Hyperphallic -ep.1- -umbrelloid- Instant

By J. H. Vane, Staff Writer for Liminal Field Notes

We are in , a cylindrical, windowless laboratory located somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The lighting is bioluminescent green. Kai Aper’s character is dissecting a fungal specimen that looks uncannily like an inverted human ribcage. Hyperphallic -Ep.1- -Umbrelloid-

The final three minutes are a montage of body horror: The mycologist’s fingers lengthen into stipes (fungal stems). His skull indents at the crown. He kneels in the center of the Rotunda, and from his cervical vertebrae bursts a massive, veined umbrella cap. He has become the host. The episode ends with a wide shot: The Rotunda is now a forest of small, human-shaped fungi bowing toward a central, throne-like Umbrelloid. The sound cuts to absolute silence, then the drip of water. Why "Umbrelloid"? The suffix -oid means "resembling but not identical." An umbrella protects from the rain. The Umbrelloid in this episode does the opposite: it creates a microclimate of infection. The lighting is bioluminescent green

Watch if you liked: Possessor (2020), Annihilation (2018), the infested episodes of Scavengers Reign , or the photography of Joel-Peter Witkin. His skull indents at the crown