What if you could up your penis size a notch or two with a few spritzes of a needle? OK, it’s not that simple, but the PhaloFILL procedure highlighted by filmmaker Daniel Lombroso in his latest documentary, “Manhood,” aims to make penile enlargement procedures about as easy (and commonplace) as Botox.
Dallas entrepreneur Bill Moore, who is quite proudly Botoxed and fillered-up himself, patented the minimally invasive procedure (don’t call it plastic surgery!), promising to make insecure men feel whole again. Or at least a bit thicker, anyway. Lombroso’s skillfully constructed film is funny in the best and worst ways: funny because it’s in on the joke but “funny” because of how the majority of the audience might feel embarrassed just by watching it. The director understands the humor inherent to this situation, but he also understands the sad parts, the well of male insecurity it’s all coming from — locating that especially in an OnlyFans camboy who comes to Moore after a catastrophic procedure at a rival clinic has left him with a dick full of nodules.
Penis size is a major psychic hang-up for men across both the straight and gay communities; as a gay man, I can attest to these particular pressures within a community where both partners have penises, and a community that already primatizes physical attributes over the inner self. Moore’s practice, as “Manhood” illustrates, has turned small genitalia (or even those not especially small, even though the body-dysmorphic men they’re attached to insist they are because of society, etc., etc.) into a growing business while seeking to universalize the dick-size complex. “Every man wants a bigger penis,” the bio-hacking mogul says at one point. Do they? Using hyaluronic acid — which is the same stuff I put on my face every morning — he’s ready to give you the big penis of your dreams, and an even bigger bill.
One of Moore’s clients, endearingly self-defeating Arizona-resident Ruben, is a father of five who is under serious financial strain due to gambling addiction and also perhaps a penile enhancement addiction. He’s a repeat customer of Moore’s, having spent tens of thousands on multiple procedures that — this is important — have not increased the length of his penis but certainly the girth several sizes over. Penis lengthening is not something any doctor wishing to avoid malpractice has successfully figured out, despite grotesque procedures in ancient times, from mechanical lengthening to snake bites, that purported to do so.
‘Manhood’SXSW
Meanwhile, though Ruben’s wife was plenty happy with his God-given girth, her husband (who has children with multiple women) keeps going back to Dr. Moore for yet another below-the-belt tune-up. “Manhood” is loud and clear in its uncensored depiction of these injections into men’s members as they drop their drawers and splay prostrate on the operating table. Don’t forget the gasp-inducing images of dicks mangled by one Dr. Loria in New York City, who has proudly refused malpractice insurance but allegedly left a number of men deformed after pumping them up with chunky-looking filler. Lombroso applies the same close-up care as he did in his 2022 documentary “White Noise,” unflinchingly gazing into the rise of the alt-right movement and neo-Nazis in America. “Manhood” isn’t reinventing the form — even as the men it follows are reinventing theirs — but it’s super charming in its straightforward aims at tackling taboo material.
Contrasting Ruben’s heterosexual working-class charm, meek-mannered David Smith, a former OnlyFans camboy turned Florida nursing student, is one such emotional and physical casualty of Dr. Loria’s alleged malpractice. (Loria, by the way, is an unapologetic talking head in this documentary, too.) Already coming from a devoutly conservative family that rejected his homosexuality, the tight-bodied, petite David felt insecure about his dick size while becoming a fast-rising star on OnlyFans. He’s been left with what Dr. Moore describes as “the penis of an alien.” Moore not only offers David the promise to fix his penis, he also invites him into his bed to be the apparent third in Moore’s relationship with his partner. The three are seen sharing a hotel bed while traveling to see a specialist who will need to perform drastic surgery on David’s member, and it’s not clear what Lambroso, or his camera, thinks of this arrangement, which is why this decidedly non-invasive, nonjudgmental documentary works so well.
“I can fill your penis with filler, but I cannot fill the whole in your heart,” Moore tells his patient/lover David. The patient-doctor relationship here is certainly ethically questionable, but at what point are ethics just sort of tossed out the window when we’re talking dicks? Still, Lombroso takes his subject and his subjects seriously, and treats them with respect. David, marveling near-tears at the results of his reconstructive surgery, makes for a moving moment — who knew a documentary about penile enhancement could touch a nerve and the heart, too?
Grade: B+
“Manhood” premiered at SXSW 2026. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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