In the wake of the controversy regarding the BBFC refusing the sequel to the Human Centipede a certificate, I felt it was perhaps time to discuss the first film once more and for people to realise why it is probably for the best that they will not be seeing Human Centipede 2 – and it is not because of the offensive content. You see, the second film's ban has suddenly gifted it with a number of well-meaning but frankly deluded fans who think that said ban means the film actually had something to say. You see, despite its reported misogynistic and sadistic sexual content that borders on snuff pornography, it is not the actual film itself that bothers me. It is the ridiculous media free-for-all that has its usual deriders slamming the 'sick filth' being put on screens these days, which creates a knee-jerk response of people who will flock to the support of this film. Ignore it. Honestly. We only have ourselves to blame for this sequel. It would not exist if people had not invested money in buying or renting the first film, and I have to admit I was one of those people, albeit reluctantly and at the behest of my girlfriend whose taste in horror does occasionally frighten and confuse me. The positive things said about The Human Centipede are largely said by people who have never seen it. A number of conversations in which I argued at length about this bloody awful film only to find the person I was discussing it with had not actually seen the film in question, was quite worrying. Most comments about this film go like this:
Person 1: That's the one where they get sown together, and this guy craps in this girl's mouth, oh my god, its disgusting!
Its purpose, I was told, was to shock and in that, it succeeded. It certainly did shock me, and for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was shocked that I had wasted 90 minutes of my life watching this drivel, I was shocked that it was more dull than a chess game in slow motion and I was shocked that Tom Six, the director, was even still working. Here is the problem with the Human Centipede: It is not a good film. It is a very, very bad film that deserved none of the attention given it. The reason I have chosen to discuss it now is because I felt it was important people realize just how bad Human Centipede actually is.
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| Ja Wohl Mein herr! Du bist ein bloody weirdo. |
The film can be summed up in one sentence: Two American girls break down next to a German scientist's house, and he sews them up to a Japanese guy. This is pretty much the film. Expand that sentence to 90 minutes, and you have a serious problem. The fact is, that one sentence worth of plot is not enough to carry a feature length film. It suffers from some serious padding issues. So excited is Tom Six with showing us the female leads becoming part of the 'human centipede' that he gets pretty much all of it sorted within the first half an hour leaving only a deeply tedious police thriller in which investigating detectives fail to notice a gigantic twelve-legged pantomime horse that groans, cries and shits a lot. Our female leads stop next to this guy's house, accepting drinks from him that they do not see him prepare (always a good sign) and he of course drugs them and then puts them into his experiment with a Japanese guy who just sort of turns up out of nowhere. He sews them together, gets very excited and then makes them do dog tricks. Yes, I am quite serious, we watch three sewn together people who never shut the fuck up fetching newspapers and eating dogfood. Oh, and shitting, don't forget the shitting.
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| You and me both, dude. |
This part of HC just goes on and on, and resembles a really boring fetish video. When the film finally chooses to resolve itself, with a series of highly improbable twists that result in everyone being dead except for one person, it comes as a blessed relief. Despite the reputation of this film, you would be amazed how little actually happens in this film. It was like Tom Six had a 'really sick' idea and then turned it into into the most mediocre film he could possibly make. You might have noticed I have not discussed the events of HC in the form of a narrative, but honestly, this is all that really happens in the film. There is an escape attempt that lasts all of two minutes, which probably makes for the most exciting sequence in the entirety of the running length. The rest of it is the German doctor snarling while the 'centipede' makes funny noises.
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| A minute's silence for this actress, I think. |
The runaround with the detectives is frankly ridiculous, splitting its attention between the doctor, the police and the human centipede itself. Commenting on performances in this film is pointless, given that nobody really acts in this. The leading girls, as mentioned, spend most of their time with their mouths sewn onto buttocks, consequently their dialogue largely consists of 'Mmmph!!! MMPH!!'. The Japanese guy screams in anger, and the German scientist doesn't so much act as he does gurn and stomp around in pseudo-fetishistic science gear. It's a repetitive and nonsensical mess that really doesn't deserve a sequel. I repeat: its main defenders are people who have never seen it. If you have, you realise it is a pointless and excruciating exercise in filmmaking and is an experience I would liken to getting food poisoning, the upshot of food poisoning being that it goes away and you are unlikely to encounter it again for a very long time.
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