The Human Centipede Review

Well a friend of mine asked me if I could review this movie and though I was eager to do so, sadly this film wasn't screening anywhere in the Pittsburgh area so I figured I would have to wait for DVD for it. But thanks to the modern marvels of the internet (piracy) some friends and I were able to watch it last night.

Now when I first heard about this movie, I looked it up because I thought it was a monster movie and who doesn't love a good monster movie? Then as I read a review on it I found myself intrigued because the story sounded so disturbing. I also found myself wondering how someone could drag a story about three people sewn together ass to mouth to a full movie. So yeah, our curiosity and impatience got the better of us and we downloaded it and it was so... boring.

The film opens on stock female characters 1 and 2 as they are going on. Of course its on a dark and stormy night and their car breaks down. They first attempt to solicit help from an old perv who hits on them in the most hilarious manner I have ever seen ( "I have a horny video, would you girls like to watch it with me?") so then of course they make their way through the woods to a creepy house where inside they find a creepy doctor. Soon they find themselves drugged and strapped to beds in the basement with another guy whom the doctor soon kills because he isn't suitable for the doc's "experiments". Later the doctor returns with a replacement: the token Asian who's every line of dialogue is pure solid gold ("Japanese have great strength when backed into a corner!"). The doctor explains that he is going to sew these three people ass to mouth making some twisted form of triplet. Hilarity ensues.

So yeah, after reading this you would expect something very sick, twisted, and hard to watch. And so was I. I was really expecting to be majorly grossed out by this movie, and with a plot like the one it has, you really should. I had heard descriptions of the scene when the guy at the front of the centipede has to shit and it made me not want to watch it, in fact I lost my appetite (something that rarely happens). But then the centipede was created and the movie kinda peaked. The shit scene mentioned above is nowhere near as disgusting and repulsive as it should be, and the rest of the movie is more or less the doctor training the centipede to walk, which is really nothing interesting. There is some intensity towards the end, but when its all said and done it just feels like a run of the mill thriller.

I was really expecting something on the level of Audition, something disturbing that sticks with you long after its finished, but this movie is really nothing more than an exploitation movie depending on the novelty of the story to keep it going. The centipede is created about halfway through and you can tell the movie doesn't know what to do with itself until the climatic scene.

Another big obvious complaint is why the hell does the doctor want to do this anyway other than he is just bat-shit crazy! Its established that he was a very prestigious surgeon so what drove him to want to sew people together? I think this movie was depending on the "pure evil needs no motivation" excuse, but for something like this we need some background. No motivation works for a character like Michael Myers because that's what makes him scary, but not for a creepy German doctor.

And you can also probably tell just from my short synopsis, but this movie isn't very subtle either. From breaking down on the dark and stormy road to the mad scientist, this is about as in your face as it can get. Though the dude playing the scientist is appropriately creepy, his performance is still of the "mustache twirling" variety. I would surely never ask this man for help nor step into his house, but in the world of bad horror movies, people do. Also, the characters in this movie are that special kind of horror movie dumb. The whole time you're questioning why these girls are not running from this man and then later police show up at his place and you question why they aren't arresting him. Logic isn't at an all time high in this movie as well, but did you really expect it from a movie called The Human Centipede?

So yeah, I guess this was just a classic case of being over hyped. From all the reviews and buzz this movie was getting I was expecting something far more than just a run of the mill B-movie. Its sad too because this really could have been something far more seeing how the story had everything there for it. As I said before I lost my appetite just imagining what one scene could be like only to find it to be quite boring when I watched the movie. So if you're looking for a cheap thrill, Human Centipede is your movie, but it doesn't live up to the potential it could have had.