My sweet 3 dog

11.9.11
3:11 pm
 
The Human Centipede.
These three words have made quite an impact over the past few years.*
And, as yesterday was Election Day, I elected to find out why.
 
Now, I had heard of the first film in the series, "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)", a few years ago.
I'd heard it was groundbreaking in its atrociousness and just awful.
The merest mention actually had the ability to send this girl Jessica into fits.
She was kind of a pussy though.
But that's neither here nor there.
So, the gist of the film is as follows: two idiot American tourists get lost in the woods of Germany (because, when their car gets a flat and their phone has no service THEY FUCKING WANDER OFF INTO THE FUCKING WOODS. I'll not go as far as to say these girls deserved what happened to them, but, people...THINK...), then get kidnapped (along with some Japanese dude) by this crazy, German surgeon who, for no apparent reason, decides to connect these three people anus to mouth to anus to mouth, thus creating one digestive system...a human centipede.
Of course, the individual segments of a centipede aren't really their own entities or capable of independent thought, but, whatever man, just take the ride.
The big deal about this whole concept is that the operation is completely, 100% medically feasible and, the results, 100% medically accurate (one of the films tag lines).
Once the surgery works and this crazy, German doctor has his human centipede, hijinks ensue before things eventually go wrong(er) and everyone but the Unluckiest Girl in the World dies horribly.
 
I took some notes:
First off, the thing is SO TROPEY.
Aside from what exactly the bad guy is trying to do, everything is right out of [insert any mad scientist movie ever].
Even the way the police are insinuated into the situation is old hat.
If not for the one horrific thing going on, this could almost be any horror movie of the "kidnapped by maniac for horrible experiment" type.
 
Next, this movie, above all others, needs a "Shining" treatment.
Hopefully, you'll know what I mean by that.
 
One of the first things you see in the movie is a small grave stone with "Mein susser hund drei" written on it.
That's German for "my sweet 3 dog".
I actually laughed out loud at that.
The fact that they show it more than once is just wonderful.
I suppose, if you'd never heard anything about this film, then it makes sense to show it once, before you have any idea what's about to occur and then again, after it's taken place, but, seriously, aside from the very, very first people to see this film, who the hell hasn't heard a least one, choked, terrified whisper about it?
But, yeah, my sweet 3 dog.
Excellent.
 
Once the human centipede was made, my first question was, what the hell are you going to do with a human centipede?
I mean, yes, it was quite a shock, but, then what?
Aside from trying a few basic dog-like things with it (teaching them to walk, training them not to bite, feeding them from a dog food dish), I think the writer/director, Tom Six, had the same question.
And no real answer.
That was apparent.
At one point, the doctor mentions adding another segment, but never gets the chance.
That issue, adding a segment, comes up later...
 
At several points, I thought of how much I'd enjoy the blooper reel from this movie...
 
For all the terror and shock and horror and whatever that surrounded this movie, the surgery was the worst part for me, specifically the removal of the teeth.
I don't like the gooshy bits.
In the end, this was a movie about team work and the dangers of going ass-to-mouth(to-ass).
Quite frankly, I think we have Kevin Smith's "Clerks 2" to blame for this whole fiasco...
 
After I'd finished the first movie, I decided that I needed to see the second one.
So I set that to download and went to sleep.
 
I woke to find that "The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" (a.k.a. "The Human Centipede 2: Even Centipedier") was ready for action.
Now, I hadn't actually heard anything about this film (like how it was banned in the U.K.), I'd just seen a trailer which kind of gave everything away: massive fan of the movie "The Human Centipede" kidnaps a bunch of people and makes his own, hijinks ensue.
That, on its own, doesn't seem all that enticing (not that anything about the first film was enticing, but you get the point...if you're still reading this...), but Tom Six does a pretty amazing job of setting this, more or less, straightforward progression of the story in a ridiculously fucked up world.
Literally every character in this movie, except for maybe one or two of the kidnapping victims is portrayed as a huge, awful asshole.
From the Neo-Nazi upstairs neighbor who beats the living hell out of the main character to the psychiatrist who would love nothing more than to rape the main character (who also happens to be his patient) to the main character's mother who resents her son for getting her sexually abusive husband put in jail.
I cannot explain how over-the-top these people are.
In fact, "over-the-top" is sort of the watchword here...
The movie takes place in London, where graveyard shift parking attendant, Martin (probably the best over-the-top casting job since the crazy, German doctor from the first film), uses the cameras in the garage to locate his victims.
With a crowbar and pistol, he incapacitates them, loads them into his van and drives them to a huge abandoned warehouse.
Well, not really abandoned.
He gets the realtor to sow him the space and then knocks him unconscious with the aforementioned crowbar.
When he isn't hunting and bludgeoning folks, he is watching "The Human Centipede" on his laptop.
Then rewinding it and watching it again.
And again.
And again.
And occasionally masturbating to one of the actresses in it.
Let me tell you a little about Martin...Martin (maybe five feet tall with a massive, sloping gut and bulging, crooked eyes) was sexually abused as a child by his father (on more than one occasion, we hear Martin's dreams: a baby crying and some guy with a Cockney accent say, "Stop with them tears, they're only makin' Daddy's pee pee harder."). He appears slightly retarded and seems to only speak when not on screen.
When on screen, his vocalizations are limited to grunts, farting noises, trilling, baby noises and so on.
Kind of a weak choice, in my opinion, but I really don't feel like Tom Six asked a lot of people for input on this one.
This movie is in black and white, and, as it progresses, I am happy with that choice.
Martin keeps a sort of Human Centipede scrapbook which contains far more impressive collaging than I'm capable of, so at least there's that.
He has pictures of the actors and actresses from the film in it, as well as the medical drawings, pictures of centipedes and a bunch of other crazy things that establish him to be crazy.
 
So, Martin plans on making himself a human centipede with twelve segments.
Yes.
The first two thirds of the movie is him collecting his victims (one of which is the actual actress who played the Middle Segment from the first movie playing herself. Turns out, in one of his off-camera-speaking-moments, Martin convinced this actress' agent that he is holding auditions for the new Quentin Tarentino film and they'd just love to see her try out for the part...) before doing his best to emulate the procedure as seen in "The Human Centipede".
This is where I had a a few problems...especially with his amateur removal of the teeth...
Oh man was that tough to watch.
And hear.
While the tag line of "The Human Centipede" was "100% Medically Accurate", the tag line of this one is "100% Medically Inaccurate".
Instead of scalpels, anesthesia, sutures and gauze, our dear Martin uses scissors, a crowbar, a staple gun and duct tape.
A lot of duct tape.
And a lot of staples.
After losing two victims in the process, an older man and a woman, nine months pregnant, he has his very own ten-segmented human centipede.
He giggles and capers and dances about for a bit, then proceeds to feed the first segment, in order to reenact a truly horrible scene from the first movie in which the first segment...well...poops.
The first segment throws the food away, causing Martin to insert a huge feeding tube down her throat and fill a funnel with cream of mushroom soup.
Which I don't enjoy even under ideal conditions.
But...no one poops.
Upset, Martin grabs a large bottle marked "Laxative" and a syringe.
I was worried about what was to follow.
Turns out I had every reason on earth to be.
What happens next...is really something terrible.
Then, as in the first film, things start to go wrong.
But more wrong than in the first.
Horrifically, nightmarishly wrong.
So wrong that I'm not going to get into here...on my personal fuckrant page.
One thing I will say, for all Tom Six's effort to make this thing as realistic as possible, people are still able to make noise without a tongue.
I'm just saying.
 
As with the first movie, this movie has its own allegories and morals: beware the dangers of fan fiction and do not trust psychiatrists with big, styled beards.
THC 2 was a lot harder to watch than THC and very much harder to eat stew during.
I learned something though, aside from don't park your car in London.
I learned that, no matter how dour and twisted upcoming events look to be, a naked guy bound with duct tape, sobbing "he's gonna stitch us up...he's gonna stitch us up ass to mouth" can't be greeted with anything other than giggles.
Tom, it's never going to replace "Soilent Green is made from people!" as a classic horror movie catchphrase.
Sorry.
 
All right, that was my journey through the deepest, darkest parts of a Dutchman's mind.
It's over.
Or is it?
According to Mr. Six (who is probably also an assassin with a name like Tom Six...most likely the sixth of his line and he's now being hunted by Tom Two through Tom Five with Tom One at the helm....), there will be a third and final "sequence" to the Human Centipede trilogy.
It will be shot entirely in the U.S and is slated for release in 2013.
He says, "it's going to make the second film look like a Disney flick".
So...there's that to look forward to.
Yay.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*And these three words when you're gettin' busy will get you punched in the dick.