Country:
Netherlands
Recognizable Faces:
Dieter Laser
Directed By:
Tom Six
I think I have found the dumbest movie ever made. According to the humble scholars at dictionary.com, the word horror refers to "an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear". Dutch director Tom Six might have taken that definition a little too seriously, and had a not so good idea about a medical experiment from hell. Since I heard critic comparing its shock factor to the one of A Serbian Film, a movie so shocking that there is no trace of it on the Internet Movie Database, I thought The Human Centipede would have some of that good old visceral fear to offer. Well, if I was ever wrong about something in my life, it's about that.
So the movie turns around the experiment of cliché mad scientist Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser, I can't believe he lent his name to that production. He must've been aching for work), who has the inexplicable envy to build a pet centipede, made out of many living beings sewn together. In the beginning, he holds a photo of a centipede made out of Rottweilers, which is the first thing that doesn't make any sense in this movie, since the dogs would have started brutally thrashing around in fear, hurt themselves and die over the course of a day. But on the photo, they are standing on the lawn, like sheep on Zoloft. But like any mad man obsession (that might be actually accurate), it always have to be more and more over-the-top. So the lovely Dr. Heiter (who lives in a house worthy of being on the Debbie Travis show, in the middle of the woods!, has now for plan to make a centipede out of human beings. And what better material is there for a centipede than dumb tourists with no survival skills.
I watched this movie last Saturday with my pals J-Rod and Eddie Herrera hoping to get one of those oh-my-god-it's-fucked-up-male-bonding kind of movie. The only thing I got from The Human Centipede was a vague self-questioning about the horror genre. Why do we watch horror? To be shocked, of course. To dead-eye our own fears for ninety minutes or more. Horror movies are an efficient way to kick ourselves out of our comfort zone and start thinking outside the box. The french powerhouse Martyrs managed to slip a word or two about violence made to children, in a sea of blood and the excellent Session 9 scared the socks off me with its underlying implications of untreated mad men, roaming the streets of America after the Reagan years. But what did The Human Centipede tried to say? Except for a very confused pre-mortem monologue on the human condition, by the Japanese tourist (and head of the centipede), I guess it didn't try to say anything at all. I think that's what killed me the most about this movie. The utter laziness and the supreme confidence in his only trick, the centipede itself.
What I first thought about this movie, was that the centipede was a soulless creature,,living in the doctor's basement, made out of barely conscious torsos and legs or something. That's what it looks like from the cover. What it is, is that the centipede is a string of three people sewn in together, by attaching the anus with the esophagus, and sewn in by the butt cheeks and the face, so it looks seamless and neat. The three test subjects are also tied up with gauze underwear that keep face and ass together. The good döktör has also shortened the knee ligaments so no one can stand up anymore. And I'm not spoiling anything here. The photos are all over the net, even in IMDB's display pics for the movie. The movie boasts about being 100% medically accurate, which I'm not sure if it's what I suppose to fear or not, but gazillions of med students over the internet are taking their pot shots at exposing the multiple inaccuracies in The Human Centipede. I'm no doctor myself, but I can imagine Tom Six took two or three medical terms and stamped a 100% MEDICALLY ACCURATE seal as his tag line.
I'm not sure what I should fear. I sure shit don't fear ever being put in a human centipede. I'm not a dumb tourist and I don't tend to venture inside houses in the middle of the woods, inhabited by crazy eyed men in lab coats. There is also no valid reason why mad, neo-nazi doctors would want to build a human centipede in the first place. I was vaguely grossed out, but not much more. It's not even a very visual movie. The gauze underwear keep the viewer's eyes safe for most of the movie. Good thing because I was eating when I watched it. It's never good when you can eat while watching a horror movie. Means that something is going wrong. I can't find a single redeeming quality to this movie, except maybe that thinking about building a human centipede is pretty exotic. Don't watch this unless you're a horror historian that want to tackle everything that has been ever made. Otherwise, this movie is a colossal waste of your time.
SCORE: 1%
So the movie turns around the experiment of cliché mad scientist Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser, I can't believe he lent his name to that production. He must've been aching for work), who has the inexplicable envy to build a pet centipede, made out of many living beings sewn together. In the beginning, he holds a photo of a centipede made out of Rottweilers, which is the first thing that doesn't make any sense in this movie, since the dogs would have started brutally thrashing around in fear, hurt themselves and die over the course of a day. But on the photo, they are standing on the lawn, like sheep on Zoloft. But like any mad man obsession (that might be actually accurate), it always have to be more and more over-the-top. So the lovely Dr. Heiter (who lives in a house worthy of being on the Debbie Travis show, in the middle of the woods!, has now for plan to make a centipede out of human beings. And what better material is there for a centipede than dumb tourists with no survival skills.
I watched this movie last Saturday with my pals J-Rod and Eddie Herrera hoping to get one of those oh-my-god-it's-fucked-up-male-bonding kind of movie. The only thing I got from The Human Centipede was a vague self-questioning about the horror genre. Why do we watch horror? To be shocked, of course. To dead-eye our own fears for ninety minutes or more. Horror movies are an efficient way to kick ourselves out of our comfort zone and start thinking outside the box. The french powerhouse Martyrs managed to slip a word or two about violence made to children, in a sea of blood and the excellent Session 9 scared the socks off me with its underlying implications of untreated mad men, roaming the streets of America after the Reagan years. But what did The Human Centipede tried to say? Except for a very confused pre-mortem monologue on the human condition, by the Japanese tourist (and head of the centipede), I guess it didn't try to say anything at all. I think that's what killed me the most about this movie. The utter laziness and the supreme confidence in his only trick, the centipede itself.
What I first thought about this movie, was that the centipede was a soulless creature,,living in the doctor's basement, made out of barely conscious torsos and legs or something. That's what it looks like from the cover. What it is, is that the centipede is a string of three people sewn in together, by attaching the anus with the esophagus, and sewn in by the butt cheeks and the face, so it looks seamless and neat. The three test subjects are also tied up with gauze underwear that keep face and ass together. The good döktör has also shortened the knee ligaments so no one can stand up anymore. And I'm not spoiling anything here. The photos are all over the net, even in IMDB's display pics for the movie. The movie boasts about being 100% medically accurate, which I'm not sure if it's what I suppose to fear or not, but gazillions of med students over the internet are taking their pot shots at exposing the multiple inaccuracies in The Human Centipede. I'm no doctor myself, but I can imagine Tom Six took two or three medical terms and stamped a 100% MEDICALLY ACCURATE seal as his tag line.
I'm not sure what I should fear. I sure shit don't fear ever being put in a human centipede. I'm not a dumb tourist and I don't tend to venture inside houses in the middle of the woods, inhabited by crazy eyed men in lab coats. There is also no valid reason why mad, neo-nazi doctors would want to build a human centipede in the first place. I was vaguely grossed out, but not much more. It's not even a very visual movie. The gauze underwear keep the viewer's eyes safe for most of the movie. Good thing because I was eating when I watched it. It's never good when you can eat while watching a horror movie. Means that something is going wrong. I can't find a single redeeming quality to this movie, except maybe that thinking about building a human centipede is pretty exotic. Don't watch this unless you're a horror historian that want to tackle everything that has been ever made. Otherwise, this movie is a colossal waste of your time.
SCORE: 1%