[this review brought to you by Insano Steve, who after a long hiatus was forced at gunpoint to write his thoughts after seeing Tox Six's The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence]
Rather than give a full review of Human Centipede 2, I thought I'd go through some things that I liked about the movie, and some that I didn't. In honor of the centipede, I broke it down into 10 good and 10 bad things.
Good
The gore and special effects are excellent. Much more so than the original.
The killer is a fat slob, who is mute, asthmatic, and retarded. Unconventional!
The shameless flashbacks to the first part were (un) intentionally hilarious.
A character from the first part miraculously returns!
More feces than you will ever see, or would want to see.
Lacking medical knowledge, our new "doctor" uses household tools.
Watching a lady, who didn't know better, leave the theater in disgust.
An actual centipede attacks and maims an old woman. Symbolism!
Gratuitous prenatal infant trauma. And postnatal trauma.
The use of laxatives as a plot catalyst!
Bad
The whole movie is in black and white. It mutes the effect of the blood/guts.
There's no actual plot. No attempt to explain. No attempt to attempt.
Like 10 scenes of the fat slob using an inhaler. He has asthma. OK, we get it.
Seeing the fat slob wearing a thong walk around the house. Not good times.
Sorry, but seeing a room drenched in blood and feces needs to be in color!
The acting was horrible. Even when you consider the low expectations.
A little shit eating really goes a long way.
I'm starting to think that maybe this isn't all "100% medically accurate".
All of the boring non-centipede related murders.
Black and white might've been an attempt at art. This shit ain't art. This shit is shit.
And there you have it, a movie that delivers all the over the top decadence you hoped for. And literally nothing more than that. Grading on a curve....
Sometimes your poop comes in pellet form, other times you need to set up a level 10 quarantine. It's these rather crude analogies that I've conjured up that equate themselves to the original and sequel for The Human Centipede . After eating a burrito, sometimes you fear the worst and sometimes that trip to the bathroom turns out not as bad as you thought it would be. That's what I thought of Tom Six's original.
The Human Centipede 2 is not a good film by any means but its like a newborn's dirty diaper....you get a hell of a surprise. Devoid of any decent plot, a psychopath that is a couple of deadly sins incarnate (think sloth) and 100% medically inaccurate, its a film that is a big "FUCK YOU" by Tom Six for anybody who claimed the original didn't go over the edge. I wrote in my original review: "I'd like to have seen it go over the edge and go into the realm of uncharted super duper uber fuckedupness"
Well Tom Six does exactly that. He should have taken elements from the original and mix in the fuckedupness in this film. But instead he goes waaaaay over the top in an artsy fartsy black and white splatter film and chooses to not give one single fuck about characters, plot and an antagonist we can fear or even be remotely memorable.
Sure the Human Centipede 2 makes 2 Girls, 1 Cup look like a Disney film, but at what cost?
Boring Plot-O-Matic
Martin is a mentally disturbed loner who lives with his mother in a bleak housing project. He works the night shift as a security guard in an equally grim and foreboding underground parking complex. To escape his dreary existence, Martin loses himself in the fantasy world of the cult horror film The Human Centipede (First Sequence), fetishizing the meticulous surgical skills of the gifted Dr. Heiter, whose knowledge of the human gastrointestinal system inspires Martin to attempt the unthinkable.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
The beauty of the original was the ridiculousness of Dr. Heiter and his obsessiveness to create a human centipede. Dieter Laser's performance was incredible and his "Feed her!" line will be uttered by horror fans for years to come. But our main sociopath, a mute and obese Brit named Martin is such a disappointment, one can only think that this is what Tom Six thinks of the hardcore horror fan. This fat penguin man, who is obsessed with Six's original film decides to go and make a 12 man centipede where the lovely Ashlynn Yennie will form the head (she's like the black Lion in this fucked up Voltron).
Working at a parking garage, his victims come in all forms from happily married couple, drunk party girls, a pregnant woman, random hooligans and a few other unfortunates that Martin encounters. He's a victim of sexual abuse via his father and his mom begs to have their angry neighbor "kill them both". The family doctor is as degenerate as Martin and makes an appearance as a ro-beast.
The movie is as predictable as your run of the mill slasher. Martin watches the original, jerks off, feeds his pet centipede (yes you read that right he has a pet centipede) stalks his victims and kills. Lather, rinse and repeat. It's the same old shit for like an hour. Six decides this meta-verse is him being crazy fuckin clever (he's not). That's not to say our mute Martin doesn't make a few intentional ha ha's. His excited cheering during the "feed her!" scene as he rewatches the classic and a few phone calls from a casting agent give us winks to the audience's knowledge of part 1. Martin is a walking grotesque, a child with a loaded gun that enjoys inflicting harm for his obsession. He's his own Dr. Frankenstein and squeals with glee as he shapes his very own human centipede but the only thing WE the audience care about is seeing his creation.
And that's why you have to watch an hour of this film to see it. And it's like seeing a Rorschach test made of human feces. Your only reason for sitting through this film is to see the fuckin full sequence. 3 was not enough for us. We want 6...no we want 9...how about 12!
Where the original had Dr. Heiter use a clean sterile environment and had medical precision for his experiment, Martin uses a dirty, filthy abandoned warehouse complete with rusty tools for his operation. And here comes the Gore-ipedia. Sliced knee tendons, really bad dental surgery, tongue trauma, staple gun frenzy and a lot of duck tape. The splatter and gore are at its peak and they are making gorehounds rejoice. It's not until we get to Martin's own "Feed her!" scene do we get to fuckedupness levels of fuckedupness. It's LITERALLY shit in motion. Even Martin's comeuppance at the end is a level of the surreal and definitely 100% medically IN-accurate.
The Human Centipede 2 is a competitive horror viewing contest. The original was easy to stomach, participants easily digested everything they took in. But HC2 is seeing a dude eat beyond his capacity and then vomit it all up. Do you really want to see that shit?
I'm not buying into any theory that HC2 has some underlying meaning in it. I firmly believe Tom Six was responding to all of us who LOVED the original or HATED it but both sides agreed it didn't go over the line of what it was advertised to be. But this time he delivers a disgusting, gore soaked and diarrhea of a film that has none of the awesomeness of what made the original so memorable.
All that's left to do after watching The Human Centipede 2 is to flush the toilet.
Nude-ipedia
A few boobs and ass via our victims Martin's shirtless obesity made me throw up in my mouth a little
Gore-ipedia
See above labeled Gore-ipedia
WTF moment
Martin's comeuppance
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I'm giving HC2 2 spinkicks. It's not a good movie like I said but it's got scenes that I'll admit leave a damn fucked up imprint in your mind. I did laugh a few times because of the ridiculousness of it all but those LOLs were few and far in between. I had HC2 as the #1 Remaining Best of the Rest Horror Movies of 2011. What can I say? I got caught up in the hype.
The Human Centipede 2 is being distributed by IFC Films and will get a theatrical release on October 7th.
Who knew Australia was more hardcore than Britain and the USA? It seems Tom Six's sequel to his infamous The Human Centipede (full review here) is being released uncut and uncensored down under. Those lucky blokes.
Check out the Aussie teaser trailer for THe Human Centipede Full Sequence below. No footage from the film is shown, just more reaction from supposed viewers.
Here's the original teaser with Tom Six.
What do you think? Is this movie going to be all hype or will it actually deliver the gory goodies?
I hope it goes way over the cliff in terms of insanity.
I've already seen a child molester kill teens in their sleep. Been there, done that. What I've never seen is an insane surgeon surgically connect 3 human beings ass to mouth. If you had the choice....which movie would you have seen last Friday?
It was an easy choice for me. It didn't hurt that the cast of The Human Centipede would be in appearance at the IFC Center in NYC to do a Q&A after the film (Tom Six, the director and actors Dieter Laser, Ashley Williams, Ashlynn Yennie and Akihiro Kitamura were all there)
So in a packed theater which I knew would add to the "midnight feel" of the experience of his "100% medically accurate" film, it was quite an experience. You could hear some gasps, screams, groans and disturbed applause when you finally see the human centipede onscreen.
Damn that was awesome.
So what did I think? The Human Centipede is a tornado of a film that challenges your visual senses and challenges your brain to compute what you're seeing. It's really something you've never seen before and that's the beauty of it. It takes about an hour to get the completion of this new Frankenstein like creation but its well worth it. Its definitely for "The Core" type moviegoer and is on the edge of indie horror cinema. My only gripe is it didn't go over the edge which is what I had wanted to see.
So let's pass some gas on this one shall we? Boring Plot-O-Matic
Two pretty American girls are on a road trip through Europe. In Germany they end up alone at night with a broken car in the woods. They search for help and find an isolated villa. The next day they awake to find themselves trapped in his terrifying makeshift basement hospital along with a Japanese man.
An older German man identifies himself as a retired surgeon specialized in separating Siamese twins. However his three "patients" are not about to be separated, but joined together in a horrific operation. He plans to be the first person to connect people via their gastric system, in doing so bringing to life his sick lifetime fantasy "the human centipede".
Awesome Review-O-Matic
The Human Centipede can be broken down into 3 distinct situations like a doctors appointment. So let's get run with that analogy because I'm a sucker for medical puns.
"The Waiting Room"
The movie starts off with a photo of a preliminary centipede made by Dr. Heiter. We'll get to know the great Evil that is Dr. Heiter later on but the first 30 or so minutes is dedicated to the party girls Lindsay (A. Williams) and Jenny (A. Yennie) who are in Germany on a backpacking trip.
Six said during the Q&A that he loved those American films of the 70s and 80s and the basic premise of an American girl who gets involved in dastardly circumstances. Six does nothing new here as we all know that a flat tire on a car will lead to Dr. Heiter's house of horrors. There is scene as our beloved American fashionistas have to converse with a icky, fat German man who has more on his mind then the girls flat tire. It's purely comical and that is your first introduction that you're not seeing a straight horror flick but a black comedy of sorts as well.
It's this balance that Six tries to deliver over 90 minutes. He injects comedic visuals and dialogue with the most disturbing imagery we have ever seen. And I have to admit, it works. To get a few laughs in makes it somewhat tolerable.
There will be a minority of people who "get" the black humor in this movie and I believe the majority will be appalled by the sensory overload. If you get it, you'll see the movie's awesomeness. The NYC audience got it completely (well nobody walked out of the theater as far as I could see)
"The Diagnosis"
Now @ Dr. Heiter laboratory of freaks, the girls are kidnapped along with a Japanese dude (A. Kitamura). Here, they (and we) are told in some awesome diagrams what will be done to them. The diagrams are completely simple and explained by Dr. Heiter in such bold, grandiose fashion that he his insane surgery becomes 1% plausible in all our minds.
Dr. Heiter (D. Laser) may go down as one of the most craziest, eviliest and mentally disturbed doctors in horror movie history. His speech in a drawn out, monotone German accented voice is clearly chilling. Laser's performance is brilliant, making the doctor who originally separated Siamese twins evolve into a mad surgeon that is similar to that of the iconic Dr. Frankenstein. All that is important is the medical breakthrough.
Later, the good doctor has to deal with some cat and mouse action with an escapee and we see the doctor at his uber evilest. He even taunts his mouse, threatening intense pain and in a wicked scene that plays out in a swimming pool, he proves his point.
The movie goes into suspense mode but the outcome has a foregone conclusion. The audience is obligated to root for the insane proctologist at this point and I happily obliged. I wanna see a fuckin Human Centipede...I mean who wouldn't?
"Surgery and Recovery"
Montaged is the surgery so the grossness of it all is compacted into quick edits of fleshy gore. The montage is hilariously LOL, as we see Dr. Heiter exhausted and upon looking at his final creation egotistically kisses himself in the mirror, proud of what he's done.
Seeing our new human centipede in action is quite a sight.The Japanese dude is at the head, our escapee in the middle and our American diva at the rear. Dr. Heiter treats this monstrosity almost as a pet, teaching them new tricks, locking them up at a cage and feeding them morsels of food.
Now connected gastronomically, the first eating, digesting and shitting transaction would seem to be the penultimate scene of the entire movie. In this movie history first our Japanese head yells in banzai-like Japanese "I'm sorry, I have to shit!!!" This initates our fearless surgeon to utter "Feed Her! Feed Her!" and thus becomes the most memorable quote in The Human Centipede. The scene is utterly goofy and lacks the punch I wanted to see. Did I want to see Montezuma's Revenge or a 2Girls 1Cup style fuckedupness? Yeah, a part of me wanted to see some sick shit. But the movie plays it out visually R and I guess we should be thankful.
As the movie concludes, we have a Mexican standoff of sorts between our human centipede, our insane medical professional and law enforcement. The ending delivers some goods, though one final encounter between master and creation lacked the payoff I was hoping to see.
The Human Centipede is not a perfect movie but it does something that the other movie that came out the same day doesn't do. It's fuckin original.
Six mentioned during the Q&A how that the idea started out as a joke with friends that he thought the best punishment for say child molester would be to get his mouth connected to some dirty truck driver's ass.
He then concluded this would make a great horror film.
Well he's right. The Human Centipede is clearly a film that stands on the edge of horror. The simple joke that turned into an idea that turned into a movie is clearly a connected centipede of horror awesomeness.
Sure I'd like to have seen it go over the edge and go into the realm of uncharted super duper uber fuckedupness, but the First Sequence is a step in the right direction.
Nude-ipedia
As part of the centipede, our American fashionistas are nude
Gore-ipedia
Unscheduled medical surgery ickiness Various forms of violence .....THE MOVIE HAS HUMAN BEINGS CONNECTED ASS TO MOUTH!!!
WTF moment
The digestion process scene
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Six has said that part 2 "The Full Sequence" is in the works and could be a full 12 people (I'm not sure if he was joking). He also mentioned that he had some stuff that's more crazy and intense in store for the sequel.
Sure you can take your child molesters and burn them, but all that would have done is make the perv make a deal with dream demons and thus cause him to kill your teen kids in their sleep. What the parents on Elm Street should have done was connect the child molester's mouth to somebody's asshole.
The thing about a movie like The Human Centipede is its like eating really uber spicy food. Or kinda like eating super apocalyptic, nuclear hot wings. It's not going to taste good, you are probably going to vomit and it's going to make you feel sick, but if you get through it....well you're one of the few to get to experience the glory of getting through it.
I'm for one want a challenge. Only a few movies have seriously disturbed the shit out of me. And most of them have been German. But never did I think the Netherlands could come up with this (they must have awesome weed).
There are a few people who would seek out a film to see like this. In my 5 Types of Moviegoers who watch Horror Movies, The Core are #1. I'll go one extra. The Uber Core are the one's who want to experience seeing the vilest, disturbing, horrific films ever put on celluloid (or video).
These are the few, the brave men and women who've seen pseudo snuff horror, porn torture-core and vomit horror. Well let's add biotorture to the list. Are you Uber Core? Well if you want to be, a viewing of The Human Centipede is step 1 in joining this rare group of horror-ites.
If you missed the trailer, check it out below. Thanks to Twitch Film for the trailer.
It's not often I hear of a movie that just makes me drop my cookies and milk on the kitchen floor. But seeing the pics and reading the bizarro plot of Tom Six's The Human Centipede, you too will swallow your gum by accident.
Is this the start of biotorture horror?
This plot is completely ooomphy. Right?
Two pretty American girls are on a road trip through Europe. In Germany they end up alone at night with a broken car in the woods. They search for help and find an isolated villa. The next day they awake to find themselves trapped in his terrifying makeshift basement hospital along with a Japanese man. An older German man identifies himself as a retired surgeon specialized in separating Siamese twins. However his three "patients" are not about to be separated, but joined together in a horrific operation. He plans to be the first person to connect people via their gastric system, in doing so bringing to life his sick lifetime fantasy "the human centipede".
Yay. Sick fuckin yay. You can thank the Netherlands and UK for this. Seems Six is echoing Miike and Cronenberg in this insanity, only a trailer and the horror community approval will tell if this is cult yay or cult nay.
Still no trailer yet but some glorious high def pics below for you to throw up on. The Human Centipede has been screening at film festivals all over and will also premiere at LA's Screamfest and Fantastic Fest in Austin.
[this review brought to you by Insano Steve, who after a long hiatus was forced at gunpoint to write his thoughts after seeing Tox Six's The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence]
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