From the mind that brought you The Exorcism of Margot Miles comes The Dissolving Man. Every since Covid, people have been so uppity about germs. In this Ben Swicker short, a man has more than enough reason to be such a hypochondriac. Be prepared for some grossness!
A paranoid man pricks his finger with a dirty needle and slowly loses his mind as he waits for test results.
The Dissolving Man, IMDB
Tom (played by Topher Hansson) and his girlfriend Sarah (Josephine Cooper) are out at a park, discussing their future lives and possible children ahead of them. As Tom’s sour attitude about the frailty of life and surrounding dangers of the outside world get to him, he notices a dirty syringe sticking out of the ground nearby, proving his thoughts on how grody the world is. A quick struggle with Sarah ends in his finger being pricked and a trip to the hospital, results coming in the next five days. But as each day goes by, Tom finds something new, something gnarly going on with his body: bloated pustules that leak a cheesy substance, bloody gums (and later pee), bruises, cuts, aches, pains — the works. While Tom suffers from this mysterious needle-borne illness, everyone else puts it off as his paranoid delusions… or, y’know, the flu. As the title suggests, he really is a Dissolving Man, waiting for a solution to his mystery prognosis.
Knowing how much money and time it takes to create realistic prosthetics, I want to give Ben and his team some major props at making The Dissolving Man one excellent body horror short. Tom’s condition grows worse and worse every day, and it’s easy to tell how far off from healthy he is becoming. From yellow bruising and blue undereye bags to fist-sized growths coming off of his body — and the terribly foul white pus that shoots out — everything looks wet, slimy, and just gross. As a nail in the coffin, The Dissolving Man features a fake penis with blackened veins and large amounts of wine-red blood it happens to release. It’s almost like the penis was its own character that was depressed and just as sick as Tom was.
But of course, a fake wiener is not a human actor, and the acting in The Dissolving Man was great. Tom is a realistic hypochondriac and doesn’t overdo the stereotype (unwarranted, at least). Sarah is probably how I would react to someone like Tom and works to go directly against his delusions, in effect making them worse. Dr. Johan Maddox is everyone’s favorite uninterested and unworried doctor, sealing Tom’s fate with his apathy. The Dissolving Man didn’t need a whole world of people to make the story work — hell, it would’ve even worked with just Tom! But everyone did their part to push us the the brink of madness and give us those disgusting moments we all secretly want to watch.
A few things I loved about The Dissolving Man were (1) keeping with Tom’s point of view, and (2) the small touches to the background decor. On the first point, we see what Tom sees: all of the vile things happening to his body. We get the impression that he is making mountains out of molehills, but we as an audience don’t see it that way. It pulls us in with him, practically begging others to help this poor man out. We have to wonder if it is all really happening, or if he has truly lost his mind. The second point may be missed on the first watch, but gives us just another good reason to keep coming back. Alluding to other horror movies and just plain ol’ funny jokes, the various items in Tom’s house gave me a good laugh. For example, he has a tub of The Stuff in his refrigerator, and the box of cereal on his table is called “Soggy Bits.” In the middle of holding back puke from watching him blow chunks all over his bathroom window, I am also trying to hold back laughter.
The Dissolving Man was genius and definitely a short I want to not only show others, but watch again and again. If you can get past some really nasty imagery and just take it all in as great effects and acting, you’ll be in for a treat.
The Dissolving Man and other shorts can be found on www.goodalehorror.com. Be sure to give them a follow on Instagram as well!
