Geekscape Reviews The Human Centipede on Blu-Ray!
The Human Centipede has a power most films cannot imagine. It’s not a particularly well-made film (although it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds), and it doesn’t really have much to say about the human condition, unless of course that condition is being a centipede. The Human Centipede’s power is in its concept, which in this era of remakes, retreads and reimaginings is disturbingly original: a mad scientist somehow gets it in his head to conjoin three separate people via surgery, connecting them from the anus to mouth in a straight line. He calls the result a “human centipede.” Most people would just call it nauseating and try never to think of something so very, very unpleasant ever again. But once visualized this unsettling notion takes hold of the mind, forcing individuals to either see the film out of morbid curiosity or avoid it forever out of mental self-preservation. Either way the very idea behind the film has taken hold, forcing audiences to react on a primal level before they’ve seen even a single frame of the finished product. You can love it or you can hate it, but it can’t be ignored.
The Human Centipede (con)joins Standing Ovation as one of the unexpected midnight cult successes emerging from the otherwise lackluster movie-going year of 2010. Horror fiends and gore hounds and presumably entomologists flocked in droves to support the bizarre and original concept, and certainly the film works better in a theatrical, preferably crowded environment in which everyone’s gut reactions can cascade into a giant ball of nervous titters and sheer distaste. To quote Geekscape’s Brian Gilmore, The Human Centipede is “like Halo; shitty single-player but the multiplayer will knock your socks off.” He’s exaggerating a bit, since The Human Centipede’s single-player is actually halfway decent, but the gist is clear: watch The Human Centipede with a very open-minded friend, and don’t worry about preparing any snacks beforehand.
About that plot: Lindsey (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) are vacationing in Europe and get lost on the way to a nightclub, winding up deep in the woods, completely lost and then thoroughly relieved when they stumble into the home of Dr. Heiter (the awesomely-named Dieter Laser), who promptly drugs them. The girls wake up in a laboratory, where Dr. Heiter explains his plan to create a human centipede from the girls and a mysterious Japanese man (Akihiro Kitamura) who can speak neither German nor English and presumably has no idea what the hell is going on. They repeatedly try to escape but eventually Dr. Heiter realizes his dream, and the protagonists find themselves in an unspeakably horrifying reality as some kind of perverse pet whom Heiter tries to train to do things like bring him his newspaper.
Heiter’s first attempt at a centipede creature combined his three dogs, presumably now dead, and seems incapable of interacting with any other human being unless it’s a master/slave relationship. He admits to having a problem with people, which I suppose motivates his melodramatic (and really quite mad) attempts to literally dehumanize everyone else in the film. But really his motivations aren’t the point here. The very notion of The Human Centipede revolves around a “Will They Or Won’t They” kind of suspense, and once it becomes abundantly clear that writer/director Tom Six will, the day-to-day creepiness of being a human centipede becomes the focus of the film, for better or worse.
The Human Centipede works, I suppose. It’s certainly an unpleasant viewing experience, which seems to be Mr. Six’s intention, but it’s also not nearly as shocking or vile as one might imagine. Really, that’s rather the problem. The conceit is so distinctive that it brings vivid images to the mind of audiences everywhere, and the film either meets those expectations or worse… doesn’t quite go far enough. It’s probably scarier to simply hear about the film than actually watch it, especially once you start really thinking about the plotline. Exactly how long does Dr. Heiter think this creation can live (especially the people in the back)? How long does he think he can get away with this, since it becomes painfully clear as the film winds down that he’s hardly a criminal mastermind?
The Human Centipede crawls its way onto Blu-Ray with a high-definition transfer, and since the film was only shot in 720p it should be pretty obvious that you’re not in store for a particularly impressive visual treat. Of course, given the subject matter that’s probably a good thing. The film has a very digital look and detail is often very impressive in close-ups, but on the whole this won’t replace Speed Racer or Wall-E as your demo disc of choice. Sound quality is only fair, but it’s not a particularly rich movie from an audio perspective anyway so it’s difficult to mark it down for that.
The DVD also boasts a fair number of extras, but you’ll be able to breeze through most of them in less than half an hour. There’s a short interview with director Tom Six, who to his credit seems like a nice enough guy. He even manages to explain the genesis of the film without sounding too creepy, confessing that the horrifying scenario of the human centipede was originally dreamt up as a punishment for child molesters. Mr. Six also contributes a full-length feature commentary track, which is really for fans only. There’s a short Behind the Scenes featurette which has some cute moments and proves that the movie had a normal production process (as opposed to feeling like an elaborate snuff film), but it’s sort of slapped together and you’ll probably fast forward through most of it. There’s a weird featurette on the foley design, in which German guys in grainy home video footage show off all the creepy pieces of meat they’re going to mutilate, and also casting sessions with the two female leads. Rounding out the set are some alternate posters for the film and a trailer. Most of these extras a pretty ho-hum affairs, but they do the job. The Blu-Ray also suffers from some of my bigger pet peeves: trailers that can’t be skipped by hitting the “Top Menu” button, and a commentary track that’s hidden in the “Set-Up” menu instead of given its proper place in the “Extras” section.
The Human Centipede is a movie, that’s for damned sure, and it does exactly what it sets out to do without making you turn it off in absolute disgust, so I guess it also qualifies as a “good” movie. But whether it’s a “Must See” or a “Must Evade” kind of picture comes down to personal taste. If you have any interest whatsoever in so wretched a conceit you simply have to seek out this bizarre cinematic curio, and you’ll probably be a little impressed by how not-particularly-terrible it is. But if this whole thing disgusts you, you’re probably well within your rights to tell The Human Centipede to “eat shit and die.” If nothing else, it would certainly be thematically appropriate.
