The Vivisection

The Vivisection
Executive	Doron Tosiso
Production	True Limit Films
Language	T'vaqi
Genre	Horror
Runtime	46 sqovi (66 minutes)
Budget	26,000 qhi
Box Office	44.6 million qhi

The Vivisection (To Qhapiqoroqo) is a T'vaqi horror film created for television on preset wave replay.

Plot

The film opens with footage of farmland. The narrator of the film introduces himself over recorded clips of crop plantations. He states that he is a student filmmaker producing a documentary on the local medical scene of the town he lives in. He notably does not divulge his name or the town he lives in, but does have a pronounced Mholosi accent. The film cuts to a surgical center, which the narrator introduces as "the best in the nation" despite its lackluster appearance. The narrator interviews several staff members of the facility, but spends the most time talking to accomplished cosmetic surgeon Mhodo Asov, who appears to take a liking to the narrator.

The film returns to footage of daily surgical center routine. The narrator obtains permission to enter an unoccupied operating room, and spends some time recording various fixtures and surgical implements. He is informed by a nurse that the room is used only for critical emergencies, and that it has the highest mortality rate of any room in the building. The narrator leaves the room after this, but not before secretly pocketing a scalpel as a souvenir.

The narrator sets up another interview with Mhodo Asov. It is clear by this point that he has developed a fixation on Mhodo, whom he finds peculiar in an indescribable way. Shots become much more amateurish as the narrator begins to lose interest in his initial focus. During the second interview, Mhodo speaks to the narrator on casual terms, insisting the narrator refer to him by his first name. At the end of the conversation, Mhodo invites the narrator to his own house, claiming that he has a special medical process he would like recorded "for the nation to see". The narrator accepts.

At the house, the narrator follows Mhodo into a bunker, where a crude operating table has been set up and furnished with a variety of surgical tools. Mhodo opens a freezer in the bunker but does not let the narrator record the contents, retrieving a smooth layer of human skin. He wordlessly lays down on the operating table and begins slicing a portion of the skin of his forearm off with a scalpel. The process appears excruciatingly painful. Mhodo then crudely stitches the still-frozen skin patch onto his forearm. The narrator is speechless, and Mhodo explains that his own forearm skin was beginning to develop dark spots indicative of a cancerous disease, making use of donated flesh to remove the affected area. The narrator is shaken but intrigued, and agrees to meet Mhodo again the next night.

The next day, the narrator attempts to get more footage of the surgical center, but finds that it is closed. At night, he returns to Mhodo's house and descends into the bunker, where Mhodo is waiting. Mhodo has a wide grimace on his face, appearing to have crudely forced the corners of his mouth into a constant smile with large pins. He tells the narrator in a raspy voice that he is trying to improve his approachability, and that he has yet to find a solution for his voice. Mhodo opens the freezer and hesitates, allowing the narrator to briefly capture what appears to be an emaciated corpse within. The narrator begins breathing more heavily, continuing to film Mhodo. Mhodo produces a human eye and thumb and proceeds to tear out his left eye and saw off his left pinky, replacing them accordingly. He screams throughout the entire process, causing his mouth to bleed profusely around the pins locking it in place. The narrator backs out of the bunker and dashes upstairs, but briefly catches Mhodo returning to the freezer and retrieving a human arm.

The narrator returns to his own home, which is nearby, and forgets to turn off the camera. It records him sobbing before he remembers and turns it off. The narrator wakes up late the next morning and rushes to inform a Magister of what he has seen, but the town's small Magisterial department is preoccupied with an ongoing drug heist. He then attempts to tell someone at the surgical center, but finds it locked with a notice posted informing him that surgical patients have gone missing and that all staff have been dedicated to a search effort. The narrator begins swearing profusely before he spots a young Hapšâw'l woman in hysterics over her missing husband. After thinking, he sprints to Mhodo's house and finds the door unlocked. Descending to the bunker once more, he finds three disfigured corpses piled onto the operating table, including a Hapšâw'l man at the top, horns severed. Mhodo is not present. The narrator, hysterical, runs back to the surgical center, apologizes profusely to the Hapšâw'l woman, and jams his stolen scalpel into the keyhole of the entrance in an attempt to pick the lock. He is successful, and locates the door to the operating room that he previously visited.

Upon opening the door, he discovers Mhodo hunched and writhing on the operating table, making an incision on his forehead. He has grafted horns onto his head, added extra elbow joints to each of his arms, and sewn his still-smiling mouth shut, among other grotesque modifications. Noticing the narrator, he vocalizes through a hole carved into his neck, referring to him as his "most beautiful subject". The narrator, enraged, runs towards Mhodo with his scalpel, but Mhodo dodges the attack with surprising agility. The narrator stumbles, allowing Mhodo to lunge and tackle him to the ground. The camera falls out of the narrator's hands and records part of a wall as audio of the fight continues in the background. A splatter of blood hits the wall and sounds of the struggle cease. The camera is picked up and pointed at the operating table, where the narrator lies motionless with a gash in his neck. The camera is turned off.

Production

The Vivisection was produced with a low budget of only 26,000 qhi. The most expensive piece of equipment needed was the portable camera used to record the entirety of the picture. The film's executive, Doron Tosiso, spent very little money on actors, purposefully hiring those who had never starred in a film prior. Tosiso also did this to improve the realism of The Vivisection, reasoning that a well-known actor may keep the audience from becoming immersed in the story. Tosiso obtained permission to film the surgical center (which in reality is located on the outskirts of Mholos) from a friend who oversaw the facility. The doctors that the narrator interviews are actual surgeons who agreed to be part of the film; some also served as consultants to ensure the movie remained somewhat medically accurate.

Cast

No cast members of The Vivisection had ever starred in a television film before by the director's choice.

• Tinan H'nari as the narrator
• Ion Irri as Mhodo Asov
• Sip Poshami, Loqa Poshami, and Hido Homhan as surgeons
• Asha Qohat as surgical center nurse
• Wilisil Paral as Hapšâw'l wife
• Tšay'l Tegêrâtâ as male Hapšâw'l corpse

Several background roles uncredited.

Effects

Most of The Vivisection's practical effects were fabricated by Tosiso himself. The effects used in the movie were made more convincing by the limitations of the camera used to film it. The portable camera was only able to record a somewhat grainy black-and-white image, and imperfections could be covered up by this lower recording quality. Of note is that all of the fake blood used in the movie was actually thickened water dyed dark blue, since food-grade blue dye was the cheapest when bought in bulk.

Most of the surgical scenes were accomplished with prosthetics containing a reservoir of "blood". Ion Irri, the actor playing Mhodo Asov, has a fake eye, which inspired Tosiso to have Mhodo remove his own eye in the film. For the effect, Irri was given a custom fake eye which dispenses "blood" once its outer shell is removed. During filming, Irri quickly covered his eye after "removing" it to hide the mechanism that spilled the blood. The prosthetic multi-jointed arms which Mhodo uses during the climax of the movie were the most elaborate effect in the film. Tosiso ended up calling in a specialist to make a hollow silicone copy of Irri's arms and hands, which cost over ℓ3,000. Tinan H'nari, who plays the narrator, was told not to include Mhodo's "hands" in frame for most of the final shot, since they could not be moved. Irri kept the silicone limbs as souvenirs after filming.

Reception

After only three weeks of screenings, The Vivisection became the highest-grossing television film in T'vaqi history. It gained renown for its excessive gory imagery and detailed practical effects, though critics have noted the film's somewhat contrived narrative and overreliance on violence and body horror. Due to its amateur documentary presentation, many mistakenly believed the events in the film to have actually occurred.

The Vivisection experienced a degree of success internationally. Unofficial Tun'ilhameng translated screenings of the movie topped box office sales in Ronatana.