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.

Film Review: The Expendables

It has been almost 2 years since I first heard about The Expendables. At first it was just Sylvester Stallone making a massive action film, but then as the weeks progressed and turned into months the cast started coming together and every announcement seemed to top the last.

First modern day action favourite Jason Statham was cast, then martial arts legend Jet Li, then a man who has been off the big screen and languishing in DTV hell for years - Dolph Lundgren. And the names kept on rolling - UFC champion Randy Couture, WWE Champion 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin, Eric Roberts - another man who gets a long deserved big 'bad guy' role, Dexter's David Zayas, Former NFL star Terry Crews...

And not forgetting 3 unforgettable appearances from Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I remember well about a year ago being gutted that the release date of May 2010 had been pushed back to August. Late in 2009 we got a rough trailer which showed us what to look forward to, and well here we are!

The Expendables is the first non-Rocky or Rambo film Stallone has directed since 1983's Staying Alive and tells of a group of mercenaries sent to overthrow a dictator. Thats it really. And I'm not saying that as a negative.

The film starts with the team - Barney Ross (Stallone), Lee Christmas (Statham), Ying Yang (Li), Gunner Jensen (Lundgren), Toll Road (Couture) and Hale Ceasar (Crews) saving Americans from evil Pirates.

Just as a side note here - obviously Stallone and co-writer Dave Callaham were having a bit of a laugh with the characters names here - Steve Austin's character is simply called Paine, Mickey Rourke's Tool...

After the scene is set, we follow Ross to a meeting with potential client Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), which also involves another leader of a group of mercenaries Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Not to give away too much about this scene, but it's going to be one of those that go down in movie history. It's not a long scene but seeing the 3 action movie legends bouncing off each other is just brilliant and almost has a surreal quality to it.

That scene sets up the main plot of the film (such as it is) which involves The Expendables travelling to a South American island to overthrow a dictator (Zayas) but the dictator is being controlled by a ruthless American (Roberts).

Obviously when all the Expendables arrive at the island all hell breaks looses and culminates in a breathtaking action sequence in the underground of the dictators palatial residence. And when I mean breathtaking - I'm not kidding - a kind of hush fell over the cinema audience at this point as some of the most brutal fighting was uncorked in front of them.

The end also did expose a flaw or two - mainly down to some ropey CG which I won't detail as both instances are spoiler ridden, but you'll know what I mean.

In short The Expendables was the film I hoped it would be and more. Great action, cheesy dialogue and the return to the big screen of some people I'd never thought I'd see there again (especially Dolph Lundgren who looked like he was having a blast making it and was responsible for the second best line of the film - "Warning shot!")

And it seems to be catching. Apparently Bruce Willis saw a rough version and after all this time of distancing himself from the franchise (and only doing sequels when he can get something in return) he wants to do a proper old school style Die Hard film!

And what of The Expendables? It's left wide open for a sequel and after an impressive opening weekend in the States where it trounced Julia Roberts vehicle 'Eat, Pray, Love' and Edgar Wright's 'Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World' its bound to happen and Sly himself has already said he is thinking of ideas (apparently he has scrapped all plans for Rambo 5 in order to do a sequel) one of which is to introduce new Expendables.

So we can only hope for Steven Seagal, Jean Claude Van Damme, a return in some way for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis (entirely possible for Arnie - he is out of office in November) or maybe even the holy grail of 80s action stars...Chuck Norris?

But for now, enjoy what we've got and go see this film repeatedly. You don't get many chances to see something like this on the big screen.

*****

Sly and co. do not dissapoint in this adrenaline packed mammoth. Miss it at your peril!