The Human Dementopede
One of my first posts to this blog was a review of The Human Centipede back in 2010. https://thepurplepedant.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/the-human-centipuke/
I had a legitimate reason why I inflicted such a horrific display of cinematic depravity on myself. The concept really spooked me and it kept me up into the wee hours. Watching the movie allowed me to take control and put the ridiculousness of it in perspective. Regrettably, I have no reasonable explanation why I did the same for its sequel—The Human Centipede 2—when it became available on IFC On Demand this month. I didn’t think it could get more sickening than the first one, but, oh, I was terribly wrong. Tom Six, the, er, creative genius behind it, like a Criminal Minds unsub, escalated his twisted creation to new and repulsive depths. He out-icked himself. I think for the rest of this review, I will refer to him as the more aptly named Mr. Sick. His mother must be proud.
To add insult to injury, I spent $6.99 (plus tax) to suffer through what is no doubt one of the most disgusting movies in existence. And I saw Faces of Death! It leaves about as much to the imagination as your average snuff film. Does that drive my point home? This film was horrifyingly horrible. Thankfully, the movie was only 90 minutes long, which amounted to 7.766¢ per minute. While it seems nominal when put that way, the possible damage it did to my psyche cannot be recompensed.
I suspect Mr. Sick was aiming for a noir-esque feel by filming completely in black and white. What he got was more reminiscent of Eraser Head, complete with that perturbing ambient white noise. What was that hissing radiator sound about, anyway? Really, an homage to that chin-scratcher of a flick is unnecessary. Still, viewing such a grisly display in monochrome does take a bit of the edge off. Thanks for that bone, Tom.
While the first film’s tagline was “100% Medically Accurate,” this one is “100% Medically Inaccurate.” How tongue-in-cheek. That would be because the psycho in the first one was supposed to be an actual surgeon with credentials, but the one in the second was just plain psychotic with no surgical knowledge whatsoever. Bwahaha! That is . . . hilarious.
The central character, Martin Lomax, was a mentally challenged and disturbed night watch security guard of an English parking garage. His visage was repulsive with a pair of googly eyes that made Marty Feldman and Peter Lorre look merely surprised in comparison, man boobs, an atrociously large gut, all on what appeared to be a sub-5-foot tall frame. Plus, he had no shoulders. Odd for me to notice, I know. One can imagine him hacking his halitosis into the air during his many asthmatic attacks. He was disgusting from top to bottom. There was no positive quality in this dude to be seen. Of course, such a pivotal role required an actor that looked the part.
God was in a bad mood when he created the recipe for that gene pool. He looks like Dr. Evil’s deformed clone—MutantMe. I guess the audience is supposed to feel a bit sorry for the guy, as he was sexually abused as a child and as an adult, still lives with his crazy mother who blames him for her husband being jailed for life. “Keep crying, you’re just making Daddy’s willy harder.” Wow, that is creepy. We can only sympathize so much when the psychological damage manifests itself in the desire to inflict some of the worst tortures man—Tom Sick in this case—can imagine. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself in this review.
Speaking of, I would say that Mr. Sick should quit while he is ahead, but he never was ahead. He just needs to quit.
You know, I suspect the actor who was suckered into playing Martin Lomax, Laurence R. Harvey, initially welcomed the acting challenge of portraying such a deviant character who had no speaking lines. It must have been a fascinating exercise to emote mostly through facial and body language. To his credit, he was successful. As for the other actors, I believe they displayed the appropriate level of horror. I wonder if any of them asked Mr. Sick, “What’s my motivation?”
By the way, Roger Ebert reviewed the original and its sequel. He gave the first movie one and a half stars (in a world where stars don’t shine, as he hilariously put it), and this one zero stars. I believe that might be overly generous. I am trying to picture how he must have looked before and during this movie.
Roger Ebert before The Human Centipede 2
- Roger Ebert during The Human Centipede 2
There is not much difference, eh? At least I have the ability to express my horror in what I am watching—verbally and physically; he doesn’t. Poor guy is all bottled up with his disgust. Whatever he was paid to review these movies, I trust it wasn’t enough. But I digress, again.
Focus! Something I wish Mr. Sick had not done quite so sharply; it would have made it easier to watch if it were filmed a bit blurrier!
Okay, back to the movie. I hope to sum it up as expeditiously as possible. To spend more time than necessary is to risk venturing again down that path of revulsion from which I may not be able to return. Yes, I am going to spoil the whole plot for you so that you won’t have to experience what I did. You’re welcome.
The first 55 minutes was spent implying the sources of Martin’s pathologies, as well as setting the stage for his modus operandi. He watched The Human Centipede during his shift every night, while paging through a lovingly crafted scrapbook containing highlights from the film. Thus, it was obvious he was obsessed with the movie. As he shot and clubbed random victims he spied on the security cameras in the garage, and stowed them in a warehouse, his plans were laid bare: He wanted to create a 12-segment human centipede. His ideal goal was to incorporate the three actors from the original centipede into his freaky, little magnum opus. He was successful in acquiring Ashlynn Yennie—the actress who played the surviving middle segment—by claiming to be a casting agent for a new Tarantino film. The other two were busy with other projects. Do you have an idea where this is going? Let me just say that one moral of this story could be that actors should be choosier with their roles.
It appears the filmmaker is a practical jokester, as well. The agent left a callback number for Martin: 713-499-0913. Since it wasn’t the usual fake “555” movie number, of course viewers will dial it. Guess what? The subscriber doesn’t accept calls. Screw you, Mr. Sick!
Oh yeah, Martin also had a real centipede as a pet, and it had a role outside of a heavy-handed symbolic device. Keep reading. It’s epic.
He eventually acquired all twelve necessary victims. In between that, he bludgeoned his mother to death and used her corpse to lure his skinhead bully of a neighbor as another victim (I really don’t feel like explaining that one). I would say the murder of his mother was his trigger, but that chamber was emptied long before that. Oh, he also shot his psychiatrist in the head because he kept rubbing his knee. That’s right, Martin’s doctor was sexually attracted to him. I know, hard to swallow, but so is this whole movie. While we are on that subject, if you must see it, don’t eat during it.
Onto the last 35 minutes. He laid out all his tools that he acquired from his mother’s kitchen. He even grabbed a fork. Better to have it than . . . whatever. He had a fork. Anyway, Martin took a break from preparing and assembling his victims to pick up the unsuspecting Ashlynn Yennie and drive her to the warehouse. As is typical of horror films, just as she realized what she was walking into, he whacked her on the head with a crowbar. Oh yeah, that was his weapon of choice outside of the gun. He’d cripple them with the gun, then knock them unconscious with the crowbar. Since head wounds tend to bleed profusely, all the victims had duct tape wrapped around them like headbands. Actually, wherever there was a wound there was duct tape. His monster was going to look like trailer trash, to boot.
After positioning Miss Yennie as the front segment, he was ready to create his centipede. At least, Herr Doktor from the first film used anesthetic and proper surgical techniques. That was pretty humane, relatively speaking. Martin, however, just started hammering, cutting, and slicing away. Tap, tap, crack! Out goes his neighbor’s teeth with a hammer. Slice! Off goes Ashlynn’s kneecap tendons with a vegetable knife. One lucky guy died from blood loss as Martin tried to create the butt flaps that would be attached to another’s face. I am very grateful he had to abandon that approach, in retrospect. Anyway, off to the side segment #1 went.
MutantMe was getting quite frustrated as his vision was not unfolding as planned. He lost segment #2—a pregnant woman (awesome!)—who seemed to die just from laying there. He listened to her belly, and there was still a fetal heartbeat. I could feel my toes tighten and curl in revulsion as I feared the reason he was checking to see if the fetus was still alive. Thankfully, he just moved Mom off to the side to join the other guy. He was left with making only a 10-segment bug. Alas.
Only 11 minutes passed since I had checked the DVR clock last at that point. Cripes, I was really hoping that the ending credits would take up at least 10 minutes, so that I’d only have to endure this for no more than 14 more minutes. Since the butt flaps didn’t work, he went straight to the staple gun. That’s right. Ass to mouth, carpenter-style. It became horrifyingly obvious that Martin had an anal fixation that mind-bogglingly surpassed Freud’s vision, as he did everything possible to get everyone to shit and eat. One of the kitchen gadgets he brought was what looked like a beer bong. Since Ashlynn was being recalcitrant, he pushed the tube down her throat to force-feed her. Since digestion isn’t immediate, he started rubbing everyone’s belly. That must have been soothing. It started to have an effect. He pulled out a syringe that he filled with a laxative. I don’t remember seeing that before, not even as a gun on the wall. Regardless, it served its purpose. Everyone got an injection in the ass. He didn’t even change the needle. Hello? Did he not know about HIV?
The results were bloody disgusting. Even a coprophile would have lost his erection. Diarrhea shit splattered everywhere, even on the camera lens. Remember the scene from Jaws when water splashed on the lens during a shark attack? It made you feel like you were in the water, watching it unfold. Not the same effect here. I didn’t want a front-row seat to that nasty Gallagher concert.
Let me try to wrap this up. Ms. Yennie screamed too much for Martin’s liking, so he pulled out her tongue. Technically, she could have kept yelping, but it shut her up. One of the braver chaps ripped his mouth off to separate from the rest of the team, causing the centipede to branch off into two segments. Oddly enough, that looked even more horrifying. That disrupted MutantMe’s paradigm, so he started executing them all, segment by segment. I trust he didn’t appreciate what a favor he was doing them at that point. Ashlynn, being the spunky actress that she was, eventually retaliated as he got to her. After valiantly striving to turn off the lights to gain the element of surprise, when Martin turned them back on she hurled his beloved pet centipede at him, causing the aquarium to shatter and free the bug. Okay, so here comes the epic part.
As the last living segment, the soon to be out-of-work actress exacted her revenge to the best of her abilities. She somehow knocked him in the groin and de-pantsed him. Conveniently, the beer bong and centipede were within her reach. Do I need to describe what happened next?
He really should have wound up in the hospital, and possibly died from internal injuries. But, like a trooper, he was back to work. Although, in truth, I don’t know how much time passed. Nor do I know how he got rid of the dead insect. I just realized the double entendre there. I could be talking about the dead people, or the centipede slithering through his colon. I believe Mr. Sick wanted the ending to be nebulous: Did he survive and go back to business as usual, or did he fantasize the whole thing? I don’t know if it matters; we probably will not see these actors in anything credible.
Oh wait, there’s one more thing. The pregnant woman wasn’t actually dead, and thus was able to escape. She got into a car that still had the keys in the ignition. Inconveniently, she started giving birth as Martin tried unsuccessfully to break into the car. It only took a few minutes for her to spit out the baby. I guess trauma is a great labor-inducer. The newborn spurted onto the floor of the car, and in the mother’s desperation, she slammed the pedal to the metal. Yes, indeed, the baby’s head was between the floor and the gas pedal. Mr. Sick, you officially went too fucking far with that. Why did that need to happen? I would not want to get inside his brain to mine for that answer.
I weep at the prospect of a third movie. Shudder. One can only hope that cannibalistic, venomous centipedes everywhere will rise up and put a stop to Tom Six sullying their good names.
Posted on October 27, 2011, in Popular and tagged Ashlynn Yennie, humor, Laurence R. Harvey, Martin Lomax, Marty Feldman, movies, Peter Lorre, reviews, Roger Ebert, The Human Centipede, Tom Six. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
The Purple Pedant 
Jesusfrickingchrist, WHY?!?!?
I need to go sanitize my soul now.
Do you have one to sanitize? Heh heh.
I actually do have a problem watching some movies in this category, such as “Saw,” because they take themselves much too seriously, but this movie is just a couple of notches away from a parody. That said, it certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. I saw the first “Human Centipede” and didn’t enjoy it so much because — again — it took itself too seriously and the plot, such as it was, moved much too slowly. But this one was actually funny, and I’m sure all the actors were just happy to be working. The black and white format probably does make it more palatable, since the fake blood everywhere isn’t so noticeable. Do I agree that going down this road is just one more sign that our civilization is on the verge of collapse? Maybe. But hey, it’s only a move, and no actors were harmed in the making of this film.