Theme: Disembodied Body Parts

Disembodied Body Parts refers to human limbs that gain a life of their own and detach from their owner’s body. In the majority of cases, this refers to disembodied hands or arms, although there been some examples involving disembodied eyes, hair and hearts, even foreheads, breasts and penises.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote the classic The Tell-Tale Heart (1841) about a murderer haunted by his victim’s still-beating heart. The original disembodied limb tale on film was The Beast With Five Fingers (1946) about a man haunted by a phantom hand. There are a number of other works in a similar vein, while a disembodied hand even became a regular character in the various incarnations of The Addams Family.

For heads and brains that maintain life in the absence of a body see Disembodied Heads and Brains.