Stunt Dummy -- Spills His Brains Out Before Getting to Work (PHOTOS)

This ain't no stunt -- a dummy's brains were blown to smithereens when the car in which it was riding got in a car wreck.

The stunt dummy was a passenger along with Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura -- the man behind "Godzilla: Final Wars" -- when the driver swerved to avoid an object in the road ... then smashed into the center divider on an L.A. street.

The dummy was rigged to have it's brains blown out for a pivotal scene in "DOWNRANGE" ... but the wreck triggered deployment. It'll now take 2 weeks to wrangle a new dummy ... which will set production back $30k.

As for Ryuhei ... he was taken to a hospital but seems to be in good spirits after joking he was offended the insurance company was more concerned about the prop than him.