Film Review: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

Quite how this film escaped my attention for so long is a mystery. I always seem to pride myself in finding the most messed up, controversial films long before anyone has heard of, let alone seen them. But The Human Centipede (For brevity's sake I shall drop the 'First Sequence' portion of the title for the rest of the review) only came to my attention just over a month ago, and since it was made in 2009 I made it my mission to try and see it as it was getting a UK release.

Only problem was due to the controversial nature of the film...where the hell would I see it? I was looking at a wait till October where it lands on Region One DVD!

Thank God then for the obviously unbalanced folks at Cinema City in Norwich who elected to show it for one night only this weekend.

The film tells of 2 American tourists (who, as this is a horror film, are exceedingly dumb) who are on a road trip of holiday of Germany and while looking for a nightclub they get a flat tire and are stranded in the middle of nowhere. Without a phone signal, obviously.

After a disturbing (but hilarious) encounter with a fat bloke, the girls retreat from their car and find the house of one Dr. Heiter (played brilliantly by Dieter Laser) who unfortunately for the girls is a retired surgeon who specialized in separating Siamese twins but now...lets just say he likes to mix things up.

The girls are summarily drugged and fastened to hospital beds in Heiter's cellar laboratory where...well I think its best explained by the dialogue itself, I don't think I could do it justice somehow.

"I'll explain this spectacular operation only once. We start with cutting the ligamentum patella, the ligaments of the kneecaps, so knee extension is no longer possible. Pulling from "B" and "C" the central incisors, lateral incisors and canines from the upper and lower jaws, the lips from "B" and "C," and the anus of "A" and "B," are cut circular along the border between skin and mucosa, the mucus cutaneous zone. Two pedicelated grafts are prepared and lifted from the underlying tissue. The shaped incisions below the chins of "B" and "C" up to their cheeks connecting the circular mucosa and skin parts of anus and mouth, from "A" to "B," and "B" to "C," connecting the pedicelated grafts to the chin-cheek incisions from "A" to "B," and "B" to "C," creating a Siamese triplet, connected via the gastric system. Ingestion by A, passing through B, to the excretion of C. The human centipede, first sequence"

And apparently '100% medically accurate" (The directors father in law was a surgeon who helped him with the details) But what of the film?

First of all I'm unsure if it was director Tom Six's intention but the film is hilarious. It really shouldn't be and at some points ("Mein leiber 3-hund") who ask yourself whether you should be laughing at this at all, but the film is so ridiculous and the character of Heiter is so over the top (think a German Christopher Walken at his most extreme...then double it) you just can't help but laugh.

But it also works as a decent little horror movie, although the humour factor does take the edge off some of the horror but I guess that is subjective. The audience in the screen I saw it in were roaring with laughter all the way through - obviously understanding how demented the whole thing was, but some people would take it more seriously and not see the hilarity of a man training a human centipede to bring him his newspaper. Weirdos.

Overall the film works. You don't get to see too much of the surgery (but you see quite a bit) and once the operation is complete you can't really see whats going on there - a lot of it is in your head, especially when the 'front piece' needs to go number two...

But again, the humour is what takes it above your generic 'torture porn' kind of film. Let's hope the quality is maintained in 2011's sequel The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) where we have been promised a 12 person centipede and for the film to be '100% medically INaccurate' ... can't wait!

****

The humour blunts the horror most of the time but this is still a messed up masterpiece.