Review: The Human Centipede (First Sequence) — (2009) by R.J. Cavender

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) — (2009)

Written and Directed by Tom Six

Ok, first off, if you WANT to see this film I’d recommend NOT reading anything at all about it. Skip the previews and don’t read any further. Seriously, stop reading now if you want to enjoy this film on any level. I mean it. Go away.

Let me preface this review with a story.

When I was a kid, I went to a traveling carnival that had a Freaks and Oddities attraction. It boasted all kinds of wild claims, but what I was most interested in seeing was ‘The Devil Mermaid Mummy’ that they claimed to have on display within.

Sure, even at ten years of age I had my doubts about the authenticity of such an item being on display at the Shiawassee County Fair, but I just had to know the Secrets of the Unknown. So, I laid my money down and entered the musty smelling trailer. On display were old tintype photos of farm animals with too many legs, Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not’ clippings, and other macabre bric-a-brac.

And there in a glass case bolted to the wall was what I had been so curious to see with my own two eyes…The Devil Mermaid Mummy!

Unfortunately, The Devil Mermaid Mummy was nothing more than a monkey skeleton sewed to the ass-end of a lacquered sea bass. Someone had put a small polka dotted bikini top on the monkey skeleton. I was disappointed, disheartened, and disgusted.

“The Human Centipede” left me feeling much the same way.

While I usually avoid trailers for films, I saw the preview for this at the theater and short of shutting my eyes like a weirdo there wasn’t much I could do about it. Truthfully, I felt pretty disappointed that so much of the movie was shown in the preview. In fact, the whole damn thing came down to a matter of just being far too obvious, literal, and…blunt. I mean, damn, this film is exactly what it advertises. Nothing more or less, and really, if you saw the preview, you saw the film.

Sort of.

But, in true carnival barter fashion, I felt like I was promised one thing and then given a movie that was pretty lame and overall just a cheap ploy to get me to buy a ticket.

Here’s what the film WAS. It was a ‘mad scientist’ movie. It was a ‘gross out’ movie, but a pretty tame one, all things considered. It was a movie based on hype and word-of-mouth advertisement and in many respects it succeeded at being whispered about and from comments read on Facebook and elsewhere, a film people were either instantly curious about or repulsed by from the get-go.

Here’s what the film WAS NOT. It was not scary. And while there is a good deal of tension, it’s really not a very suspenseful movie. It’s not a smart film, but it is a good looking film. And oddly enough…it’s not a very explicit film at all. I heard someone describe this in the ‘torture porn’ category (a description I’m rather sick of) but that just didn’t fit, since none of the medical violence in this film is gratuitous, and there simply is nothing even close to sexual titillation in this film.

Is it a horrible film? Not really. But, it’s not a great film either. It’s directed competently enough, and the look of the film is actually kind of nice. There are many scenes that have full-color washes and some of the sparsely decorated sets give this film a definitive look and feel of its own. But, the true problem with this film is just an incredibly poorly thought-out script.

I mean, let’s face it, no pun intended, but the third act is impossibly slow because we’ve taken two characters and have ultimately silenced them and our one protagonist capable of speech is subtitled because he’s speaking Mandarin. It made no sense at all. I hear it was created this way so that the film could also be marketed to Asian markets, but I’m not sure about the authenticity of these claims or not. Just another thing that made little sense to me in this film.

In fact, this entire film made no sense at all. We have no real insight into why the doctor wants to create his incredible Frankenstein-Ass-To-Mouth Monster other than some silly background info dump. And while he’s a convincing enough villain he’s about as one-dimensional as Snidely Whiplash. He’s German, so I guess we’re supposed to find him frightening? I’m just not sure. It didn’t work for me.

All-in-all, this one is just another entry into the xenophobic category of horror where American’s who travel abroad end up with a missing kidney and spider eggs in their brain. It’s not scary and it’s not very original.  And while the premise and film might sound like it could be aimed more for a ‘pitch-black comedy’ sort of theme, I can assure you this flick is not funny in the least. Maybe if they had played this movie for laughs it might have made for a more interesting presentation. We’ll never know.

But, still…watching this film was a lot like seeking out the illusive Devil Mermaid Mummy. Curiosity gets the best of all of us sometimes and you’ll never know what horrors await unless you lay your money down. I learned my lesson on the first venture out and doubt I’ll be coming back for another dose in the sequel.

2 SKULLS