The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2010)

If you’ve heard about The Human Centipede (First Sequence) and are shocked and disgusted by the premise, I can verify that it’s indeed based on one of the most vile and revolting ideas ever conjured, definitely not for weak stomachs. It’s outlandishly conceived and executed, terribly scripted, and utterly ridiculous much of the time. And the most shocking thing about the movie was realizing afterward that I wasn’t going to give it a bottom-of-the-barrel review. I’m truly in a quandary, because, make no mistake, this is a repellent and degrading film.

The cliché-ridden degradation starts with two stereotypical American party girls, Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie), touring Europe and going out one night to whoop it up at a German nightclub. They end up with a flat tire and lost on a dark road in the forest. After they’re briefly menaced by a perverted old man, the girls flee through the woods and seek sanctuary from a sudden rainstorm at the secluded house of über-creepy Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), who promptly drugs the ladies and secures them in his basement laboratory. If we can credit writer-director Tom Six with anything, it’s economy of exposition–this all happens within the first 15 minutes, which gets the audience that much quicker into the dark tunnel (sorry!) at the center of the story.

After the doctor fills the third bed in his lab with a tissue-compatible Japanese guy (Akihiro Kitamura), he explains his intentions to the three poor souls. A former specialist in the separation of conjoined twins, he now plans to do the opposite, and in the most disgusting way possible: joining three people, mouth to anus and mouth to anus, forming a single continuous gastric system between the three of them. And if that’s not horrific enough, he cuts into their kneecaps so they cannot extend their legs and walk upright, but must crawl. Together. Like a centipede. As the doctor’s pet.

I was surprised that the depiction of this scenario was much less visually graphic and lurid than I anticipated. The oral/rectal connections are conveniently swathed in bandages around their butts, so for most of the film, the worst we see are the stitching on the girls’ cheeks from the ass-flaps grafted to them, peeking above the bandages encircling their heads. It’s an independent film made on a relatively limited budget, so the stitch makeup and bandages are a practical and economical solution, enhancing the tongue-in-cheeks acting. (Sorry, couldn’t resist it.)

Some of the most repellent content is suggested rather than explicitly shown, and this leads to moments of high camp, especially thanks to the over-the-top lunatic performance of Dieter Laser as the doctor. His thin-lipped mouth like a bright scar across his face, he beats his pet centipede for refusing to fetch his newspaper, but the beating is shown only as a shadow play, as if it was a “shocking” domestic drama from the old days of the Hollywood production code. He pines over his “three-dog” buried in the backyard, his first attempt at the experiment, shown to us at the beginning of the film in a hilarious photo that looks like one dog duplicated twice more in Photoshop. The zenith of his lunacy coincides with the nadir of horribleness when the Japanese guy at the front of the line (both women degraded to the second and third positions, of course) has to defecate and the girl behind him has no choice but to choke and gurgle on his waste. The shock and horror of this concept is absurdly tempered by Laser’s insane performance as he smiles and delivers, like Colin Clive in Frankenstein, the most horrendously memorable line of the film: “Yes! Feed her! FEED HER!”

This truly revolting excuse for a movie is bleak, illogical (don’t get me started on the two dumbass cops who show up later in the movie), depraved, and stupid. And that “First Sequence” subtitle points to the fact that–heaven help us–Tom Six is already working on a sequel. I must admit, however, that I’ve seen worse movies than this. For a start, at least this disgusting concept is more realistic than any of the outlandishly sadistic deathtraps in the Saw movies. The mutilations in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist were much more graphic and painful to watch than anything on display here. And certain technical aspects of the production–primarily the cinematography and editing–are better than other cheapie horror flicks, such as last year’s ineptitude disguised as an ’80s homage, The House Of The Devil.

The Human Centipede is crawling across late-night cult cinema screens alongside a resurgence of interest in cheesy-bad low-budget indies, like the incoherent The Room and the amateurish Birdemic. These awful movies have been aided in their cult status by a shared trait: showmanship. The Human Centipede is advertised with the tagline, “100% medically accurate.” That’s bull–for example, the medical profession does not use the term “Siamese twins” anymore, as the mad doctor does. But that blurb on the poster is part of the showman’s game, to see how much crap they can successfully feed to an audience.

It’s weird to think that I may be jaded regarding coprophagic movies like this (though I’m repulsed by the concept). But many years ago on a double-date, when we planned to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show only to find it was sold out, we went down the street and watched a midnight movie we’d never heard of: Pink Flamingos. We were appalled, disgusted, incredulous–and we laughed as we sat through the whole damn thing, including Divine actually eating dog shit on camera at the end. After seeing that movie, not much else fazes me anymore. Thanks a lot, John Waters.

(For more bizarre horror films, check out Amazon’s online store. They have tons of horror flicks to choose from, and any purchase grants us a small commission.)