The Human Centipede: The joy of not being one

If the audience takes anything from The Human Centipede, it’s quite plainly the blissful feeling that not being a human centipede brings.

For those film fans wondering how investors ever entertained the idea of a thriller boasting a plot line involving an antagonist sewing one victim’s mouth to another victim’s anus - the answer is simple; Dutch director Tom Six missed that part out when selling them his new film idea entitled The Human Centipede. Which, apparently, was an idea sparked by his fantasies of what should be done to child molesters and truck drivers. Good start.

The Human Centipede has been in the public world now for three months. My guess is if you were wise enough to avoid forking out for the big screen experience, then you instead opted for a movie night in with the lads, a beer or two and a bit of a chuckle at how awfully sick the human race can be. For that scenario, The Human Centipede is perfect. As far as writing, scripting and horror movie making goes however, it falls short of being anywhere near a decent movie. I make no backbones about it; there is negativity aplenty and an array of spoilers to come.

The film begins with the pinnacle of tiresome, generic horror cliché with the introduction of two of the most insufferable characters ever to be created – and subsequently to lead a plot. Both female, both on the phone and both sporting whiney American vocals and too much makeup, the character development of these two hapless cretins doesn’t do much for the sympathy we’re supposed to show them. And when they announce via their separate ‘cell phone’ calls that they’re in Germany and looking for a good night out, tedium ensues. Fortunately for us but unfortunately for them they know nothing of the native language and therefore, as we have all done at some point in our existences, they left their top notch hotel in search of the clubbing district blind.

They somehow find themselves lost on a dirt track and squabble over which one can read a map and change a tyre the worst. Someone has to question just how they managed that one. Cue their genius plan to get out the car in search of a secluded house where, inevitably, a crazy German surgeon in a white lab coat and sunglasses awaits to sew them together. Have these girls learnt nothing from the genre their lives are crafted from? Of course your tire burst, it’s raining and there’s no signal.

Fast forward just seven minutes and the sodden duo are in the warmth of a modern well lit house, being drugged on the sofa by a leathery faced man resembling Salad Finger’s sad uncle in a dressing gown with a constant look of confusion plastered on his mug. It’s difficult to decipher the casting of Dr Heiter - a retired surgeon with a dream and a clearly prosperous pension – as he always appears lethargic, distracted and sometimes even bored. Unless it’s a trait created to give more depth to his otherwise dull character - and therefore a tolerable addition - his cringe-worthy expressions of pleasure over his creation are often more annoying than intriguing.

Let’s face it however; the reason people watch this film is to see the centipede. You do see plenty of it from almost dead on half way through but after only a few minutes the concept begins to turn your stomach and you begin to wish for their lives and ultimately the film to quickly end. Admittedly, it’s different from the usual hoping that at least one of them survives, but along with most of the twisted, gruesome content of the film the surgery is only implied and it does feel like there is a gaping hole in the plot where more gore should sit.

Possibly the most frustrating part of the 90 minutes though comes after the three victims, completed by a very loud and unhappy Japanese man at the front – who, incidentally, is the least insufferable character - have suffered the surgery. The German police, naturally, become suspicious and seek a search warrant which apparently takes 15 minutes to attain. Perfect. Since it’s only a matter of time before the rear part of the centipede dies of blood poisoning, you can’t help but wonder why Mr. Voller - one of the policemen apparently stuck in the 60’s – appears to just sit and stare at the cameraman while the victims scream from the basement. Not to mention why his counterpart, Mr. Kranz, discovers the centipede in a room, grossly overacts the ‘being taken aback’ role and simply moves on through the house as if he’d just stumbled across the guy’s pet poodle.

Tom Six is working on a sequel. Since everyone died in this one, one can only assume a copycat or an estranged nephew. Whether this film is meant to be a European farce designed specifically to push to boundaries of the gross-out human torture porn genre or is an attempt at a genuinely thrilling movie, The Human Centipede is – by anyone’s standards – a terrible film. A saving grace may be that it’s never really boring but it’s so flawed and poorly acted that even the sick and twisted element doesn’t make it a success. If the audience takes anything from The Human Centipede, it’s quite plainly the blissful feeling that not being a human centipede brings.

Best part: When a creepy German man stops to offer assistance a mere nine minutes into the film and, when turned down after insinuating – in German - he’s seen the girls in a dirty movie, proceeds to make an amusing gesture with his tongue in the corner of the screen.

Worst part: When the oh-so-gay policemen dillydally about in Dr Heiter’s living room with glasses of water while the victims scream from the cellar - instead of doing their job of actually saving people from being centipedes.