My Eyes!

Movie: Human Centipede II: Full Sequence

My Rating: ???? (What could I really say?)

So, I went ahead and did it.  Against my better judgment, I went ahead and watched the sequel to the Human Centipede.  This one is billed as the “full sequence,” so it naturally featured way more twisted, gory, depraved material.  I kind of felt like a pervert by attending this screening.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I totally wanted to see this.  There’s no middle ground with a film like this.  Either you 100% want to see it, or you 110% don’t.  It’s people with overactive morbid curiosities vs. nice decent folk.  After the closing night film of the DC APA Film Fest, a couple of my filmmaker friends and I (along with a few other unwitting victims that we lured into this—bwahahaha) headed over to the EStreet Cinema for the midnight showing of this little gem.  The audience was sparse.

So yeah, the movie is really gross.  Way worse than the first film.  The first one was really all about a terrible idea.  Director, Tom Six, never even had to show us very much in the first, be cause he knew that our imaginations would do all the dirty work.  But, when you’re making a sequel about an idea that’s already become a meme, you’re going to have to do a little more than just plant a horrific idea in the audience’s head.  So, this movie shows everything.  That’s right.  Every crowbar beating, every incision, every stitch-up job (or in this case, staple-gun job).  And, all this is even before things start really falling apart (literally and metaphorically).  Yay!  It’s pretty awful.  The first film was so scary, because you could kind of imagine being abducted some madman like this.  But, the level of horror in this one is actually so ludicrously absurd that’s it’s not really scary anymore.  It really just devolved into a gross-out fest—one with very ominous and heavy-handed foreshadowing (my heart sank when I saw Tom Six wheel in a pregnant lady).  Although, it does help that the film is all in black and white.  It makes the gore seem a little less real.  Perhaps it’s meant to conjure up the whole surveillance video aesthetic—or as a tribute to Psycho.  There are definitely some echoes of Norman Bates in there.  Plus, the black and white classes up the whole thing a little.  I think Six may think of himself as a bit artsy.

As appalling as the whole franchise is, I do have to admit that at least the premise for this sequel is pretty clever.  Tom Six didn’t just take his old antagonist and have him up the ante with an even longer “centipede.”  This one is a little bit meta.  This time around, the story is actually about a “real life” pervert who is obsessed with the Human Centipede film, and who has decided to recreate the best scenes in his own abandoned warehouse—but, more intense.  However, this new character isn’t an evil, Nazi surgeon.  Nope.  He’s Martin, an obese, retarded, sexually abused, British, parking structure guard.  Sure, he’s got ready access to many potential victims—way more than evil Dr. Heiter ever did.  But, his surgical skills aren’t really up to par.  Although, Martin isn’t going to let a little detail like this get in the way.  Nah.  This kid is all about improvisation.  Trust me, a clumsy hand doing this sort of work is way worse to watch than a practiced one.

But, all in all, I’m not traumatized.  I guess anyone who purposefully went to see this movie probably knew what they were getting themselves into.  Anyone with any sort of squeamishness at all would know not to touch this subject matter with a ten-foot pole.  Plus, the worst thing about this whole film franchise is really just the basic idea, and I’m pretty sure most people are pretty used to it by now, what with all the shenanigans on the internet.  Although, I have concerns about the final installment that Tom Six has promised.  He says that it’s going to “upset lots of people.”  I can only imagine what he has up his sleeve.  I suppose I’ll find out soon enough, because I’m totally watching that one too—you know, me and my morbid curiosity.