Note: This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.
When I select a movie to watch, I usually do so either on the trailers
or on the description that Netflix has for it. Occasionally, I come
across a review on Epinions that prompts me to watch the movie in
question. When I came across foshizzlee’s review of The Human Centipede, I had one of those little ‘Challenge Accepted’ moments and decided to rent it.
WARNING: For those that have never heard of the movie, it’s one of the grosser movies you’ll come across. I am going to go into a fair amount of detail in this review and I don’t plan on holding any punches. If you’re easily offended or just ate lunch, I won’t blame you if you don’t finish reading this review. FURTHER WARNING: I’m also going to give away major details, up to and including the ending. If you don’t like spoilers, now’s a good time to stop reading.
The movie starts with two young women, Lindsay and Jenny, traveling around Europe. They get lost in the back roads of Germany and don’t know what to do. They want to call the rental agency, but can‘t get a signal. They could wait for someone to pull up or they could try walking around to find a house or something. Being that they’re in the middle of nowhere, they decide to wait.
It doesn’t take long for a guy to pull up. He’s pretty sure that he’s seen them somewhere. Is it that porn movie that he really likes? He seems to think so. What little German the two women can translate (along with his subsequent facial expressions) tells them that he’s perv. They avoid eye contact and wait for him to leave.
Since the waiting option worked out so well for them, they decide to walk around and see if there are any houses nearby. Rather than follow the road, they wander off into the woods. (We’re talking about a couple of real airheads here.) It gets dark, it starts to rain and they soon realize that there’s not much civilization nearby. They do eventually find a house, much to their relief. Dr. Heiter answers the door. He’s a little creepy looking, but they’re not in a position to complain.
He lets them in and offers them a drink while he calls for help. Thing is that it’s not exactly water that he gave them and he’s not really calling for help. You see, this is an evil doctor. He used to be a plastic surgeon who specialized in separating Siamese twins, but he came to realize that he doesn’t like people very much. In fact, he wants to experiment on the two young ladies. He’s slipped them some pills to put them to sleep.
They awake to find themselves in what appears to be a hospital room. It’s actually in the guy’s house. Yes, this is one sick fuck that we’re dealing with. (Sorry, censors.) He actually has a hospital room in his house so that he could conduct his sick, twisted medical experiments. There’s even another guy there, but he’s not suitable. So, Heiter kills him and replaces him with Katsuro, a Japanese tourist.
Now, the really sick stuff begins. You kind of wonder if it’s really going to happen. Maybe they escape and report this guy to the authorities. No such luck. He really does attach them anus to mouth to form one organism. Katsuro can talk. However, the Jenny and Lindsay are left with little more than muffled screams and frantic hand movements.
Dr. Heiter connects them and begins training them to operate as one organism. This mostly has to do with mobility, like being able to ‘walk’ as one. I say ‘walk’ because he removed their kneecaps. It’s more like crawling as one. He takes them out in his back yard and has them move around. Katsuro does all the eating for the three of them. (I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how Jenny and Lindsay get fed.) At night, they’re caged up. The lead guy complains so loudly that Dr. Heiter considers removing his vocal chords.
Things don’t go well for the three test subjects. When they try to escape, Heiter finds them. Also, Jenny is dying of blood poisoning. It looks like Heiter’s first attempt on humans is failing. To boot, two detectives show up. Heiter doesn’t like this. While the detectives are out getting a search warrant, Katsuro commits suicide. When the detectives return, Heiter and both detectives die. Jenny finally dies of her blood poisoning. The movie ends with Lindsay still connected to the other two and with no way of calling for help.
I tend not to like really disturbing movies. I figured that if this was really disturbing, I could turn it off. It wasn’t really as bad as I expected. I was expecting something that would give me nightmares. Instead, I got something that was definitely different, even though it’s still not for small children or squeamish adults. We don’t have to put up with much of the surgery and there isn’t any nudity. However, there is a fair amount of bleeding.
The movie doesn’t really try to hide what’s going on. We know that the three people are being held and experimented on against their will. They don’t like what’s happened to them and it’s apparent when they’re in pain. The doctor treats them as subhuman. He’s interested only in successfully making a human centipede. Jenny, Lindsay and Katsuro are nothing more than the first step to achieving his goal.
What really interests me is the sequel. This is supposed to be the first of two movies. Being that only one person survived, I don’t know if we’ll find out what happened to her or if it will be a completely different movie. I’m assuming that there will be some connection, probably in the form of someone trying to pick up where Heiter left off.
I’m going to recommend the movie, but it’s kind of pointless. One of the reasons that I didn’t mind giving away so much detail is that those that can’t handle this kind of movie probably wouldn’t have made it past the review anyway and will have been warned. Those, like me, that can handle it will probably have their own ‘challenge accepted’ moment and watch the movie just to see if it really is that bad. At only 92 minutes, it’s worth the rental.
WARNING: For those that have never heard of the movie, it’s one of the grosser movies you’ll come across. I am going to go into a fair amount of detail in this review and I don’t plan on holding any punches. If you’re easily offended or just ate lunch, I won’t blame you if you don’t finish reading this review. FURTHER WARNING: I’m also going to give away major details, up to and including the ending. If you don’t like spoilers, now’s a good time to stop reading.
The movie starts with two young women, Lindsay and Jenny, traveling around Europe. They get lost in the back roads of Germany and don’t know what to do. They want to call the rental agency, but can‘t get a signal. They could wait for someone to pull up or they could try walking around to find a house or something. Being that they’re in the middle of nowhere, they decide to wait.
It doesn’t take long for a guy to pull up. He’s pretty sure that he’s seen them somewhere. Is it that porn movie that he really likes? He seems to think so. What little German the two women can translate (along with his subsequent facial expressions) tells them that he’s perv. They avoid eye contact and wait for him to leave.
Since the waiting option worked out so well for them, they decide to walk around and see if there are any houses nearby. Rather than follow the road, they wander off into the woods. (We’re talking about a couple of real airheads here.) It gets dark, it starts to rain and they soon realize that there’s not much civilization nearby. They do eventually find a house, much to their relief. Dr. Heiter answers the door. He’s a little creepy looking, but they’re not in a position to complain.
He lets them in and offers them a drink while he calls for help. Thing is that it’s not exactly water that he gave them and he’s not really calling for help. You see, this is an evil doctor. He used to be a plastic surgeon who specialized in separating Siamese twins, but he came to realize that he doesn’t like people very much. In fact, he wants to experiment on the two young ladies. He’s slipped them some pills to put them to sleep.
They awake to find themselves in what appears to be a hospital room. It’s actually in the guy’s house. Yes, this is one sick fuck that we’re dealing with. (Sorry, censors.) He actually has a hospital room in his house so that he could conduct his sick, twisted medical experiments. There’s even another guy there, but he’s not suitable. So, Heiter kills him and replaces him with Katsuro, a Japanese tourist.
Now, the really sick stuff begins. You kind of wonder if it’s really going to happen. Maybe they escape and report this guy to the authorities. No such luck. He really does attach them anus to mouth to form one organism. Katsuro can talk. However, the Jenny and Lindsay are left with little more than muffled screams and frantic hand movements.
Dr. Heiter connects them and begins training them to operate as one organism. This mostly has to do with mobility, like being able to ‘walk’ as one. I say ‘walk’ because he removed their kneecaps. It’s more like crawling as one. He takes them out in his back yard and has them move around. Katsuro does all the eating for the three of them. (I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how Jenny and Lindsay get fed.) At night, they’re caged up. The lead guy complains so loudly that Dr. Heiter considers removing his vocal chords.
Things don’t go well for the three test subjects. When they try to escape, Heiter finds them. Also, Jenny is dying of blood poisoning. It looks like Heiter’s first attempt on humans is failing. To boot, two detectives show up. Heiter doesn’t like this. While the detectives are out getting a search warrant, Katsuro commits suicide. When the detectives return, Heiter and both detectives die. Jenny finally dies of her blood poisoning. The movie ends with Lindsay still connected to the other two and with no way of calling for help.
I tend not to like really disturbing movies. I figured that if this was really disturbing, I could turn it off. It wasn’t really as bad as I expected. I was expecting something that would give me nightmares. Instead, I got something that was definitely different, even though it’s still not for small children or squeamish adults. We don’t have to put up with much of the surgery and there isn’t any nudity. However, there is a fair amount of bleeding.
The movie doesn’t really try to hide what’s going on. We know that the three people are being held and experimented on against their will. They don’t like what’s happened to them and it’s apparent when they’re in pain. The doctor treats them as subhuman. He’s interested only in successfully making a human centipede. Jenny, Lindsay and Katsuro are nothing more than the first step to achieving his goal.
What really interests me is the sequel. This is supposed to be the first of two movies. Being that only one person survived, I don’t know if we’ll find out what happened to her or if it will be a completely different movie. I’m assuming that there will be some connection, probably in the form of someone trying to pick up where Heiter left off.
I’m going to recommend the movie, but it’s kind of pointless. One of the reasons that I didn’t mind giving away so much detail is that those that can’t handle this kind of movie probably wouldn’t have made it past the review anyway and will have been warned. Those, like me, that can handle it will probably have their own ‘challenge accepted’ moment and watch the movie just to see if it really is that bad. At only 92 minutes, it’s worth the rental.
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