SHITHEAD
2025 · 10m · USA
Directed by Riley Donigan
Genres: dark comedy, drama, horror
A young man's literal physical condition starts rotting his mental state, his relationships, and his weekly therapy session. Body-horror metaphor as a stand-in for everything modern life refuses to let him put down.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The metaphor is the title and the prosthetic. This shouldn't work but Donigan refuses to break eye contact long enough for you to laugh it off.
Riley Donigan's body-horror-as-psychic-disintegration is in the Aronofsky/Cronenberg cradle; the title earns either disgust or affection depending on the patience of the framing.
Prosthetic FX literalize the self-loathing — a tumor protruding from the temple in every shot — and the opening's 9/11-on-loop ex-girlfriend phone call sets exactly the right queasy register for Cronenberg-by-way-of-therapy.
Reviews
Grotesque throughout, oftentimes difficult to watch, the film's extreme use of symbolism feels appropriate.