at you."

Does a night at the movies get any better?

2 likes

★★★★½  Watched by r00tenflesh 14 Jan 2025

(começa no minuto 6:30, mas antes tem umas propagandas legais)

m.vk.com/video284890340_456243469

No likes yet

Watched by chrichez 09 Jan 2025

i want to preface this with i was a few miles south.of california fires when i watched this movie. it took me a few hours of starting and stopping to really complete it while the smell of smoke was in my room and ash on my car. the experience around me affected how i watched the movie.

it felt like an original story line. the film didn't feel like there were plot holes or drastic cuts. many of the sounds made me uncomfortable. the movie had a lot of texture. alien, wet, humanistic, gross. people changed in a specific way that was made complete with the addition of other characters without being over-explanatory. i love the two friends who had drastic personalities - one overly dry while the other a bubbly person both looking for friendship.

i couldnt see certain portions of the movie because of the VHS rip i watched. im happy vinegar syndrome released it in 4k (which i havent bought, but hope to)

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by Melissa 12 Jan 2025

A sci-fi/body horror film following a goth girl who is something more than human in the best way. The set design feels like a grimy place where you don’t want to be at or touch because you’ll get a staph infection or worse.

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by franestre182 12 Jan 2025

Connie Sproutz you will always be famous

No likes yet

Friday Jan. 10 at Beacon

No likes yet

★★½ Watched by dahliausman 11 Jan 2025

Not super uncomfortable after watching requiem for a dream but I can see why it would make others uncomfortable. No plot though and there wasn’t rlly a point to the movie, only plus is I’m getting extra credit for it

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by Grimsarchive 11 Jan 2025

This movie was great from start to finish, I can’t believe more people don’t know about this. This sci fi horror movie is really an underrated gem that should be more appreciated. Definitely give this movie a chance you won’t be disappointed.

1 like

★★½ Watched by jacob_morales 11 Jan 2025

Goopy

1 like

★★ Watched by Nat 11 Jan 2025

i liked the karate chop

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Shelby 10 Jan 2025

Very satisfying! Props, set design, practical effects, lo-fi soundtrack all made with great care. The 16 mm film looks beautiful.

And, of course, it was very goofy. Splat!

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by Tayls 10 Jan 2025

w/introduction by star Anastasia Woolverton

1 like

★★★★½  Watched by r00tenflesh 14 Jan 2025

(começa no minuto 6:30, mas antes tem umas propagandas legais)

m.vk.com/video284890340_456243469

No likes yet

Watched by chrichez 09 Jan 2025

i want to preface this with i was a few miles south.of california fires when i watched this movie. it took me a few hours of starting and stopping to really complete it while the smell of smoke was in my room and ash on my car. the experience around me affected how i watched the movie.

it felt like an original story line. the film didn't feel like there were plot holes or drastic cuts. many of the sounds made me uncomfortable. the movie had a lot of texture. alien, wet, humanistic, gross. people changed in a specific way that was made complete with the addition of other characters without being over-explanatory. i love the two friends who had drastic personalities - one overly dry while the other a bubbly person both looking for friendship.

i couldnt see certain portions of the movie because of the VHS rip i watched. im happy vinegar syndrome released it in 4k (which i havent bought, but hope to)

No likes yet

★★★ Watched by Melissa 12 Jan 2025

A sci-fi/body horror film following a goth girl who is something more than human in the best way. The set design feels like a grimy place where you don’t want to be at or touch because you’ll get a staph infection or worse.

No likes yet

★★★½  Watched by franestre182 12 Jan 2025

Connie Sproutz you will always be famous

No likes yet

★★★★★  Watched by HenryLH123 12 Jan 2025

Friday Jan. 10 at Beacon

No likes yet

★★½ Watched by dahliausman 11 Jan 2025

Not super uncomfortable after watching requiem for a dream but I can see why it would make others uncomfortable. No plot though and there wasn’t rlly a point to the movie, only plus is I’m getting extra credit for it

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by Grimsarchive 11 Jan 2025

This movie was great from start to finish, I can’t believe more people don’t know about this. This sci fi horror movie is really an underrated gem that should be more appreciated. Definitely give this movie a chance you won’t be disappointed.

1 like

★★½ Watched by jacob_morales 11 Jan 2025

Goopy

1 like

★★ Watched by Nat 11 Jan 2025

i liked the karate chop

1 like

★★★★  Watched by Shelby 10 Jan 2025

Very satisfying! Props, set design, practical effects, lo-fi soundtrack all made with great care. The 16 mm film looks beautiful.

And, of course, it was very goofy. Splat!

2 likes

★★★★  Watched by Tayls 10 Jan 2025

w/introduction by star Anastasia Woolverton

1 like

★★★★½  Watched by swellzombie 07 Jan 2025

I needed this movie in the 90s! I would have kept loving it since then. At least it's gone across my eyes now.

It's so textured and sticky! Legit gnarly nightmare bathroom shit. Sweaty walls. Gemstone collection before it was cool. But then there's pre-steampunk like tech that is awesome and you want to twist some knobs.

All the characters are indy comic parodies of real people. Random things are uttered that fit the chaotic wonky soundtrack. This movie is nothing but 90s! Not in a derogatory way either. It's what I was looking for then.

No likes yet

★★★★½  Watched by Assignments 05 Jan 2025

About as close to a midpoint between the works of Robert Bresson and Frank Henenlotter as one is likely to find. Images that are both necessary and gross.

4 likes

★★★★★  Watched by Moose 04 Jan 2025 1

Yonic was a word I learned while watching this movie 

1 like

★★★★★  Watched by Waldo 05 Jan 2025 2

This was a fantastic blend of rhe genres. Body horror mash with science fiction and the result blew me away. A woman rents a crappy apartment to have privacy for her body to go through its most horrific mutations floating through space and time and shit. Loved it.

7 likes

★★★  Watched by Andy Triefenbach 02 Jan 2025

Gave this one a spin via Plex in trying to determine if I wanted to spend $35 on the 4K/Blu-Ray combo from Bleeding Skull/OCN.

The influences from Henenlotter are heavy with this one. Disembodied is a 16mm horror film that follows Connie as she moves into a basement room at the Grand Hotel while on the run from a scientist who is trying to capture her and a brain in a jar that Connie may be either linked to or may be her own.

Stop-motion, gore, fun makeup effects with some subtle Kai's Power Goo visual CG enhancement, and a mad-scientist DIY charm elevate this 16mm homebrew horror above most of its neighboring cinematic creations within this sub-genre.

Ultimately, I think this is worth a watch for fans of low-budget weirdness but maybe not worth the purchase to put it permanently in your collection.

4 likes

DonOmegaMedia

★★★  Watched by DonOmegaMedia 02 Jan 2025

"Disembodied" is a strange, low-budget sci-fi horror and dark comedy. It's a little gross in a couple of scenes, but it's got a certain charm to it. Don't read too much about it beforehand. Just watch it first.

Andrew

★★★★½  Watched by Andrew 01 Jan 2025

Oh, this is my jam.

Rosemary Campbell

★★★★  Watched by Rosemary Campbell 01 Jan 2025

if my hot goth gf wants to turn me into goo or a weird little vulva-slug that’s chill but I’ll be god damned if she’s gonna bring potting soil into the bed

Bleeding Skull

★★★★  Rewatched by Bleeding Skull 01 Jan 2025 8

Just sharing this to commemorate the day that DISEMBODIED—our first 4K UHD release and fifth overall as an OCN/Vinegar Syndrome partner label—went up for pre-order. We first discovered this lovely body horror acid trip while writing our second book, BLEEDING SKULL! A 1990s TRASH-HORROR ODYSSEY, and it instantly became an all-time favorite. We're ecstatic to release a new 4K restoration of the original, uncut version of DISEMBODIED on disc for the first time ever—complete with a science lab full of extras and multiple versions of the film.

Get the 4K UHD + Blu-ray combo here:

vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/disembodied

Madelyn

Watched by Madelyn 20 Dec 2024

hate it when the dick n balls crawls into my brain jar

redvelvetcorridor

★★★★½  Watched by redvelvetcorridor 01 Dec 2024

It wouldn't have been intellectually honest of me to give it 5 stars but that's how much I enjoyed it! A B-movie proud to be such, with original visuals and a lovely atmosphere, depicting female friendship in an ironic and much more plausible way than many Hollywood productions.The soundtrack (composed by the director himself) is also on point. Coralie Fargeat should have taken notes ✍️

RayAllenIII

★★★ Watched by RayAllenIII 24 Sep 2024

Amazing texture and sense of place. Love the special effects in this movie.

rian ashlin

★★★½  Watched by rian ashlin 28 Oct 2024

Disembodied and stuck in a jar of milk and shine, the brain of Connie Sproutz is no longer an employee of Plasmaster, but rather the witness to a body run amok planting diabolical seeds like potatoes. Manifest from the liminal space tween Eraserhead, Basket Case, and From Beyond.

UrsaInferior

★★★★ Watched by UrsaInferior 24 Oct 2024

Disembodied is strange, off kilter and apparently an ode to Henenlotter that has more heart and extracts a rich existentialism from a story about an alien parasite mutating its human host. Anything that's not cloaked in shadow is grimy and scuzzy, every surface covered in textures and growth that simple maintenance would prevent, like this is all happening to people mostly forgotten on the fringes of a society slowing unraveling. Also fairly obtuse in its storytelling, especially on a mechanical level, which makes me as curious to piece things together as it befuddles me a bit; almost demanding an eventual rewatch from me.

How do you even begin to hold onto yourself as you constantly shed pieces of the person you used to be? How much do you need to lose before you're no longer yourself? Does it all make you want to entrust the kindest person you know with the care of your consciousness so you can retreat to the desert to shed your peeling flesh and become something beautiful that no longer hurts people?

Peter H

Watched by Peter H 18 Oct 2024

A fascinating, sui generis oddity, with elements of body horror, science fiction, comedy, feminism, coming of age, metaphysics, and more. Kind of surprised this was directed by a man (judging by the name) because it has themes I usually associate with female filmmakers: female friendships, humanizing depiction of sex work, overly persistent men. Oh, and there's vagina imagery *everywhere.* Plus the protagonist is just a great character. Honestly not sure what to say about this one. It feels like the kind of thing that's going to be lodged in my head for a long time, despite (or because of) my inability to fully understand it.

Topi Borg

★★★  Added by Topi Borg 20 Oct 2024

This is a film that lives in the details. The set, costume, and props perfectly serve a cinematic acid trip, one where very little happens but much is communicated. It’s just never clear what exactly is being communicated. Loved the acid squirt.

Christopher Olvis

★★★ Watched by Christopher Olvis 18 Oct 2024

... or the brain is history!

trent wayne

★★★★★ Watched by trent wayne 04 Oct 2024

damn peaked too early this October, ain’t nothing topping this

S.T.

★★★★★ Watched by S.T. 03 Oct 2024

this is a really beautiful earnest weird movie that feels like an FMV game and features a sex worker named Trixie Turner. five star banger

cayce

★★★★1⁄2 Watched by cayce 02 Oct 2024 2

Hell of an independent production, for what must have been a tiny budget this is bursting with artistic vision -- diabolical biological transmogrifications, brains in jars, amazing names (Dr. Sigmund Sylvanus!),

Lynchian focus on electricity, alien geology, some great cleaning lady acting... The hotel sets honestly look fantastic and the effects work really well, the whole thing is just incredibly impressive and super cool. Loved it!!

Watched by Blair Hoyle 24 Sep 2024

It’s always nice to see the bad motherfuckers Bleeding Skull! at Fantastic Fest because you know they’ll deliver a fascinating genre movie at this genre film festival. But I digress...

Disembodied is a weird, thoroughly midwestern sci-fi-horror film about potatoes, a creepy hotel, and a brain... Shot on grainy 16mm, the 4K restoration looks great. If you think you’ll dig this, you will. I viewed this film via theatrical screening as part of Fantastic Fest 2024.

Watched by ron 24 Sep 2024

incredibly ambitious effort that delivers the goods. a crazy amalgam of retro b-sci-fi and body horror, peppered with just the right amount of left field camp and humor. loved it.

★★★1⁄2 Watched by kza_wu 16 Sep 2024

Lynchian. Cronenbergian. Bur....tonian? Look, those are easy names to throw out there, but they definitely fit. This film confidently wears its influences on its sleeve and that's not a bad thing. It's a low budget, DIY, surreal descent into some kind of fucked up nightmare. What happens I couldn't quite tell you, but I was never bored and was intrigued by what was onscreen. Definitely for the weirdos. DIG IT.

★★★★★ Watched by swimming_hole 14 Sep 2024

Live laugh eat brain like pussy.

★★★1⁄2 Rewatched by bloodseeress 14 Sep 2024

Perfect movie for a girls day.

★★★★ Watched by adie 12 Sep 2024

Connie you’re an absolute freak and I love you!!

★★★ Watched by k_warhaus 31 Aug 2024

Gross!!! A fkng nightmare. Strangely empowered female friendship

amber

★★★½  Watched by amber 31 Aug 2024 4

i love connie so much and i feel really bad for her. having a face penis AND a stomach vagina is just too much. thanks again to skylar for another banger recommendation (and for the link to it)!

seriously though, connie was so weird and wonderful and really kept this so good to watch for me. i just love how awkward she's allowed to be; it gives her such a naturally sympathetic air and humanises her so much, so quickly. i think i naturally identify with a nerdy, gothy, socially inadequate lesbian (i know shes one of us...) and it was a treat to have a character like this on screen. plus, the low budget charm shines with some really good body horror effects, and the surreal dreamscapes were seriously well done too. i enjoyed the vibes here a lot, and the main character really kept everything together here for me.

crypt0fblood

★★★★★  Watched by crypt0fblood 28 Jul 2024

I think I can do a double feature of Disembodied and Eraserhead. The theme being FREAKS LIVING TOGETHER IN A BUILDING

I LOVE the little bits of other worldly space images and alien landscapes, it definitely made the film stand out even more for me.

nick

★★★★ Watched by nick 24 Jul 2024

feels like you found it on the side of the road. goop is beautiful.

hunkybunny

★★★★  Watched by hunkybunny 21 Jul 2024

I LOVE MOVIES I LOVE FILMS  I love my mad scientist goth gf who dreams of alien volcanoes while her brain sleeps in a jar, I love her parasitic alien cystic acne that shoots spores and her other GF Trixie who wants to run a bakery because there’s “a lot of dough in it”

PhillyFilmFan

★★★½ Watched by PhillyFilmFan 17 Jun 2024

I can't believe this was made in the late 90s, it totally looked like an early 80s movie (but i guess 16mm will do that). Great body horror with lots of disgusting practical effects.

roswick

★★½ Watched by roswick 18 Jun 2024

A goth chick dreamscape that’s so low budget it’s almost a student art film. The special effects are so good yet so little I would say it’s a tease yet also the only draw to the film. Minimal awkward dialogue which gives it Lynch like vibes while enhancing the dream like execution exclaimed with random scenes of space with clay.

v

★★★★ Watched by v 18 Jun 2024

david lynch science fair fever dream

sofie_palomino

★★★★★ Watched by sofie_palomino 17 Jun 2024

I feel so… blessed to have seen this blind. Girlz Rock type flick. I beg you dear reader, SEE THIS MOVIE. Look up nothing about it.

You can’t be scared if you’re the scariest thing in the room…

Aaron

★★★½ Watched by Aaron 17 Jun 2024

low-budget body horror full of appropriately gooey practical effects, trippy dream/nightmare logic, and a campy sense of humor (a sex worker character named “Trixie Turner—get it?; a creepy hotel manager with a fixation on educational films; a cleaning lady who looks like a Lucille Ball impersonator and at one point smokes the largest cigar I’ve ever seen). Deserves more of a cult following than it has

scooterblues

★★½ Watched by scooterblues 17 Jun 2024

Ok….doesn’t this happen to every girl…

comedyunism

★★★ Watched by comedyunism 17 Jun 2024

For the fake newspaper article at the end they only replaced the headline and left the rest of the text as the original article. The article begins, “Despite rising tensions with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…”

Truly insane choice

avexre

★★★★½ Watched by avexre 17 Jun 2024

A daring and bold story of the struggles of single motherhood and the strength in solidarity between women.

N3V3RW00RLD

★★★★★ Watched by N3V3RW00RLD 05 May 2024  4

splendorous color

arresting visuals

sickly textures and sensations

she who be the mother of eternal wound, previvor of ooze and the flesh it births

reborn as children of sores and blood and puss

there is literally nothing I hate more than people going through my shit while I'm gone real talk

had to stop eating so I could watch this, that never happens, this movie had me physically/emotionally shaken in 100 different ways

"yes they have lots of potatoes there"

ppppaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrraaaaaaaaasiiiiiiiiiittttttttttteeeeeeeesssss

oh my god its gone

ITS GONE

"shes a disease, a germ that must be isolated studied classified and stamped out for the good of society" <---- fuck that shit, go eat brains and spawn in the desert, she is of this earth, it is the humans who are wrong as usual except Trixie god bless her <3<3<3

not joking maybe the best movie I've ever seen

28 likes

☥ skylar ☥

★★★★★ Rewatched by ☥ skylar ☥ 30 Apr 2024 3

basically the perfect movie! it’s such a damn shame that it’s so rare to find any horror/sci-fi movies with morally grey, awkward female scientists, let alone one baring a giant pus spewing parasitic growth, she even carries around and cares for her own brain in a jar! connie sproutz is my ideal protagonist and everything about this movie speaks to me from the beautiful props, intricate low budget set designs and of course the stop motion sequences

25 likes

Dobejee

★★★★½ Watched by Dobejee 27 Mar 2024

Amazing, has that early Lynch grimey fantasticism that no one ever seems to be able to replicate.

jomzjomzjomz

★★★ Watched by jomzjomzjomz 23 Mar 2024

Space volcanoes, acid acne, dirt pussies, and confusion. What a way to spend some minutes of time.

manister

★★★ Watched by manister 19 Mar 2024

wonderful looking film!! a very sleepy piece

Sam Szabo

★★★★½ Watched by Sam Szabo 11 Mar 2024

Filthy gorgeous. What a picture!!

1 like

ColeGr

★★ Watched by ColeGr 10 Mar 2024

10/10 in my heart and worth a watch, so so fun and disorienting

Lily

★★★½ Watched by Lily 10 Mar 2024

Fun horror, delighted

1 like

AvantEmoji

★★★★½ Watched by AvantEmoji 10 Mar 2024

One of those horror movies elevated by going in as oblivious as possible — not just cause that opening jump scare made me Hank Hill “BWAHHH” out of my seat but DISEMBODIED has some of the most singular grotesque creativity I’ve seen in a minute. Shock and awe mixed in with genuine wonder here, love to see it.

Body horror beyond one’s wildest nightmares and imaginations. A noble science expedition gone wrong, leaving our enigmatic antiheroine Connie Sproutz in a state of truly putrid transformation enduring a process where (and take a deep breath here) birthing and excreting become one. It’s nasty!!!

Projecting between two settings: an inhospitable cesspool of a motel and cosmic infernal dreamscape create an unforgettable world for this particularly disgusting evil to play around in. Practical effects and 16mm cinematography makes this one of the most beautiful gross out pictures — a true union in no budget filmmaking and weird fiction.

5 likes

Daisy Thursday

★★★★ Watched by Daisy Thursday 09 Mar 2024

So strange and had so much going for it. Able to blend Henelotter, John Waters and Charles Band into its own super unique and surprisingly cozy vibe

Joins napoleon dynamite in the legacy of weird people from Idaho movies

1 like

manister

★★★ Watched by manister 19 Mar 2024

wonderful looking film!! a very sleepy piece

Jean

★★★★ Watched by Jean 06 Mar 2024

So by the time the evil doctor pulled out the electrovibrator wand I kind of knew what wavelength this was on, but I still burst out laughing at the revelation that the yonic peephole that connects Connie and Trixie's room is covered by lace on Trixie's side. Truly every design choice was thought through.

4 likes

Iván Cabrera

★★★★ Watched by Iván Cabrera 05 Mar 2024

Granos cosmicos, patatas, y asesinatos, lo tiene todo.

paisleyculottes

★★★★★ Watched by paisleyculottes 05 Mar 2024

If you have ever longed for a collaboration between Douglas Sirk and Frank Henenlotter that gives you disgusting body horror in a filthy hotel from a feminine lady perspective, THE DISEMBODIED is the movie for you. It has space potatoes, parasites, pulsating facial growths, flannel nightgowns, tap dancing, PBS looking visions of outer space worlds, women helping women, a Joni Ruth White type maid with a kerchief, and a creepy night clerk who wants everyone to watch old science class movies with him. In addition to all these aesthetic and cultural riches this movie has the best karate moves since DOLEMITE, AND it passes the Bechdel Test. Wherever Anastasia Woolverton is, I hope she's still doing the damn thing.

noopy_noopz

★★★★★ Rewatched by noopy_noopz 02 Mar 2024

great movie wish i was watching it at spectacle with my buds tho 💔

3 likes

Spookychu

★★★½ Watched by Spookychu 27 Feb 2024

The closest thing we'll ever get to a David Cronenberg and H. P. Lovecraft collaboration. This is true independent horror cinema. Hollywood would never greenlight this haha

2 likes

Andy Ashby

★★★ Watched by Andy Ashby 27 Feb 2024

Weird one. Good enough to keep me til the end. Fun characters.

cgreg714

★★★½ Watched by cgreg714 26 Feb 2024

A perfect example of doing so much with so very, very little. I would love to see a making-of or interview with the director about this, because it punches way above it's cinematic weight class and really has no reason to do so, other than the obvious love that the creators had for this bizarre film about skin conditions, filthy bathrooms, karate chop Colonel Sanders, and a questionable amount of tubers.

Connie Sproutz isn't the hero we deserve, but instead the one we so desperately need.

Wilian Moreira

★★★½ Watched by Wilian Moreira 24 Feb 2024

Wholesome splatter tale of sorority, acceptance and self-discovery. Also a lot of goo and pussy-brain aliens.

kirsty

★★★½ Watched by kirsty 23 Feb 2024

some really great moments of gross & gore!!

1 like

Thee Satanik Declane

Watched by Thee Satanik Declane 18 Jan 2024

A great pastiche, in that it's about 90% The Real Deal and just a proper arty horror film, with only the odd moment that recalls Coleman Francis or Ed Wood. Feels alarmingly, palpably empty, in a way few films dare to. And also weirdly touching.

One of my pet hates is when people compare stuff to David Lynch, forgetting that Lynch is a major artist with a distinctive style and specific themes that recur throughout all his work, simply because it's a little strange and offbeat. This is a rare case where a Lynch comparison is justified; high, high praise.

1 like

Ainzeh

★★★★ Watched by Ainzeh 17 Jan 2024

This movie was on the AGFA trailer bonus movie, and I just had to watch it. It was fucking amazing! It felt like Eraserhead meets... I don't know, she looks like the girl from Casper. It was messed up. Brilliant low budget movie.

5 likes

Chadman

Watched by Chadman 18 Nov 2023

"Deviant. Psychotic. Demented." the poster promises. You know what? I'll agree. Its got a lot of Hennenlotter in it's DNA, but that's not a bad thing. And unlike something that may just feel like a rip-off, Disembodied just takes the New York maverick's work as a jumping off point thematically. It crafts its own thing and it crafts it with love.

Disembodied isn't perfect by any stretch, but there is a lot of charm to this weird little flick.

Recommended

Myrmeleo

★★★★★ Added by Myrmeleo 6 Jan 2024

One of my favorite movies. Sweet, kindhearted film about the most normal girl of all time.

2 likes

Brent Starkey

★★★½ Watched by Brent Starkey 06 Jan 2024

I wanted to check this out because of the Henenlotter comparisons, but I got more of a David Lynch vibe. Low budget, not nearly as good Lynch.. but done with the right amount of energy. Small cast and weird as shite, so I liked it. You might not..

2 likes

Drew G

★★★½ Watched by Drew G 04 Jan 2024

Body horror and melt movies really appeal to me, so I thought this was great!

Disembodied reminded me of Frank Henenlotter’s work (especially Brain Damage, due to the dilapidated motel setting/brain creatures that take over the mind/eccentric, sometimes creepy characters) and early David Cronenberg, except this is even more low-budget.

Low-budget, but not low effort! It’s hard to tell what’s going on sometimes, and I’m still confused, but I rolled with it and appreciated the dream-like quality it had.

Credit to… more

2 likes

Spencer

★★★★ Watched by Spencer 05 Jan 2024  2

I just threw this on, wasn’t expecting it to be such a banger!!!!

1 like

fluffyappa

★★★½ Watched by fluffyappa 27 Dec 2023

Very reminiscent of those older sci-fi, “mad scientist” films, except a lot more dreamy. Definitely a fun watch

BootlegBronson

★★★½ Watched by BootlegBronson 19 Dec 2023

Bizarro weirdness on a shoestring!

This serves up mad science, a brain in a jar, bodily mutations, and hallucinations – and even some lovely stop-motion animation.

It's pretty groovy – rough around the edges, but clearly a labour of love, and its offbeat sensibilities are impossible to resist if you're on its mutant wavelength.

The filmmaker sez he drew inspiration from Dementia and Basket Case. To my taste, it falls a bit short of the scuzzy imperfect perfection of those movies – it doesn't have their lightning-in-a-bottle quality – but I dug it a lot.

Wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

4 likes

D Edward

★★★½ Watched by D Edward 18 Dec 2023 3

I think “Lynchian” is a term thrown around far too often when discussing movies that are dreamy or surreal, but in this instance, I do believe it is an appropriate descriptor. It is dreamy and strange as all hell, yes, but it’s the way this essentially is a 50’s b-movie dipped in acid that really does it. At the same time, reducing this movie to a comparison like that doesn’t do it justice. There are few things like it. The… more

10 likes

night_shift

★★★½ Watched by night_shift 14 Dec 2023 3

What a strange, surreal little movie.

Connie checks in a grimy hotel with some strange luggage: her brain in a jar and a variety of other random things. She suppresses bizarre claymation dreams of volcanos and space and potatoes, while making friends with her neighbor Trixie. Meanwhile, a scientist guy is after her as it seems she's taken off with something they want. Oh, and she dissolves people with a pulsating giant pimple on her face and then... eats the brain? Turns the brain into a weird brain she keeps? Not sure, but I liked it a lot.

Genuinely sunk it's hooks into me. I couldn't tell you what half of what happens meant, but it was an interesting watch. Anastasia Woolverton playing Connie and Hannah Nease playing Trixie were pretty good. Only credit for both of them, but I guess how do you go from this to basically anything else.

I put this one off for so long because every time I saw the poster I was not feeling like watching trash, but like... this wasn't trash? It was very low budget, but some of the gore effects were pretty good (in particular the last melting scene) and there were a lot of interesting uses of claymation/stopmotion.

15 likes

repulsed_

★★★★ Watched by repulsed_ 08 Dec 2023

Unlikely I would have watched this because of it being from the late 90's. It's just a time where you want to avoid the majority of stuff like this — a time that continues to today. Good thing the podcast Unsung Horrors did an episode on it so I knew it couldn't be garbage, or it'd be good garbage. It definitely worked out because it's a absolute gem. Also, I'd have missed one bitchin' karate chop.

1 like

Eileen

Watched by Eileen 05 Dec 2023

But I will still be myself… won’t I?

saltyessentials

★★★★½ Rewatched by saltyessentials 18 Nov 2023

Enjoyably Good

Blake Douglas

Watched by Blake Douglas 17 Nov 2023

Clearly Henenlotter inspired but very comfortable being it’s own thing. Oddly, it felt like a rather warm horror film. Maybe I’m just comforted by ooze.

2 likes

Jack

★★★½ Watched by Jack 15 Nov 2023

Like having a hallucinogenic episode while looking at the backs of a few different Frank Henenlotter movies on DVD. The movie itself actually pulsates

1 like

dogfacedboy

★★★★★ Watched by dogfacedboy 12 Nov 2023  8

Brains in jars, severed arms, spurting face growths, vagina monsters and stop motion animation, Disembodied knew the way right to my heart.

1950s alien Sci-Fi with as made by the Quay Brothers and Frank Henenlotter, it's weird, it's funny, it's goopy and it's amazing.

Also, it manages to have a prostitute named Trixie Turner without that, or the character being terrible.

I want to know more about the Night Manager's collection of educational films!

Thank you Lexxx for the recommendation!

Five brains in jars out of five 🧠🫙

Malignant wishes it was this cool.

7 likes

Lexxx

★★★★★ Watched by Lexxx 11 Nov 2023

I would take care of your brain in a jar Connie!!! I loved this hazy, slimy, alien fever dream. Connie Sproutz and Trixie were adorable characters. Connie’s hotel room reminded me of the apartment in the game Silent Hill 4: The Room. The stop motion parts also made me really happy, along with Connie’s various cat eye glasses

10 likes

TheSuplexorcist

★★★ Watched by TheSuplexorcist 11 Nov 2023

A huge WTF film, heavily inspired by henninlotters basket case and brain damage but also cronenbergs videodrome, a lot of body horror, puss, slime, melts and splatters, bad claymation but incredible dream sequences, confusing but very interesting

b_merc

★★★ Watched by b_merc 07 Nov 2023

What a weird, goopy, cheap, lovely little film

1 like

Racool89

★★★★½ Watched by Racool89 03 Nov 2023

A perfect dream box. I just wish it was longer.

1 like

emersonray

★★★★½ Watched by emersonray 31 Oct 2023

Increasingly easy to let movies off the hook for not being image based semi-conscious experiences in our increasingly image-based society but then something like this comes along to shock you back into remembering the whole point is in the actual act of putting pictures side by side.

3 likes

Dylan Dawson

★★★½ Watched by Dylan Dawson 30 Oct 2023

Brain Damage meets Eraserhead meets Under the Skin meets the dollar store. My shit to the max.

1 like

Dee

★★★★ Watched by Dee 29 Oct 2023

you just don't get any better than this! goosebumps on acid with some of the grossest practical effects i've ever seen!

3 likes

dawnweiner

Watched by dawnweiner 29 Oct 2023

Felt like Cronenberg doing an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark. Obsessed. Stellar character names across the board, special shout out to Sigmund Sylvanus.

1 like

Ed Leer

★★★★ Watched by Ed Leer 23 Oct 2023

What a truly original, inventive and weird little film. The handmade qualities only add to the overall original tone of dark and strange mixed with a goofy kind of humor. Lead actress crushes it. A nuanced performance grounding some of the more oddball elements.

1 like

screendream

★★★½ Watched by screendream 23 Oct 2023

This literally rocks.

Cute homage to 59-60s scientific sci-fi pulps plus goopy 90s special fx and stop motion brain parasites. Some surprisingly stylish space-scape visuals for Connie’s alien dream sequences that had me looking in the credits for who did the set design.

Astonishingly campy acting, but it totally works for this one. Feels like a bunch of friends getting together to shoot a film afterhours and I dig that.

2 likes

SergioMelville

★★★½ Added by SergioMelville 23 Oct 2023

I live for discovering stuff like this.

Lynch Vibes + Henenlotter Vibes + Cronenberg Vibes + Quay Brother Vibes = An easy thumbs up

Tiffany

Watched by Tiffany 20 Oct 2023

As an adult acne-haver, this really hit home.

Brad Hanson

★★½ Watched by Brad Hanson 23 Oct 2023

50's pulp sci-fi weirdness but shot in 1998 and finished in 2016... bizarre stuff.

2 likes

Sebastian

Watched by Sebastian 22 Oct 2023

Indie horror movies used to have such chutzpah. Also love how it throws exposition to the wayside in favor of strange, memorable imagery. Stop motion alien slugs are the key to my heart ❤️

ChamBliss

★★★★ Watched by ChamBliss 23 Oct 2023

Awesomely creative, no budget experimental horror that wears its influences (Henenlotter, Cronenberg) on its sleeve but still feels like its own fresh perspective. Filled with tons of cool and gross imagery done with stop motion animation and other DIY effects. Disembodied is a well made and efficient gem, and always feels weird enough to be interesting.

2 likes

laird

Watched by laird 20 Oct 2023

Yonic Youth

6 likes

Dok

★★★½ Watched by Dok 18 Oct 2023

Wearing the brain that she keeps in a jar by the door

Who is it foooooor

Genuine mood and glimmers of Cronenberg and Lynch in addition to the low budget charm. People are basically big globs of stuff that just go around doing things arbitrarily and it's nice to be reminded of that sometimes.

5 likes

Insanity42

★★★ Watched by Insanity42 15 Oct 2023

Colonel Sanders pursues an alien parasite.

1 like

Dogfood Williams Blood Café

★★★★ Rewatched by Dogfood Williams Blood Café 15 Oct 2023

the un-lesbianized But I'm A Cheerleader for sci-fi nerds, gore hounds and Gumby fans. Desperately needs a tribbing scene.

6 likes

Matt

★★★★ Watched by Matt 14 Oct 2023

Drifter/mad scientist/goth girl Connie Sproutz has a facial care problem: extraterrestrial spores that look like vagina dentata potatoes (sometimes popping as deadly zits!); she also happens to keep her brain in a jar on the nightstand.

Vincent Price's spirit was alive and well in 1998. Every bit the bananas, low budget filmmaking I was hoping for, complete with surprisingly good goopy props, claymation space visuals and $cientology volcano imagery. Also, INCREDIBLE spy music when a scientist that looks like Colonel Sanders snoops around. Maybe the oddest bechdel pass ever made

The vhsrip I watched had previews for various other horror movies that had porno acting and seemingly a four-figure budget. It made me wistful for video stores where I surely would have rented masterpieces like this from the same shelf as Faces of Death

5 likes

Review by Annie Choi  June 2023 from Bleeding Skull

In college, I lived in a co-op, which is basically a boardinghouse where each resident does five hours of chores a week. Once I walked into the kitchen for a snack and a housemate was there quietly eating a bagel. Hours later, he knocked on my bedroom door. He stared at me, his eyes wild and dark.

“WHY DID YOU PUT ACID IN MY FUCKING BAGEL?”

Turns out, he had eaten a bagel and started tripping. He saw things, mostly bad things. Nefarious visions of unspeakable acts. He got paranoid. He got scared. He blamed me because I was the last person seen near his bagel. I explained, “No, dude, if I had acid, I would put it in my own bagel. Thank you very much.”

Here’s the truth: I don’t totally like bagels. It’s too much . . . bagel. But if it had acid in it, I’d probably eat it.

The point is that sometimes bad drugs happen to good people, and then they lose their minds and blame bagels and the people who sort of like them. Acid is not for everyone. I’ve seen people really enjoy themselves on a trip and roll around in a pile of leaves and stare at their hands in absolute wonder: Why do fingers only bend in one direction? But I’ve also seen acid destroy people’s brains where they’re never quite the same again. So, you need a certain kind of mental constitution to handle hallucinogens—an ability to understand that reality will be on hiatus for the next 12 hours and maybe you’ll see the Grim Reaper, but it might also just be a bathrobe.

Disembodied is a 90-minute hallucinogenic adventure, and, like acid, you need a certain mental wherewithal to watch it. But it’s well worth trying.

A girl checks into the Grand Hotel, which is neither of those things. There’s disintegrating furniture, moth-eaten carpet, broken light bulbs, and a flurry of flies. The bathroom is truly the dirtiest you’ve ever seen, even worse than the one at the bus stop where someone had smeared shit all over the stall door. The bathtub is crusty and black, and the tiles are covered in furry mold that you could use to knit a blanket for someone you hate. You get a horrifying feeling that inside the mildewed walls, there’s a bustling metropolis of cockroaches. You can almost hear their hard candy shells clatter against each other. This place is less of a fleabag motel and more of an open sewer that happens to have rooms.

The front desk clerk looks like the undead; he’s pale with dark, sunken eyes. He wears a threadbare shirt with yellowed armpits, and that might be the cleanest thing in the whole joint. He offers Connie a room. Connie is exactly 76% goth. Her black hair hangs over her pasty face and she shuffles around silently. Through a giant hole in her wall, Connie spies on her neighbor, who is entertaining a john. Connie settles into her new home. She unpacks her clothes, organizes her rock collection, and places potions on the table. Then she puts her brain on the table. It’s in a gurgling tank. “God, I need some coffee.” She pours coffee into her brain. She instantly feels chipper.

At night, Connie terrorizes people in the neighborhood. She turns them into slime and eats them. Then, as she sleeps, a monstrous, penis-like deformity on her face oozes spores, which look like starfish made out of Play-Doh. Her filthy bathtub is filled with algal blooms and alien organisms that look like severed vaginas. Symbolism is at work here, though it’s unclear what the symbols mean in the context of the film.

Disembodied is less about plot and more about the experience. Nothing really happens in this movie and even if it did, it’d be secondary to the mood. This film plunges you into a surreal, haunting world and keeps you there for 90 mesmerizing minutes. It’s dark and dirty, claustrophobic and grotesque, hypnotic and inescapable. This is not a movie with explosive gore or violent twists. This is not a movie with histrionic characters and outrageous dialogue. In fact, there’s hardly any dialogue at all. Or music. This is a film that’s eerily silent and most of what you hear is the sound of your own breath and the occasional low whisper out of Connie’s mouth.

The film offers dreamy imagery of erupting volcanoes and toasting marshmallows. We see alien lifeforms that bubble and ooze and crawl across the floor. We see stop-motion animations of a carrot hitting a potato. We also see a rock with an eyeball. There’s a mysterious budding flower, a tap-dancing sequence, potions that move on their own, and a scene where Connie changes out of her drab black garb and puts on a Technicolor dress. It’s unclear what any of it means, but it doesn’t matter. Like an acid trip, it’s best to accept it all without questions and escape into a trance, one where you’re rarely bored even when you literally see a goth fall asleep in a chair.

Director William Kersten mixes the gritty darkness of David Cronenberg, the foreboding uneasiness of David Lynch, and the surreal production design of Tim Burton (when he was good). Disembodied is equal parts horror and experimental art, but it never feels pretentious. This is a film that lives in the details. The set, costume, and props perfectly serve a cinematic acid trip, one where very little happens but much is communicated. It’s just never clear what exactly is being communicated. Describing Disembodied is like describing your acid trip to someone; words fail the actual experience.

For the record, I did not put acid in my housemate’s bagel.

Also for the record, the Blu-ray edition of the film has been updated with new digital effects and music and I highly recommend watching the original VHS or DVD. You know what to do.

Bonnie Bell

★★★★★ Watched by Bonnie Bell 02 Apr 2023

Cinema for weirdo girls!!!!!! cinema for girls who like the taste of blood in their mouths!!!!!!! cinema for girls who don't sleep!!!!!!! cinema for girls who slip into corners and fade away before anyone can spot them!!!!!! cinema for misunderstood ladies

7 likes

AcaTHEJUDGE

★★★★½ Watched by AcaTHEJUDGE 26 Sep 2023

the pussy motif is real prevalent & I love it

ascalaphid

★★★½ Watched by ascalaphid 22 Sep 2023

fascinating and goopy little artifact that wears its influences--henenlotter, cronenberg, svankmajer, probably richard elfman--on its sleeve. i'm still stunned that a low-budget movie made in 1998 with this title and poster and premise was shot on real film and not video or shitty digital. god bless.

2 likes

Dylan O'Malley Kiewel

★★★★ Watched by Dylan O'Malley Kiewel 22 Sep 2023

this is just sitting on tubi right now

2 likes

Dogfood Williams Blood Café

★★★★ Watched by Dogfood Williams Blood Café 21 Sep 2023  1

Immediately impressed. Looks and feels halfway between Basketcase and Eraserhead but tastes like Love God. Proof that animators are superior filmmakers.

11 likes

Bruno Weber

★★★★½ Watched by Bruno Weber 01 Sep 2023

Como é possível esse ser um dos filmes mais bonitos que eu já vi?

Sério, foi uma das experiências visuais mais belas que eu já tive com o audiovisual.

Isso.

Isso aqui!

1 like

BrokenVhs

★★★★ Watched by BrokenVhs 29 Aug 2023

Eraserhead meets Brain Damage. My kind of movie.

1 like

Hollywood Nights 🎞️

★★★½ Watched by Hollywood Nights 🎞️ 25 Aug 2023

“Stuck in a sewer but got big plans for the future”

I’m convinced this takes place in the same cinematic universe as Brain Damage, Demons & Tammy and the T-Rex.

You call that living ? Being trapped in a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells?

Give me my brain!

5 likes

specterM91

★★★★ Watched by specterM91 25 Aug 2023

What you'd get if you told a computer to make a Henenlotter movie. (Complimentary)

All the slimy, chunky, meaty bits you'd expect from body horror and splatter greats like the aforementioned Henenlotter or the Cronenberg duo or Lamberson are here but they're paired with these striking, vibrant vignettes of cosmic nonsense that really gives the whole thing a flavor of its own.

Fantastic effects, an interesting cast, a unique setup; insane to think I'd never even heard of this one until like six hours ago.

Tromaslut

★★★★ Watched by Tromaslut 22 Aug 2023

I rewatch this movie at least once a month..like a low budget homage to Eraserhead

Adam Amrani

★★★½ Watched by Adam Amrani 20 Aug 2023

I have to rewatch this a lot of times. This reminds me of Damian Lees "Food of the Gods II" for some reason - it might be the music. Dismebodied feels really ambiguous in it's time but has a sort of 1980s early horror tone going for it that I can't quite pinpoint on first watch. If anything, it makes me nostalgic for super low-budget effects that aren't quite schlock, but are endearing. The cut-scene art is downright beautiful and simple. The weird little creatures are dream-like and the dialogue and script? is fantastic.

Add a little bit of Antibirth and a little bit of the claymation scenes of Heavenly Creatures and a bit of vision of Crimes of the Future and just run it through file degradation software and you might pop out with a movie that looks something like this.

"You call that living? Being trapped in a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells" - this resonated with me hard.

Sex Ray Spex ⚡

★★★★★ Watched by Sex Ray Spex ⚡ 13 Aug 2023

“Lies, lies, adults forbid them and yet they tell so many. I feel ugly, like I'm a bad person, and yet I'd like to be loved." My favorite monster films boil down to this sentiment from Elena Ferrante. Disembodied is a bright ode to b-movie monsters, kind-hearted freaks, and all that is monstrous within us.

Disembodied does an interesting thing by splitting its protagonist into a holy trinity. What we get in the way of verbal explanation is from Doctor Sigmund Sylvanus: There is a Connie Sproutz, the host. She loved science, and most of all was a faithful employee. Then there is the parasite known as Connie, a ravenous monster. He suggests all who are consumed by the parasite are reborn, living forever trapped in their minds as brains without bodies. Connie herself presents a third option of a new Connie that was born after her infection, an alien parasite but not reducible to it. Dr. Sigmund Sylvanus is the voice of reason, of society, that sees no option but to exterminate her. We have, perhaps, every reason to agree.

Despite her status as a murderous monster, the film encourages us to see her as weak and vulnerable. Enter the atomic American Southwest, last stop. A young girl arrives alone at a skid row motel, menaced by a leering clerk. She’s got nothing but her two suitcases and a leather jacket. The world is disgusting and violent, Connie is quiet and unassuming. We see her commit only one murder of an innocent, and the thrust of it occurs off-camera. Disembodied suggests a maternal relationship between host and parasite, as Connie tends to her brain-beings so diligently. Quirky moments like her potato obsession and method of coffee intake do even more to endear her.

Within her new self, Connie sees radical possibility, self-knowledge is an end in itself. She has found a way to “dampen” the parasite, and she is as ecstatic about her scientific work as ever. Perhaps Connie, the host sees a potential in her monstrosity that others cannot. Lacking in other stimulation, Connie’s mind bursts forth with hypnagogic sleep manifestations and patterns. She dreams of bursting forth, of the infinite space within a mind. These dream sequences are extraordinarily beautiful and feel true to my experience of those electric impulses behind the mind. And even though her brain-babies are trapped, it is suggested that eventually they too begin to grow.

What changes things for Connie is Trixie, the sex worker next door who lives in a candy-painted world so unlike Connie’s. Trixie offers friendship simply because they’re both stuck in the same rat hole, and she does not run away in horror from Connie’s face. She doesn’t care what Connie did in the past and saves her life. The alien parasite that is Connie experiences human compassion for the first time, and it changes things. I won’t give anything away, but the ending is a truly tragic gesture of acceptance and resignation.

And all of the above is done in the most beautiful 16mm colors, greens so deep I want to live in them.

I loved this film so much that I took a temporary break from watching movies. I wanted to linger in its feeling before it was replaced by something else. I felt so deeply seen by Connie in ways I can't even place.

17 likes

austin

★★★½ Watched by austin 13 Aug 2023

SOV horror that just so happened to be shot on 16mm, lending its DIY textures a very one-of-a-kind flourish and its characters an unexpectedly tender amount of care. connie sproutz is the she/they queen i can imagine taking a lot of inspo after 🖤

4 likes

Craig

★★★★½ Watched by Craig 06 Aug 2023

God, I need some coffee.

[pours directly onto brain]

clavendr

★★★½ Watched by clavendr 05 Aug 2023

Love a movie with a goth girl lead!!

This was shockingly good for a low-budget art horror venture. It reminded me of Dr. Caligari (Sayadian) with a 90's edge and impressively gross visual effects. Also some great claymation, animation and set design. The story is quite bizarre and acid comes up multiple times yet it retains its consistency and never veers off too unhinged. Incredibly creative and well executed little weirdo movie.

curtymcdervs

★★★½ Watched by curtymcdervs 05 Aug 2023

A delightfully nasty Henenlotter-does-Eraserhead good time. Volcanoes, oozing boils, potatoes with eyes, obnoxiously large cigars, educational film reels, brains in jars and a whole lot more. It’s incredible that this film seemingly hasn’t found its audience yet, I think most genre fans would have a field day with it.

9 likes

FakeVoorhees

★★★½ Watched by FakeVoorhees 03 Aug 2023 2

Phallic cheek tumors, giant stomach vaginas, alienated brains... What in the Henenlotter did I just watch?

22 likes

Jake Fisher

★★★½ Watched by Jake Fisher 04 Aug 2023

So usually this is not my type of film but this one was actually pretty damn good. Definitely half arthouse but the other half was a story that kept me interested. Also helps that this was an hour and 15 minutes. Everybody should listen to Unsung Horrors.

1 like

RobertButtons

★★★½ Watched by RobertButtons 01 Aug 2023

The most 1958 movie made in 1998. Loved the lead in this one. Some nice stop motion and space scapes as well. A fun 75 minutes!

Francisco Ochoa

★★★½ Watched by Francisco Ochoa 27 Jul 2023

Watched on Tubi tv. Enjoyed the goo here.

Discovered this when it was talked about on the Unsung Horrors Podcast w/ Annie Choi from Bleeding Skull!

1 like

Lance Schibi

★★★★ Rewatched by Lance Schibi 21 Jul 2023

I 🫀 Disembodied. Listen to us chat about this creative beast of a film w/ guest Annie Choi of Bleeding Skull! on our podcast (please disregard the shitty mix on my mic as best you can). I also shared some information directly from director William Kersten after emailing back & forth. Bill is a sweetheart! Be sure to check out his more recent stop motion animation shorts on his site. 🧠

6 likes

Erica

★★★½ Rewatched by Erica 22 Jul 2023

It’s timeless but also so very 90s. Put your brain in a jar and listen to a full review on Unsung Horrors with Annie Choi from Bleeding Skull:

HERE

2 likes

mdcmdcmdc

★★★★★ Watched by mdcmdcmdc 24 Jul 2023

David Lynch presents Guy Maddin’s Rabid feat. Basket Case

jo

Watched by jo 20 Jul 2023

How to describe this movie? Bizarre. Gross. Unique. It was awesome.

Adam Hursey

★★★★½ Watched by Adam Hursey 19 Jul 2023

To be covered on an upcoming episode of the Unsung Horrors podcast.

So I went in for a sleep study last night. I've been on a CPAP machine for about 5 years now. But I've lost around 60 pounds in the last couple of years (and kept (most) of it off thank you very much), so I was hopeful that maybe I don't need it anymore. Not that strapping a mask to my face and fighting with a hose all night long isn't a joy.

Anywho, it was a terrible experience. I might have slept about 2 hours total. It really wasn't all of the wires that were strapped to me (again, I have a black belt in nocturnal hose fighting). It was the constant voice telling me to move or adjust something or breathe through my nose (I'm a major nasal spray addict--once that wore off, it was Katy bar the door time). Plus, this mattress was the worst thing I've ever slept on. And the pillows were a joke. I mean, how much money y'all charging insurance companies? Y'all need some Serta BeautyRest Black Label edition mattresses in these rooms. And whatever the political neutral version of MyPillow is.

All of this exposition (there is more exposition in this review than the entire run time of Disembodied) to say that I think my sleep deprivation played a role in how much I enjoyed this film! It hooked me from the beginning, and I feel like I am just the right amount of loopy to just let the film happen without questioning anything.

Disembodied tells the story of Connie, a woman/scientist/inventor who rents a terrible room in the basement, sharing the space with the boiler. But Connie has a secret. She has a spore-oozing sore on her face that liquifies those around her so she can feed on them for due to the parasite that inhabits her body. Oh yeah, and she keeps her brain in a jar on the side table.

That's a brief synopsis of what thrusts this film into motion. Along the way, we are treated to a cavalcade of interesting side characters, especially Connie's neighbor Trixie and "The Cleaning Lady".

A late 90s mind-melter, it would be easy to compare Disembodied to something like Eraserhead or Brain Damage, classics of goopy, body horror madness. I also felt some strong Dr. Caligari vibes, but maybe because I just watched that one fairly recently. Yet somehow, Disembodied feels like its own totally original force. It has to been seen--words cannot describe the joys the film has to offer. Just don't try to watch it in a sober, lucid state.

20 likes

ljennif

★★★ Watched by ljennif 08 Jul 2023

That's ho you start a movie.

There's a pulsating vagina heart, and a vagina shaped hole in the wall and a hooker eating a cherry pir and I think there's theme here.

If you understand this you've done a lot of drugs.

I was hoping Connie and Trixie would become the new Thelma and Louise.

I have no idea what was going on but I was entertained by the nonsense.

1 like

notyourcowgirl

★★★★ Watched by notyourcowgirl 26 Jun 2023

“You know, you’re a lot smarter than your average dope. You’ve got brains.” Uhhh… yes 🧠 🧠🧠🧠

This is a world of Frank Henenlotter and David Lynch! I see a bit of elements from Basket Case, Brain Damage, and Eraserhead. I definitely fell asleep the first time around because of the dreamlike state throughout the whole movie. The vibrant colors kept me awake and the disgusting sounds were. Blergh 😖 strange and slimy body horror, I loved it!

1 like

James

★★★★ Watched by James 26 Jun 2023

This whips ass. Basket Case meets Eraserhead with just a dash of Color Me Blood Red and sprinkle in some surprisingly well done stop-motion animation and sci-fi miniatures. Released in 1998 but could have been filmed at any point between 1976 and today. Why is everything shaped like a vagina tho?

3 likes

sayj

Watched by sayj 26 Jun 2023

dare i say it... lynchian

4 likes

kat nelson

★★★★ Watched by kat nelson 24 Jun 2023

some of the grossest practicals i’ve seen in a while 🤌

XaviSanchezPons

★★★★ Watched by XaviSanchezPons 24 Jun 2023

Me acabo de enamorar hasta las trancas de esta película que está hecha del material que están hechos los sueños del terror/sci-fi de bajo presupuesto que importa. Una peli realmente hipnagógica, llena de imágenes sugerentes lo-fi y muy Henenlotter, que en su último tramo funciona como un precedente de Under the Skin (el final es exactamente el mismo, muy fuerte, pero cierto).

2 likes

vampirevomit

★★★★★ Watched by vampirevomit 21 Jun 2023

This is every flavor I want in a late 90s scifi/horror flick.

It hits just the right level of odd fever dream of the era(you know what I mean) and then it's all mixed with an Ed Wood movie.

megoravitz

★★ Watched by megoravitz 20 Jun 2023

the concept and characters were kooky as fuck. that’s the only word i can find for it. i just think the concept should’ve been done so much better. so close to being a 90s fun body horror cheap click but just misses the mark for me over and over. icky and kooky for sure, but bad :/

Bleeding Skull

Rewatched by Bleeding Skull 20 Jun 2023

This film offers dreamy imagery of erupting volcanoes and toasting marshmallows. We see alien lifeforms that bubble and ooze and crawl across the floor. We see stop-motion animations of a carrot hitting a potato. We also see a rock with an eyeball. There’s a mysterious budding flower, a tap-dancing sequence, potions that move on their own, and a scene where Connie changes out of her drab black garb and puts on a Technicolor dress. It’s unclear what any of it means, but it doesn’t matter. Like an acid trip, it’s best to accept it all without questions and escape into a trance, one where you’re rarely bored even when you literally see a goth fall asleep in a chair. Director William Kersten mixes the gritty darkness of David Cronenberg, the foreboding uneasiness of David Lynch, and the surreal production design of Tim Burton (when he was good). DISEMBODIED is equal parts horror and experimental art, but it never feels pretentious. This is a film that lives in the details. The set, costume, and props perfectly serve a cinematic acid trip, one where very little happens but much is communicated. It’s just never clear what exactly is being communicated. Describing DISEMBODIED is like describing your acid trip to someone; words fail the actual experience.

Read the full review by Annie Choi:

bleedingskull.com/disembodied-1998/

30 likes

pimpdoll

★★★★★ Watched by pimpdoll 18 Jun 2023

need me a bad bitch like this

☥ skylar ☥

★★★★★ Watched by ☥ skylar ☥ 15 Jun 2023

so glad i finally got around to watching this. from the scuzzy rundown hotel setting to the body horror this ticks many boxes for me. there’s a severe lack of female mad scientist characters and this movie filled a hole in my heart!! i absolutely adore connie, what a great protagonist she is. trixie is so cute and funny too i loved her friendship with connie <3 and the stop motion scenes??? this movie fucking rocked!

J_Fleischhacker

Watched by J_Fleischhacker 04 Jun 2023

Une sympathique vue de body horror à très bas budget. L'histoire est un peu boboche, mais le film dégage quand même une ambiance crasse à souhait. Les effets spéciaux ont un gros rôle là-dedans.

1 like

Charles Pieper

★★★ Watched by Charles Pieper 05 Jun 2023

A wild mix of Henenlotter, Cronenberg, and Lynch, all filtered through the sun bleached mood of late 90s Nevada. Very hand made, very rough, very silly and enjoyable!

2 likes

Herschel Gillis

★★★★★ Rewatched by Herschel Gillis 24 May 2023

A mix of Frank Henenlotter, Tim Burton, Lovecraft, and 50s scifi B movies.  Infinitely comforting and rewatchable.  A completely unique film.  The sort of film that reinforces my love of cinema.  Pure magic

3 likes

cenobite_

Watched by cenobite_ 23 May 2023

Half-dreamt worm charmer that feels like watching a painting wink at you

3 likes

Jordan H

★★★★★ Watched by Jordan H 21 May 2023

Giving my brain fluids regularly with an electrical charge 12 volts D.C. for one hour every Monday morning—pure and perfect holy transmission from half dream state netherworld, not awake not asleep just content and cozy and warm; just so thankful to have something like this—from light years away psychedelic astral projection volcano all the way to Nevada black mold basement utility closet bedroom and if being trapped in a pulpy nodule of undifferentiated cells ain’t living then I don’t want to live.

5 likes

deadlyhabit

★★½ Watched by deadlyhabit 12 May 2023

What...

axm

★★★★ Watched by axm 10 May 2023

pretty good and super unique but why does that girl look kinda like ltcorbis (this is a bad thing)

desperately need to rewatch this but the original version on vhs cause the version i watched seems to be some janky "director's cut" with brand new footage (as in recently shot) and a brand new score and it just throws shit off. i hate it when people do that raaah its so distracting

Morgan

★★★★★ Rewatched by Morgan 09 May 2023

Low-keyed multilayered dream horror for spectrum-dwelling Henenlotter girlies. I'm so glad this movie exists.

7 likes

mdfmdf

★★★★ Watched by mdfmdf 05 May 2023

Walking to the desert to bury my gross little mouth

"Please keep this brain safe"

10 likes

Herschel Gillis

★★★★★ Watched by Herschel Gillis 02 May 2023

If you don’t like this movie, I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you

2 likes

TobeWobe

★★★★ 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.

Nevaeh Morissette

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

Review of Disembodied by Shawn Francis, DVD News Flash, May 27, 108

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears mentioning again, I’ve been reviewing since 2012, and occasionally I’ll notice patterns in the reviews I do, as in a series of random movies with similar themes will pop up. Mind you these patterns are not planned, which is why it makes them so fun when I notice them. It appears I’m in another pattern that started with my last review of Annihilation (2018). I ended that review by saying, “Highly recommended for connoisseurs of weird cinema and/or H.P. Lovecraft fans!” Well, it appears that also applies to Disembodied. Whereas Annihilation I would describe as “big budget weirdness,” I would describe this movie as “low-budget weirdness.” Basically flip-sides of that same coin is the way I’m looking at both of these films.

Before I start the cover for the blu-ray (see below in the specs department) is deceptive. It gives one the impression at some point you’ll see a human head in a jar. Not so, what you’ll witness is a human brain in a jar. I know, I know, it’s not as gruesome, but Disembodied gets gruesome in totally different ways, just not “human head in a jar gruesome”.

For a movie made in 1998 I was a little taken aback I hadn’t heard of it. I didn’t discover its existence until I was perusing the pre-orders on Amazon, and, well, you have to admit that blu-ray cover is kind of an eye-catcher. That in turn lead me down to the description of the movie and that was pretty much the clincher. So, I hit up IMDB and educated myself on all things Disembodied. This led me to a user review by a wkerstenmusic, which was pretty easy to figure out was from the Director, William Kersten, and that in turn led me to a trailer of the movie on YouTube. I don’t know . . . there was something about that trailer that piqued my interest, so here I am writing a review on it, and here you are reading it. In a nutshell, I dug it.

Is it weird?

You betcha!

In fact you might call it uber-weird, but I like uber-weird movies, even mildly weird movies, if they strike me just the right way, and it appears Disembodied did just that.  The reason for the two release dates in the review heading is that it originally came out in 1998, but as Kerston states in his “review,“ this version is a Director’s Cut, and the date for that is listed as 2016 in the end credits. Fangoria reviewed the VHS and actually gave it a positive review, I never saw the VHS, so I don’t know what that version looked like, but Kersten states:

“A new, rich symphonic music track and special effects which were originally too complex to be produced properly will be included in this release, which will extend the stop motion animation seen in a few scenes in the original version.”

And I will say the improved effects are very well done, and the stop-motion was good too, but that symphonic music track really gave the flick scope, at times making it feel very much like a movie from the hey-day of Hollywood, and other times sounding like something Richard Band would create. If you’re not familiar with Band, check out the music for films like Re-Animator, From Beyond and The Resurrected, all of which “coincidentally” are movies based on the tales of H.P. Lovecraft.

According to Kersten his film, “. . . is inspired by traumatic dreams of the director, the 50s film “Daughter of Horror” and the great Frank Henenlotter’s “Basket Case.” I’m familiar with Basket Case (1982), though there’s also a vibe of Henenlotter’s other film, Brain Damage (1988), in it too, but I had to look up Daughter Of Horror to see what that was about. Dementia (1955) is the alternate title it goes by and IMDB describes as, “This film, with no dialogue at all, follows a psychotic young woman’s nightmarish experiences through one skid-row night.” And with that I can definitely see a “Daughter Of Horror” vibe in it.

There’s very little dialogue in the first act, and nothing’s explained until a little ways in, but I’m going to spoil that in this paragraph, so if you want to go into this cold, stop reading now, you’ve been warned! The movie only runs about an hour and fourteen minutes and has a maximum of three main characters, and two supporting ones in it. Connie Sproutz (Anastasia Woolverton) is the main character who comes to the Grand Hotel for reasons that we’ll soon see are bizarre to say the least. The only room available is in the basement, with the one she’s given being right next to a hooker by the name of Trixie Turner (Hannah Cooper; billed as Hannah Nease on IMDB). She’s actually a nice girl who befriends Connie later in the movie, but for right now she wants to be alone in this scummy apartment (Trixie’s been at the hotel longer and her room actually looks nice and clean). Don’t even ask me to describe the current state of the toilet, the furnace is in her room too. So what’s wrong with Connie? Well, she had an alien encounter (never shown) that resulted in her brain being replaced with a parasite (stop motion creation seen twice in the movie). It altered her body giving her a toothy maw in her belly and a zit on her cheek that grows and becomes part of her feeding cycle. Connie no longer eats human food, only human brains (shades of Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond (1986), a loose adaptation of Lovecraft’s story by the same name). Once she targets a victim she gets close and that zit grows into a nasty protuberance that spurts flesh eating acid all over the unlucky soul. Flesh is melted, but not the brain, once that’s exposed she chows down on it.

The next part of this “cycle” is she then “gives birth” through that maw in her belly to an organ that looks like a human heart with a vagina in the middle. These are what’s left of the poor souls she eats, their essences distilled down to these bloody organs. Still with me? She then for whatever unearthly reason puts them in water in the bathtub, but it’s not over yet. For more unearthly reasons we’ll never find out, she will at some point get the urge to put them in a flower pot and cover them with dirt. A tulip will soon grow. That’s it. An odd way to take over a planet. But here’s the kicker, Connie carries around her own brain in a jar in a case, and hooks it up to this makeshift 1920s almost Lovecraftian machine every night when she goes to sleep. Apparently this has to be done to keep the dreams her brain experiences every night from becoming reality!

This becomes part of the story because the machine isn’t quite doing its job as well as it used too and every night we get to see the crazy visuals she dreams, and how they leak into our reality, this is where you just have to go with the film and not expect logical linear storytelling to keep itself on the tracks. As I mentioned we see that parasite in her head pop out one night and slither under the bed, but it was a dream, right? Yes and no? There’s a trail of slime where it plopped down on the floor. We don’t see it again until late in the movie where it suddenly slithers out and slithers into the jar where her brain is kept. Why? Because this isn’t Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

This movie brought to mind two other H.P. Lovecraft tales; the brain in a jar and still being “alive” is very reminiscent of “The Whisperer In Darkness,” and someone coming to stay in a building and ends up having these crazy dreams is very reminiscent of “The Dreams In The Witch House” tale.

Eventually we’ll see an old-ish guy wearing a black trench coat, black fedora and sunglasses shadowing Connie’s every movie. He’s scientist/investigator, Dr. Sigmund Sylvanus and he’s been hunting Connie for three years. He knows what happened to her, and they even worked together at a company called, Plasmaster Corporation, where Connie’s role was an inventor, but we just never get any details about how she got that damn E.T. parasite in her noggin. He’s the source of all our knowledge having dictated his thoughts on tape. There’s also a very retro-science fiction vibe in this too, just check out the poster at the top of this page for a kernel of that.

The special effects artist, James Diederichsen, also has a small part as the creepy-as-hell night clerk that pesters Connie and Trixie, eventually leading to an all out physical assault/potential rape of Trixie that Connie puts a gruesome end to, a segment of the movie where we finally get to see her feeding cycle in all its gruesome glory. As I expected the movie’s end is as inexplicably bizarre as the rest of the movie. After dispatching the night clerk she heads out to the desert to as near as I can figure commit suicide by laying on the ground and unleashing her acid spewing zit upon herself, where she melts and turns into (or cocoons herself into) a rock. She also plants the regurgitated brain of the night clerk in the ground next to her.

Review from Andrew Hannon, 13horror.com, October 31, 2016

An extremely accomplished and very engaging feature, with a show stealing performance by Anastasia Woolverton.

With regards to the opening scene, I was halfway through thinking something along the lines of “What lovely scenery. I wonder where this was filmed.” I should have been braced for the jump scare, but I wasn’t. I managed a (nervous) laugh and it was the first of many more laughs to come. The look and feel of Disembodied is beautiful. In keeping with the brain-in-a-jar, parasitic-face-monster elements, there’s a kind of patented quirkiness to everything about it - the acting, the visuals, the dialogue... it’s like it’s color-coded to match with itself. The music also gets involved. It’s haunting and adds to the creepy moments immeasurably, but it even lends itself completely intrusively and unashamedly to the comedy, correlating with Connie’s arranging and re-arranging of bottles on her dresser.

Anastasia Woolverton alternates between looking like a 45 year old virgin librarian to an absolute stunner, depending on what the film demands of her. She is beyond impressive and was extremely watchable.

The writing is outlandish but extremely clever and humorous, with lovely whammies like eye-balls in potatoes followed by dialogue stating “Potatoes don’t agree with me.” Sylvanus’s important addition to the narrative confirms the well-thought out and clever premise which underpins the film, while Trixie’s yawns and yells as the explanation is being delivered keep things in line with the unique atmosphere that permeates the film.

There are some stunning visuals and effects interspersed throughout and excellently acted supporting roles from the very impressive James Diederichsen and very amusing Patricia Mathews.

This is a gem.

Review from milkhole213, IMDB, July 12, 2013

Ultra low budget Henenlotterian body-horror

12 July 2013

Disembodied is about a young woman named Connie Sproutz (Anastasia Woolverton) on the run from the Plasmaster corporation. It turns out she is some of of genetic experiment with half-human/half-extraterrestrial DNA. She has been on the run for years and our story begins with her taking refuge in a place called the Grand Hotel which may be the dumpiest/sleaziest hotel in history.

Connie has a strange growth on the side of her face which spurts a liquid that dissolves humans down to their brains which she then devours. She later gives birth to bloody blob-like things which seem to contain the essence of theses brains. This is shown in graphic detail a couple of times. She only seems to kill transients or low-life's. Her hotel has a hole in the side of the wall which is how she meets her only friend, a nice and attractive prostitute named Trixie who doesn't seem to mind how weird Connie is.

Other than the scientist the only other character who gets much screen time is the sleazy and gross hotel night clerk who keeps trying to get the girls to watch educational films on super 8 with him. He is unsuccessful and later on tries to have his way with Trixie. He notices Connie watching from the hole in the wall and reaches his arm through to grab her. The films gory highlight happens here as Connie grabs a saw out of her dresser (where she has rocks, tools and lots of other odd items stored) and proceeds to saw his arm off in the film's bloodiest scene. He even manages to make it into Connie's room, spurting blood from his stump but he ends up like so many of her other victims, dissolved down to his brain and then devoured. Connie also has strange visions of alien worlds.

Disembodied is a strange body-horror film populated with weird/sleazy characters and a vibe/setting you'd find in most Frank Henenlotter films (especially Basket Case and Brain Damage) or something like Slime City. Fans of Frank's films should seek this out but don't expect it to be as good as his films. There is no nudity, but the actress who plays Trixie is quite attractive. There are a few gore scenes and slimy creatures. The FX are decent for the budget, all practical or stop motion. The acting is fine for this type of film. Some scenes are too dark though. It runs about 78 minutes which is about the right length. Fans of stuff like Basket Case, Slime City, The Soultangler, The Deadly Spawn, etc. should seek this out.