By Keri O’Shea
We’re an unhappy array of meat-sacks, eh? Even in these times – in the Western world at least – of relative plenty and luxury (and before you argue, consider that you could have been born in the 14th Century) we treat our bodies like battlegrounds; when material concerns become secondary, we turn our gaze inwards, and when for many spirituality has slipped into the background, or disappeared altogether, then the body can become all, and for its own sake. Perhaps we starve it, or gorge, or puncture, or cut it, or surgically alter, or detest its component parts – but for many, a prolonged and considered hatred of their physical being is part of the daily routine. When this self-loathing becomes pathological, then the condition of body dysmorphia can hold sway. That very real, very irrational mental state is the basis for filmmaker Andy Stewart’s short film, itself titled Dysmorphia – and it’s not a film which plays coy with the grisly potential of the disease.
Our nameless protagonist – unknown to us, but evidently loved by someone, to judge by the family photo he keeps by his side, is a man who plans to take a very final step in his fixation with a warped, disfigured or somehow ‘wrong’ – in his eyes, anyway – body part…the end result is excruciating, engrossing, and brutally honest.
You can check out the film here:
“DYSMORPHIA” (HD) from Andy Stewart on Vimeo.
Sometimes you don’t need anything other than an unflinching focus on mental torment to bring the horror, and it is clear from this film that director Andy Stewart understands this; he judges the amount of scrutiny to give to the focus of his film very well (and no doubt there will have been some other considerations in how much of the injury to display) but for one thing, it at least makes a decent attempt to replicate just how damn difficult it would be to sever a limb. Take note, Fede Alvarez.
True, the epilogue of this short film stretches things a little, but not past the point of possibility; we’ve probably all read about people so fascinated with amputation that they’ve made their own attempts. What we definitely get here is a sense of the pain and sick determination to do something to one’s flesh that would appall most people, and the dialogue-lite screenplay, with its very realistic-seeming and prolonged non-verbal agony, adds hugely to its overall effect. I felt a sense of foreboding at the beginning of this film – and that definitely returned at the end. The constant compulsion to photograph and upload images added an unpleasant, oddly familiar veneer, too…we do seem to be living in the age of continually uploading every moment of our lives, so why not this?
Stewart is about to release his next short film, Split, onto the horror festival circuit – so check out the trailer, and be sure to give it a watch if you see it out there.