The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

Netherlands, R, 92 m, 2009
Directed by Tom Six. Stars Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, et al.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) begins like any number of other horror flicks, but it ends up going places that I have never gone before and pray that I never have to go again.*  Following a couple of largely superfluous scenes (the first of which defuses certain bombshells to come), we find ourselves in the company of two all-American hotties, Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie), who are motoring through the German countryside in search of an after-hours doings. When one of their car’s tires becomes a candidate for Mount Firestone, Pablo the Penguin-style hysterics ensue—neither of these gorgeous but useless creatures has the slightest idea how to work a jack. (And they’re not about to try to figure it out lest they get their little hands dirty.) Of course, using their cell phones to summon the Yellow Angels is a fool’s errand; they have a better chance of whipping Daniel Fridman in a game of chess than finding a signal in this cursed genre. But things look up for, oh, a nanosecond when another car happens on the scene. Unfortunately (though not surprisingly), the only thing the seedy, cigarette-puffing Kraut behind the wheel is interested in doing is sexually harassing the chicks in his native tongue. (The beneficiaries of his gross advances are even less versed in German than they are in basic automobile care. So why they’re road-tripping unchaperoned through Deutschland is beyond me.) Well, after the old nutter moves on to whatever sump he calls home, our heroines decide to hoof it. (It never occurs to them to just drive on the flat. Yes, they’d have to take it slower than Miss Daisy in a Cugnot steam dray and would most likely ruin the rim, but it can be done. I know this for I once had to drive some thirty-odd country miles with a blowout.)

After tramping through the cold, rainy woods in their high heels for hours, Lindsay and Jenny come to a house—the most nondescript and least scary-looking house to ever sleep a make-believe madman. (And the way it’s shot doesn’t tell us if it’s part of a neighborhood or if it’s standing by itself in the middle of nowhere.) A lean, middle-aged fellow, Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser, who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Lance Henriksen), comes to the door. His manner is creepy, to say the least, but the Ashes ignore their intuition and trot right into his fastidiously decorated lair. (The set design is almost Kubrickian in its icy neatness.) Wet and shivering, they join the doc in his living room, where a huge painting of conjoined twins looms over the sofa. The mood is awkward, stressed—the girls are beginning to regret asking this weirdo for help. They try to break the tension by engaging him in small talk, but his mind appears to be elsewhere. Finally, he makes like a good host and fetches his guests some water. Little do they know that he has added something to that water: roofies. And soon they’re dead to the world, dreaming, perhaps, of snowflakes and moonbeams and whiskers on kittens. When they wake up, they find themselves strapped down on hospital beds. Eventually, a third party, Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura), a powerfully built Japanese who speaks not a lick of German or English, is sharing their room. But these unfortunate fucks are not at the Klinikum Aachen; they’re in Heiter’s basement laboratory. And Heiter has about as much respect for the Hippocratic oath as Josef Mengele.

With the assistance of some crude doodles on an overhead projector, the doctor reveals his crackbrained scheme: he will surgically link up his subjects (hence the movie’s title). So after cutting the ligaments in their knees (this leaves them with no choice but to crawl), he sews Jenny’s mouth to Lindsay’s anus and Lindsay’s mouth to Katsuro’s anus. I’m guessing that Katsuro is in the lead because he possesses the necessary upper body strength to pull the bodies behind him, though I’m sure he’d rather have his face buried in Williams’ bootylicious backside. (Those who take offense at such a comment can go peddle their applesauce; material this warped doesn’t merit any sort of delicacy on my part.) Being at the front of the line also allows Katsuro to hang on to his choppers and to continue eating normally (even if he has to take his food from a bowl on the floor), while Lindsay and Jenny are sustained with an IV drip. Of course, the moment we’re dreading must play out in the (cough) end: Katsuro drops a deuce right down Lindsay’s throat. (Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.) Promotional materials for The Human Centipede insist that the picture’s grotesque goings on are “100% medically accurate,” though I have yet to talk with an MD who’s willing to back this up. (Perhaps I should give Dr. Sanguinary a jingle.) Needless to say, this kind of hucksterism is nothing new to the horror genre: legendary schlockmeister William Castle built a money-spinning career out of suckering ticket buyers with such gimmicks as a $1,000 life insurance policy for those who died of fright while watching Macabre.

It’s not the sight of the titular monster that does you in; it’s the awful sounds that come out of it—Katsuro’s cries and the girls’ whimpers are practically incessant. After a while, even Heiter regrets not having severed their vocal cords. But why is this damnable so-and-so (who, when bedecked in his mad medic attire, calls to mind Dr. Sivana) subjecting our heroes to such cruelty in the first place? Is it just the usual god complex? If so, he does surprisingly little with his creation: he makes it go and get his newspaper. Worse, there’s nothing especially disquieting about the sight of the human centipede; it lacks the ghoulish force behind the mutant pooch in The Fly 2 or the disembodied head in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. Only a fool would get all Freudian in their analysis of The Human Centipede; it’s not even smart enough to be classified as pseudo-Cronenberg. Granted, it has a twisted vibe reminiscent of The Brood and Crash and Dead Ringers, but when all’s said and done it’s no more thought-provoking than an episode of “Freddy’s Nightmares.” Writer and director Tom Six (honest Injun, that’s his real name) is only interested in repulsing you, perhaps even enraging you, but his icky imaginings don’t have enough subtext to keep you up at night. There are, however, so many other things to admire, particularly the cutting, which rarely strays from its flowing, dreamlike tempo. I also dug on the photography by Goof de Koning, who appears to be something of a genius at creative lighting. 

The Human Centipede puts us through the grinder, but like far too many other gore fests of late, its big, bloody finale isn’t cathartic. Goodness goes down for the count, so the feelings we invest in Heiter’s victims (not to mention the numberless appeals we murmur on their behalf) are wasted. When the credits come up, we feel disheartened, empty—we hope for another great flood to come along and wash this wicked world away. Six takes and takes and takes from us, only to hose us in return. But that hosing is a light peck on the cheek compared to what he puts his pretty, wide-eyed actresses through. I have no idea how much Williams and Yennie were paid for this exercise in dehumanization, but I’m sure it wasn’t enough. 

November 15, 2011 

*The Human Centipede II is currently playing in select cities. Somebody up there doesn’t like me. 

© Copyright 2011 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.