The Human Centipede Review

The Human Centipede is a movie that must be experienced.  It has to be seen to be believed.  I say this only due to the fact that until the other day I had not seen the movie, but I had HEARD everything about it.  Yeah, EVERYTHING.  But hearing and seeing are two very dissimilar senses, particularly when it comes to a movie like The Human Centipede.

The movie was released to a hail of controversy and curiosity.  The subject matter was, in its favor, original, but even more so risque, unflinching.  What many in the horror community call "hardcore horror".  I eschewed seeing the movie for the longest time due to this.  I'd been suckered into so much over-hyped and ultimately flat foreign fare that I expected The Human Centipede to be more of the same.  Don't get me wrong, the movie is no masterpiece.  FAR, far from it.  The movie masquerades itself as a deep psychological portrait of a madman, and on some small level it is.  On a much greater level, however, its a torture porn that relies on simple shock value to assault the audience and test our gag reflex.  The characters aren't your typical dimwitted horror movie cannon fodder, either.  They are on a whole new level of insipid.  You hate the characters for their stupidity.  I say hate the writer.  The character's complete lack of simple common sense is pretty astounding.  You can forgive quirky dialogue in a foreign film, as much of it can be chalked up to a barrier in translation.  But stupid is stupid, regardless of nationality. 

I will say this for the the movie, its fairly well made and the acting from Deiter Laser, who portrays Dr. Heiter with such diabolical relish that you can't help but be drawn into the movie by his wild-eyed, brash performance alone.  There's nothing in the way of character development here.  You simply feel bad for the characters considering their "predicament".  The last act of the movie is primarily comprised of one character yelling in Japanese, Dr. Heiter cackling, and the two female leads muffled cries.  I do mean muffled.  Then the movie just sort of ends.  A fitting end when you think about it.  There's no resolution, but then there's really no plot to speak of to resolve.

I enjoyed the movie.  God help me, but it was pretty damn entertaining.  Sure, I felt like I needed to bathe afterward and admitting that I enjoyed watching it certainly doesn't illicit a feeling of profound pride.  I found it on Netflix and decided to give it a few minutes to see what happened.  What the hell, I thought.  Not long thereafter I realized I was actually wrapped up in the movie and enjoying every minute of it, not just on a shock value level (though, admittedly, that's most of this movie's charm, and I use the word 'charm' loosely), but it was actually kind of suspenseful.  The Human Centipede succeeds in turning the viewer's screws and getting them invested in what's happening, even it's making them sick to their stomach.  That alone is a major accomplishment in my book.