Human Centipede 1 (First Sequence) Review

Movie: Human Centipede 1 (First Sequence)
By: Maniac E
Date: December 1, 2011

Just the beginning of what to come

The Human Centipede is a horror movie by the hand of Tom Six. The first entry of a trilogy and are we in for a ride. Tom Six created mostly pulp bullshit like “Gay” and “I love Dries” knowing this, the viewer knows the kind of taste that Tom has. These were Dutch movies and can be seen as one of the lowest of the low movies from Dutch grounds. Can Tom still shock the world after showing Dries Roelvink naked butt?

The story:

Two young American girls with more enthusiasm than sense are traveling through Germany. They agree to meet a friend at a popular night club. For some inexplicable reason, they take a short-cut through the woods. When their car breaks down, they wander like lost children until they stumble upon, in the best Hansel and Gretel fashion, a house belonging to a mysterious and very creepy-looking man named Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser) from whom they seek help. What they find is their worst nightmare come to life. I mean, wouldn’t alarm bells go off in your head if you noticed your host had an abstract painting of conjoined babies hanging on his wall? And, apparently our dimwitted heroines never read the memo that women shouldn’t accept drinks from strange men. Only something sinister can come from a situation like this.

When they wake from their drugged sleep, Lindsay and Jenny (Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie, respectively) find themselves helpless, strapped down on hospital beds and hooked up to IVs and other medical gadgets. Struggle is useless. Here, they along with another victim Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura), a Japanese man with a strong sense of national pride, learn of their fate at the hands of the good doctor: The trio will be reassembled into a “human” centipede.

I must say if movies like Blood Sucking Freaks and Cannibal Holocaust are right up your alley, then you may be a tad disappointed in The Human Centipede. You can call this "torture porn" if you wish, but that genre is mostly about blood and guts. Sure, the ideas are there; what is happening to these people is exactly what was promised. But you can only get away with showing so much before you're just making actual, literal, torture porn and I think Tom Six knew this. Splatter enthusiasts are actually going to be disappointed. It's true, a movie like this does contain blood and some gross moments, but the majority of the film instead suggests what is going on, leaving it to your imagination, however sick that may be. But there are some very glaring issues in this film. First is the performance of the two girls. From the beginning of the film you grow to dislike them. They are annoying in every sense of the word. Maybe this was intentional, but I'm thinking it wasn't. Ashlynn Yennie is especially bad, deciding to whine all of her dialogue instead of acting. While Ashley C. Williams isn't as bad, she still doesn't do much with what she's given. The two policemen that show up later play the typical police, only German. There's the good cop and the bad cop. Actually in this case it's probably bad cop and worse cop. They're both ill-tempered and unlikable. You only want them to win because it will stop the evil doctor and save what's left of his victims.

The biggest flaw in this film however is the script. I say this because the characters are inherently stupid. Not just stupid in the typical horror standard but they really take the cake. One character does a complete 180 at the end of the film and changes the entire way they act. It doesn't just happen gradually, that would be good writing. In this case it happens within seconds. It made me scratch my head as to why that person would do that. The two girls in particular are written as to be complete idiots, especially Lindsay.

There is a moment when she has a chance to escape, and instead of doing so, she goes back to grab her unconscious friend and drag her immobile body through the house. I know that this may seem heroic, but it's not. You'll have time to get help and save her. He still needs another person to create his centipede and even then he'll have to have time to kill and remove the bodies, which won't be enough if she got away and hurried. Decisions like this are all over the movie. Even the cops make them.

The rest of the film is a catalog of cruelty, subjugation, perversion, and degradation as Heiter puts his “pet” through its paces. It’s hard to stomach his barbarism and the victim’s suffering even for a horror film buff like me. More than once I wondered if I should just walk out. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) had the dubious distinction of rendering me speechless, something that rarely happens. Once it was over, I sat there dumbstruck with my chin scraping the floor. I’m forced here to assign a starred rating, and that’s difficult. It’s a film intended for the diehard filmgoers, horror fanatics, and midnight circuit viewers who take risks and can appreciate the twisted artistry of Tom Six. This movie isn’t for everyone just make sure you keep your eye open for the last part of the movie. As far as the gore parts wait till you get your hands on part 2….