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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at SXSW 2026. World of Wonder releases “Manhood” in select theaters beginning Wednesday, October 28.
What if you could increase the size of your pen with a few spritzes of a needle? Okay, 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 as easy (and common) as Botox.
Dallas entrepreneur Bill Moore, who is very proudly Botoxed and filled 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 little 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 most of the audience might feel embarrassed just by watching it. The director understands the humor inherent in this situation, but he also understands the sad parts, the source of male insecurity from which it all comes – finding that especially in camboy OnlyFans who comes to Moore after a disastrous procedure at a rival clinic left him with a dick full of nodules.
Penis size is a major mental 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 prioritizes physical attributes over internal ones. Moore’s use, as “Manhood” shows, of small genitalia (or even those that are not particularly small, even if the body-dysmorphic men to whom they are attached insist that they are because of society, etc., etc.) have become a growing industry while trying to achieve the universal dick size building. “Everybody wants a bigger penis,” the biohacking mogul says at one point. Will they? Using hyaluronic acid – it’s the same stuff I put on my face every morning – it’s ready to give you the big penis of your dreams, and an even bigger bill.
One of Moore’s clients, Ruben who lives in Arizona is a self-defeating father of five who is under severe financial stress due to a gambling addiction and also possibly a penile enhancement addiction. He is a repeat customer of Moore, having spent tens of thousands on several procedures that – this is important – did not increase the length of his penis but certainly the girth several sizes over. Penis enlargement is not something that any doctor who wants to avoid abuse has successfully discovered, despite long ago grotesque procedures, from mechanical enlargement to snake bites, that claimed to do it.
At the same time, although Ruben’s wife was very happy with her God-given right, her husband (who has children with several women) is going back to Dr. Moore for another tune under the belt. “Manhood” is loud and clear in its unmistakable depiction of those injections into men’s organs as they drop their drawers and splash on the operating table. Don’t forget the gasp images of seconds destroyed by Dr. Loria in New York City, who proudly denied malpractice insurance but allegedly left several men disfigured after being pumped with a thin-looking filler. Lombroso uses the same close attention he did in his 2022 documentary “White Noise”, taking a unique look at the rise of the alt-right and neo-Nazi movement in America. “Manhood” doesn’t reinvent the form – even as the men who follow reinvent theirs – but it’s very appealing in its simple aims to deal with taboo material.
Contrasted with Ruben’s heterosexual working-class charm, polite David Smith, a former OnlyFans nursing student turned nursing student in Florida, is one of those emotional and physical casualties of Dr. Loria’s abuse. (Loria, by the way, is an unapologetic talking head in this documentary as well.) Already coming from a devoutly conservative family that disapproved of his homosexuality, the petite, tight-bodied, David felt insecure about the size of his dick while he was a fast-rising star on OnlyFans. He is left with what Dr. Moore calls “alien punishment.” Moore not only promises David to fix his punishment, he also invites into his bed being 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 has to perform a gruesome operation on David’s limb, and it is not clear what Lambroso, or his camera, thinks of this arrangement, which is why this non-invasive, non-judgmental documentary works so well.
“I can fill your pen with filler, but I can’t fill the hole in your heart,” Moore tells patient/lover David. The patient-doctor relationship here is certainly ethically questionable, but to what extent are ethics just thrown out the window when we’re talking dicks? However, Lombroso gives his subject and his subjects really, and respect them. David, marveling at the results of his reconstructive surgery, is having a moment – who knew a penile enhancement documentary could touch a nerve. and the heart, too?
Grade: B+
“Manhood” premiered at SXSW 2026. The film opens in select theaters beginning Wednesday, October 28.
