Movie: The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence
My Rating: Oh, come on!
Alright. As long as I’m reviewing really gross, super graphic movies, I’d might as well go whole hog. I knew I was going to see this movie. In fact, I was waiting for it to come out. I rented the first one and watching it in my home. It was terrifying—full of suspense. It showed almost nothing, following that classic saying that your imagination is always way worse than anything they can show you. Then, I saw the second in the theater. And, that one was really gross. It was going for the shock value by throwing every vile thing they could think up at the audience, and showing all the gore explicitly. This third movie, I had to rent On-Demand, because it was apparently so offensive that they couldn’t get any theater release dates, or DVD distribution. Of course, that was just catnip to me. And, sticking with the trend of changing the tone with each film, I think this third movie was going for comedy. It really wasn’t very successful, but I could tell what it was going for.
I won’t lie. This movie is terrible. And, I’m not saying this because these movies are a biblical abominations or crimes against nature (which they are). I approached all of these movies from the point of view of someone who really likes disgusting horror movies. The first two were really well executed. They both did an excellent job of creating and building the horror that they set out to. But, this third movie is really just an unbearable two hours of Dieter Laser yelling absolute gibberish at the camera. It was impossible to track the plot (if this thing actually had one). That kind of thing will wear you out after a while.
I hear that the movie production was actually seriously delayed because midway through filming, Laser went totally rogue and refused to cooperate. And, after seeing his scenes, I definitely believe it. In fact, I don’t think he ever came back on board. It looked to me like director Tom Six decided that rather than lose all the money he’d already invested in the project, it’d be better to just let Laser tantrum on screen and see what footage he could salvage. The acting is that unbearable. I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to be funny, or whether he was acting out. He could very well have been technically complying with his employment contract, but protesting by doing so in such a way that his footage would be unusable. I mean, Six was definitely going for that over-the-top, over-acted, absurdist feel. There are even a few, overt comedic gags in there. But, I can definitely tell that working with Dieter Laser did not go smoothly
I couldn’t imagine what kind of foul acts Tom Six would be able to come up with for this film that he didn’t depict in the first two movies. That guy has a twisted mind, and he sure knows how to get under your skin. But, I shouldn’t have doubted him. This director delivered quite a handful of brand new atrocities for us to cringe away from. Some were gimmicky, to be sure. The whole premise of this movie is that a sadistic prison warden has decided to sew a hundred of his most terrible prisoners together to teach them a real lesson. And, then this story takes another meta step outside the plot of the second movie, the way the second did with the first. But, some of the punishments he dreamed up were brand new, and legitimately gut churning. Bravo, Mr. Six!
So, you know whether you want to see this movie or not. Either you’re into this kind of gross-out, horror flick, or you’re not. Either you’ve seen the first two and enjoyed them, or you didn’t. This should absolutely not be your first introduction into the series (or to horror movies, for that matter). If you’re looking for an easy intro to horror, message me and I’ll direct your elsewhere. But, as I mentioned before, this is not a good movie. I only sat through it to finish out the series. Although, it wasn’t purely out of a sense of duty. I still probably would have done it even if I had known going in that it was terrible. My morbid curiosity just wouldn’t have let me skip this one. And, I even appreciate that Six tried to switch up the tone another time to attempt comedy. But, this was definitely the worst movie of the three.