The Human Centipede Review

Released:  2009      Directed by: Tom Six       Cast: Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn  Yennie

Trailer

The Human Centipede may be 100% medically accurate, but the movie is definitely flawed.  The film received a lot of hype as one of the best horror films of the year, and I was excited for a good disturbing movie, even a bit nervous in fact.

Two lost American tourists (Williams and Yennie) are kidnapped by a mad German scientist Dr. Heiter (Laser) who used to perform Siamese twin surgeries.  The two girls join a third kidnapped Japanese tourist in the scientist’s basement where he explains to them how he wants to join them ass to mouth to create “the human centipede” his latest pet project.

The Human Centipede is not what I expected, and thus is a bit disappointing.  From the first shot, the tone of the film seems off, almost chickening out and taking a more comedic route than trying to really disturb the audience with such a heinous concept.  Dieter Laser is almost too good as the mad scientist and though he is creepy, his performance is so over the top that he ends up being funny, and I feel as though the filmmaker decided to change the tone of the film by letting his performance take over.  The Human Centipede is also hard to take seriously because it falls into the typical horror film downfall: a crappy script for the crappy female characters.  One finds it very hard to have any sympathy for the two girls in the beginning when both the script and acting are so thin and cliched.  Strangely enough, their acting improves once they become the centipede, but it’s too late to really care about them by this point.

Also The Human Centipede is disappointing because if a film claims to be 100% medically accurate, then I want to see what that means.  While less is more in some cases, if you’re claiming to be a medical horror, then you need to deliver.  The film barely shows any of the surgery, making it relatively easy to watch and unfortunately they chose not to fulfill the extent of their disturbing subject matter.  We spend a lot of time staring at the human centipede but because we never experience any surgical horror, the centipede is almost humourous, an empty threat.

What a shame that The Human Centipede lost its nerve, for the film is very well shot – the tinted blues and greens create a cold, sterile environment that works perfectly.  Also, Laser is one of the most entertaining mad scientists I have ever watched and really saves the film even if it was with humour.  But as Dr. Heiter discovers with his new “pet”,  it’s very hard to pull off a crazy project.