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[Human Centipede:First Sequence]
Plot:Outside the more outrageous work of Takashi Miike and David Cronenberg, you won't have seen anything quite like Dutch avant-garde artist Tom Six' totally bizarre off-the-wall oddity. Internationally respected Siamese twin surgeon Dr. Josef Heiter has a demented vision for mankind's future existence. He wants to remove human beings' kneecaps so they have to exist on all fours and then surgically graft them mouth-to-anus to form a centipede chain. When two stranded female Americans arrive at his luxury home-cum-hospital looking for help, his long-gestating plan swiftly moves into chilling action with a shocking force.
Kidnapping a third Japanese male tourist he begins the tissue matches, teeth removal and buttock moulding to create his triplet creature. The First Sequence in Six's intended trilogy features truly unforgettable imagery, clinically dazzling direction and a so-far-round-the-bend mad doctor performance from German superstar Dieter Laser you'll scream. Behold the grotesque New Flesh. If you dare!
Cast:Dieter Laser,
Ashley C. Williams,
Ashlynn Yennie,
Akihiro Kitamura,
Andreas Leupold,
Peter Blankenstein.
My Thoughts:A slow journey downhill.
Review:"Human Centipede:First Sequence" is Tom Sixes attempted stab at mad doctor horror. The film follows two American teenage girls who are visiting Germany on a trip. When their car breaks down (which just so happens to happen on one of those dark and stormy nights, and in one of those rural areas), they seek out help. After encountering one man who was a total perv, they decided to go on foot and seek help. This is when they run into the mad doctor Heiter.
He allows the girls to enter his home, and offers them a drink. The girls think he is aiding them in calling for help to fix their car and pick them up, but Heiter of course has other ideas. What separates "Human Centipede" from the typical horror film where scenario like this, would be used to rape, torture, and abuse two young women, is how it decides to twist the whole idea around. Dr. Heiter is a twisted mad doctor, who's skill set lies in separating siamese twins.
However he is MAD in the head, because he is more obsessed with "connecting" humans, instead of separating them. His latest concoction, is the human centipede, and these two girls, Jenny and Lindsay, are the final two pieces he needs to make that dream come true. The film is certainly weird, odd, strange, and all of the above. And Dieter Laser plays the mad Dr. Heiter very well. Heiter has overtones of a nazi doctor, as we've seen in horror films many times before, nazi doctors were obsessed with performing all kinds of twisted experiments.
Heiter is no different, and is very driven and determined to create his human centipede. Which is EXACTLY what it sounds like. The films best moment, comes when Heiter has captured Lindsay and Jenny, and adds them to his collection of already-kidnapped potential victims. This is when he explains to the girls about the procedure, step by step, picture by picture. It's quite a moment to behold, and stomach-turning as well. But the film makes a critical error by showing off the human centipede too early in the game, and not creating enough conflict between Heiter and his creation.
Pretty soon, after the centipede is created, and unveiled, the films degenerates into a scenario where Heiter just looks like a crazy quack, instead of an insidious, and deadly foe. And the movie for some reason, decides to inject slapstick black humor, into the mix. Granted, seeing a creation such as the human centipede, crawl around for the duration of the film, is certainly something new and different when it comes to horror. But it loses it's impact, it's oomph, when it'sdone too quickly and too often.
A movie like this is relying on one device to make it's bank, to blow away the audience. And like they say, you should never show your hand too quickly or too early. That's exactly what this film does, revealing the human centipede way too early and too much. At some point, I got tired of seeing the darn thing, that's how much it's featured in this movie. I think the film could've worked by extending the process of making the creature until the finale, and then revealing the human centipede at the very end, to make the ending a strong one.
While this movie does end on a very somber, and powerful note, had the human centipede been reserved for last, ala "Resident Evil", where the super-licker was kept under wraps until the films finale, it would've made this movie a lot more of a gem than it was. I personally thought this film won me over, only because it did something new, different, twisted, and just totally bonkers and off the wall.
And also, it's been quite sometime since we've seen some good mad doctor related horror. A subgenre not explored very much nowadays, with remakes, prequels, and zombie movies dominating the horror cinema landscape. "Human Centipede" has it's flaws, most of which as I said lie in it's letting the cat out of the bag too quickly. But Laser's performance, the human centipede itself, and the overall conceptof the movie, are enough to make it an interesting viewing experience.
Positives:Dieter Laser gives a good performance, the human centipede is a disturbing-looking monstrosity, and the ending has impact.
Negatives:Showing the human centipede too early and too often hurt the film.
Overall:Three stars out of four.
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