October 13, 2010: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Anyone who heard about The Human Centipede or read a review of it was probably disgusted and appalled and wondered why or how anyone could ever make such a film. Not quite a horror movie, it falls more into the “mad scientist art film” category.
I had wanted to take a look at this film, but didn’t want to spend the time, so I ended up giving it about 30 minutes, jumping around in the 91 minute run-time, and I think I got enough of an idea of it to write a partially informed review. The basic plot is that we have a mad scientist who kidnaps three people and wants to surgically attach them all together in such a way as to create a single uninterrupted alimentary canal. Antibiotics and other rudimentary medical measures are taken to ensure that the subjects don’t immediately die. I’ll leave it to the interested viewer to further research the plot of the film.
The trouble is, while the concept definitely has something to it, it’s pretty much impossible to execute as a feature length film. Time is filled near the beginning with horror-movie-style escape attempts by the captives, and later with inane scenes of the scientist living his daily life with his new “creature” fetching the newspaper and such. Again, the creepiness of these ideas carries some weight, but it’s overdone and yet underdone at the same time. The Human Centipede reviewed quite badly, and I wouldn’t disagree.
Mind you, it’s not all bad. The Human Centipede is about as tastefully produced as it can be, considering the grotesque concept, and Dieter Laser’s crazed performance as the villain is frighteningly reminiscent of those classically campy Udo Kier turns as the title characters in the old Andy Warhol-produced Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974), which have always been personal favourites of mine. But that’s not enough to save this ill-advised effort. I didn’t have to review The Human Centipede since I just skimmed through the film, much as I do with many other movies, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of my readers and warn them away.
Confused effort pushes at people’s boundaries.
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