Saw this at a midnight screening last night. Absolute blast! A much bigger audience than expected and people seemed a little more psyched for the movie than usual. Even the usher was raving about the soon-to-be-legendary shit scene. My friend and I were decently liquored up by the time we arrived. We got popcorn and I got a big glass of Stella Artois. The movie was just starting by the time we sat down. Good times!

The movie opens just like any other bad horror movie. Two brainless American tourists that nobody cares about get lost in the woods of Germany and get a flat tire. What do they do? Of course they try their cell phones for the "emergency car service." And of course, there's no service. What do they do next? Go and get help, get lost in the woods and bitch at each other. Until... one of them sees "a light or something." "For some reason, I don't believe you!" says the other.

It's at this point, I realized the excruciatingly bad dialogue (and I mean bad, like Cabin bad) was all too intentional. Right off the bat, you know this is either supposed to be a parody or director Tom Six just knew his audience all too well. That is to say he knew that they only came to see three human beings sewn together ass to mouth and rather than try to get any genuine storytelling going on, he opted to keep his audience entertained with comically over-the-top filler. And it works. Surprisingly, as bad as the dialogue gets and as stupid as the characters become, it all feels smart. Not only does it nail every common horror movie cliche, it also takes the piss out of other, less noticeable cliches that most horror fans overlook. Not to mention some lines that make no sense that nobody would ever say in real life. Only if they were half-retarded and stuck in a sadistic torture flick.

Then we get to Dr. Heiter's place, our beloved villain. This guy just reeks creepy, deranged and evil right off the bat. There's no reason these girls wouldn't turn around right at the sight of him. But of course they don't because we gotta see the human centipede. Again, this feels all too apparent at this point. The movie is definitely on top of things and on the same level as its audience.

So we get our token "getting-to-know-eachother" scene with the girls and our just excruciatingly sinister bad guy with bad cliche lines such as "you have a lovely home." But Six doesn't waste our time. It's only a matter of time before our girls are tied up in the basement next to a stereotypical screaming Japanese dude who spouts off Nazi slurs. Here, Heiter explains his master plan, one that pretty much every horror fan should already be familiar with. Why is he doing this... Just for fun, I guess.

I think other directors might've waited til the end to unveil the human centipede, assuming that they needed some superficial narrative with no substance to fill 75-80 minutes. But no. Once again, Tom Six seems to have predicted the response to the whole idea from the getgo and opted to dedicate an entire movie to this horrible freak of nature. The "unveiling" is totally deranged and hilarious. The whole time our centipede is lamenting its existence, Heiter is crying tears of joy and, for some reason, looking at himself in the mirror. It recalled the threesome scene in American Psycho where Patrick Bateman is flexing and pointing at himself in the mirror. Of course, here, it's even way more over the top and ridiculous. What follows is Heiter teaching his new "dog" how to... fetch, I guess? And of course the shit scene. But you'll just have to see that for yourself.

I think anyone who hated Funny Games will like The Human Centipede. I felt a Funny Games vibe more than any other film and yet without all of Haneke's snarkiness and finger-pointing. Overall, it feels like as much of a parody of mainstream fodder like Saw and Hostel as it is of much sharper flicks like Audition and Oldboy (one of the final lines is actually borrowed from Oldboy). That's not to say this isn't its own film. Once the centipede is introduced, it becomes less of a parody but never quite takes itself too seriously and is always at least aware of the formula it's using. Very seldom is it ineffective. In fact, I'd say the only real problem with the film is that it took very few opportunities to be genuinely dark or disturbing. There were a few. But then when you have lines like "Shit. I have to shit." I guess it'd be better to keep things "light." In fact, overall, the whole "human centipede" idea is just so vile and aberrant that it kind of takes care of everything else. Probably why I didn't notice the movie isn't particularly gory until just now. I suppose that's another problem people might have with the film but it didn't bother me at all.

So after seeing the trailer for this, I was actually completely turned off and lowered my expectations considerably. Now I feel as if I'd gone in with the expectations I had originally, I wouldn't have been disappointed. Definitely a sick, silly, over-the-top little horror flick. Way better than most modern horror-comedy hybrids, even really good ones like "Teeth." At the same time, the humor doesn't feel like a copout because the whole idea is just so bizarre that it kind of excuses any of the director's taking the piss. No matter what, the film is still called The Human Centipede and has two girls and a guy sewn together ass to mouth. You're not going to see another one of these in ten years.

Great review James, thanks for that.

I saw the trailer too, and am pumped to see this film.

Apparently it's "medically accurate".... thoughts on this? Did it seem possible?

Quoted from Tommyp Apparently it's "medically accurate".... thoughts on this? Did it seem possible?

As far as the surgery goes, it seemed simple enough. As for the functionality of the centipede itself... yeah, that seemed to work too. There was one issue I thought may have strayed from being "medically accurate" but they did address it. Maybe not as much as I thought they should've but I'm not a doctor. At least, they touched on it. Who knows? Could still be legit.

Pretty good. A lot better than I epxected actually. I thought it was going to be a silly exploitation piece, but it's actually a serious film.

Very dark and tense. There's some dark humour in it but it stays on tone throughout.

It was pretty tame compared to most horror films as well in the gore stakes, most things are suggested rather than portrayed.

A pleasant surprise.

People expect this film to be a lot gorier than it is when, in fact, it scores extremely low in gore.

The concept is what is so shocking about this movie.  And since everyone knows what it is about, the hurdle has been cleared.  Grab the kids and take them to this movie. After that, shoot them all in the head and leave their little bodies on the side of the road.


Phil (putting it all into perspective)

I found this underwhelming, which is precisely what such a film shouldn't be.  Not bad enough to be fun, not good enough to be anything else, certainly not "twisted" or gory enough to elicit any sort of visceral response.  Dieter Laser was a campy one-note delight, but other than that I didn't see that this had much going for it.  Six is obviously a talented director -- at least technically -- but he needs to commit himself to something a little more important than this.  Something where, for example, we find out if he can direct a good performance or not.  I'm hoping this was just a clever way of achieving notoriety, and that he'll move on to more worthwhile films.

The victims are either whimpering or yelling and screaming the entire film.  This ruined my ability to enjoy a lot of it.  It's not effective, it's not scary, it's not tense, it's just annoying.

The dark humour was certainly successful once the centipede had been completed.  However, there wasn't enough of it, which was strange, since much of the second act had no momentum whatsoever other than the amusing story of a man and his unorthodox pet.

The protagonists are idiots and impossible to take seriously or care for.  This is why we can enjoy the humour, but also why the rest of the movie falls flat.  

Despite my largely negative comments it is undeniable that Six is more talented than most directors working in horror today.  Personally, I don't consider that to be saying much, but it is saying something, and I expected this to be a film that I couldn't be bothered saying anything about.

A curiosity, to be sure.  An effective film, no.  But a curiosity.  Interested to see if Six tries his hand at something worthwhile or continues with pointless horror.

Well...I was far from impressed.  I'd have to second pretty much everything Heretic had to say, minus the praise.

The premise/setup is just plain old ridiculous.  2 American girls on vacation in Germany barely get directions over the phone , don't write anything down, drive into the deep, dark woods, and then, when they get a flat tire, they literally take off on foot through said deep, dark woods, as opposed to following the road.  That's just piss poor, and IMO, completely unacceptable.  I say so many times, when reading scripts, that the initial setup has to make sense (at least), and it just mystifies me how often that isn't the case.

The acting was bad. The dialogue was bad.  The action was non existent for most of the film. With such an outlandish premise (a mad doctor crates a "centipede" out of humans), this entire movie should have been balls out, and it wasn't.

Casting a Japanese dude who doesn't speak English and subtitling all the goofy things he screamed was a big mistake, IMO.  It was irritating, to put it lightly.

I really don't care of Six was trying to take the piss, or whatever you want to call it.  It did not come off as a serious attempt at horror, and IMO, it should have, to have any chance of working.

So, although I was majorly underwhelmed and did not care for it, it wasn't as horrible as I expected it to be.  I've seen far, far worse!  I guess I should have been hammered when I sat down to this one.

I would have thought you would have enjoyed this one, Jeff.

It's not without its flaws, but it had a certain horrifying power that few modern films seem to have. It's stayed with me to a degree as well.

Time you put your money where your mouth is, as they say, in such cliched fashion, and write a genre resurrecting masterpiece...I mean that in the nicest possible way of course.

Rick.

Underwhelming, that was a great way to sum this up.

I didn't think it was awful, it certainly does have something there, a spark that shows this writer/director could actually go on and make some great films. But I was underwhelmed, mainly because I was expecting so much worse, I sat down with a feeling of dread and uneasy excitement that I rarely watch a film with and ended up disappointed. I think it suffered for its hype.

It did get a bit funky towards the end, I think with the two cops it started to turn into a farce, and I agree with Jeff, the Japanese guy was annoying me. I did get why he was there, it added to the horror that the mouth couldn't communicate with the other two but this also then removed any possibility of exploring the real horror of this situation. In my mind real horror comes from the characters and how they are affected by what is happening to them. This was devoid of any of that and I think it ultimately suffers for it.

He has got more money to make Second Sequence and it will be very interesting to see what he can do with the bigger budget.

I just saw the teaser for HC2.  That was painfully bad.  I'd rather watch a really fat guy squeeze pimples on his ass.

Lovely imagery, I know.


Phil

Rick, you're funny.  I'll write a genre defining horror script soon, but keep in mind that I already have in Fade to White.  Give me a $15 million budget, a smart director, a good DP and editor, a solid cast, and we'll be seeing dollar signs, a happy audience, thrilled investors, and of course, the long overdue sequel that will light up the BO again.

Then...ah...then...

Fade to White is good...but it's not The One, Jeffrey.

I want you to reach into the deep, dark recesses of your soul, write till your beating heart pumps blood from the ends of your fingertips and you are in a trance-like state between life and death. I want you to descend into the murkiest depths of human existence and show us the horrors that lurk just behind this thin illusion we like to call reality.

Then I want you to lift us up, having helped us to transcend our banal existence, because true horror, the greatest horror, leaves us feeling enlightened as all successful escapes from the supernatural do.

I want that script delivered to me on May 13th 2011 and I want it signed in your blood.

No excuses.

What's with May 13, 2011?

Will we have a $15 Million budget or so?

Is there payment up front or on completion?  I could use a bone or 2, as times are pretty tough lately.

OK Rick, based on the answers I get back, I'm all over it.

I'm talking about art...the deepest, blackest, most terrifyingly beautiful art and all you can think about is money?

It was intended as inspiration, nothing more as yet.

The 13th May is Friday the 13th...maybe the planets or the muses will align just right for such a script.

Yeah, all I can think about is money, as I'm in great need of some.

I've actually got some thoughts on a new script, so we'll see where they go.

I do appreciate the inspiration...God knows I need some.