A Caveat

Just so there’s no ambiguity here, this is a film entirely concerned with a man sewing three unwilling humans mouth-to-anus. That is all. There is no romantic ending or redeeming quality to The Human Centipede. Just a man sewing three unwilling humans mouth-to-anus. Centipede-style. If this concept terrifies you as much as it did us, then can I highly recommend bailing out of this review right now?

Still here? Alright, begin.

Introducing Your Reviewers as they Introduce the Review

Paul

The Human Centipede is a cinematic abortion with all the wit, grace and charm of a burn victim clinging to the underside of a retreating police helicopter, their prolapsed anus flapping in the breeze like a sodden, bloodied windsock.

This is what Luke and myself had heard, anyway. Much like yourselves, we fell victim to months of speculative anticipation; the premise alone had us shitting our collective britches. This wasn’t without precedent. You see, last time the MIFF came around, Luke told me about a film called Martyrs. Without any collaboration or prompting, we both went and attempted to rob the film of its potency by first reading the exhaustive plot synopsis perched atop the shoulder of Wikipedia. This, as it turns out, was a terrible, terrible mistake. Sick to our stomach at the atrocities chronicled therein, we both vowed never to see the film.

You can imagine, then, a similar sequence (pun intended) of events taking place when word of The Human Centipede reached us. Luke could not bring himself to finish watching the trailer, a feat I managed on several occasions. Both of us, however, did read the synopsis. A synopsis which, for lack of a better word, made us both feel contemptibly ill, although much like when I was offered a rare opportunity to stare for a full minute at Glenn Beck’s wet taint, curiosity inevitably trumped nausea. The nausea ended up trumping everything else once the film was underway, but regardless, we spent months and months using The Human Centipede as the be all and end all of shit we wanted to avoid.

Also, I’m bad with horror films. I can barely cope with them. I’m aware that my comics and my Twitter feed are rougher than the underside of Jack Nicholson’s tongue (It’s like sandpaper and glass had babies. Tongue babies. Just take my word for it), but horror films have always engendered an awful feeling of helplessness within me, and the prospect of watching a slab of torture porn fills me with such potent dread you could bottle it. Luke is much the same, only with marginally better posture.

You can imagine our joy, then, when TheVine agreed to let us both review it. We did, however, come up with a somewhat novel angle to tackle said film.

Luke
I think it’s hard to convey exactly how distressing I found reading the synopsis to this film. I should have known better, anyway. As Paul said, the plot to Martyrs had, a year previous, done quite the number on me. As in I was a “bit distracted”, or “generally horrified” for at least two weeks. Vivid nightmares included. I think the problem with these Wikipedia synopses is that they’re written in such a detailed yet dispassionate manner that it feels as if Patrick Bateman himself is narrating yet another of his jolly weekend outings. There’s no sense of horror there, merely a description of utterly horrifying events as if they’re the most normal thing in the world.

So there I was, middle of May, idly clicking a link on Twitter to the preview for a film called The Human Centipede. For the first minute I thought it was parody so poorly was it acted. Then at the 60 second mark I heard a scream, reflected on my delicate sensibilities, made the snap decision to stop it immediately, closed the tab and breathed a sigh of relief. Then I spent another two minutes just staring at the computer before opening Wikipedia, reading the plot outline and then retiring for an hour’s staring blankly at the ceiling.

It became a running joke amongst friends as to how badly I dealt with the idea. They’d go to lengths to try and make me inadvertently see the preview or pictures from the film. We even came up with alternative versions of the film to try and dilute the concept for me. Personal favourites: The Human Santa-pede and the Jana Wendt-ipede (there’s a Lessons for Children in there, Paul). But through it all I was determined: never would my eyes see the finished centipede.

Of course, being delegated to review a film generally ensures that one actually has to see it, but even then I had a plan. In what I’ve since termed the “Hear No Evil, See No Evil Horror Film Review Technique” (or HNESNEHFRT for short. It’s pronounced like a muddy sneeze) one reviewer is blindfolded and must rely on his ears alone, while the other is equipped with headphones piping in the happiest music they know. I, obviously, took the blindfold. Paul was left with jolly music. How’d we go? This stop motion video should give you a brief summary.



And now for more detailed reflections.

The Human Centipede: A Visual Journey

When I was doing my film degree, I did a looped video installation. It comprised seven minutes of chirpy, saccharine imagery overlaid with horrific, nauseating high-frequency noises, and then threw you into seven minutes of profoundly upsetting snuff-grade imagery, with Billie Holiday crooning over the top. The Human Centipede, I assumed, would be a similar experience. And it was. Sort of.

The film began with credits. I’m sure Luke assumed this was the case, but he couldn’t see them what with my best cravat knotted lovingly around his bewildered head. Dr. Heiter (played by Deiter Laser) pulls up on the side of the road. He lovingly strokes a photo of three dogs sewn mouth to ass, instantly striking a chord with viewers; who hasn’t wanted three puppies fused via their collective lips and anuses as a child? He then proceeds to stalk a paunchy truck driver. Whilst said truck driver is taking a prolonged shit, Heiter pulls a tranquiliser gun out of his stylish fawn trenchcoat and pops a cap in the aforementioned dimpled ass.

It was at this point that Luke flinched. Hard. The camera pulled away to reveal the title as I was listening to the blaring feelgood stylings of Huey Lewis and The News and it became apparent that Luke had heard a gunshot, whereas all I’d heard was something something The Power of Love something something. This became a sort of trend throughout the film; during the tense buildup scenes, Luke suffered; all I had to deal with were shots of the house, or of Heiter drinking a scotch, or a twitching foot strapped to a gurney. My music would flit from Minnie Riperton to Barry Gray’s Thunderbirds theme, which was nine kinds of awesome. Things changed gear, however, during the more graphic sequences. The surgery, for example, was a blindingly fucked ordeal for yours truly; I had to watch gristle being peeled and broken with Billy May’s exultant cover of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer blaring which, I might add, has utterly ruined Christmas carols for me.

The film proceeded in peaks and troughs, and I could see Luke in a state of perpetual stress, whereas I experienced more gutturally upsetting moments. Infected stitches being ripped out? I had to watch Heiter eat the pus, his eyes rolling back into his head (I’m assuming he had a minibar back there; they seemed to retreat back there more and more as the film went on). All Luke heard were some muffled snapping noises and a slurp. I assume so, anyway. I did, however, get to interact with Luke on one crucial level: dubbing. I got to read the subtitles for him, occasionally changing lines like ‘what? In my basement? There is nothing of interest down there!’ to ‘what? In my basement? That is where I keep my human centipede. I mean my books! Shit.’ Barring that small pleasure, however, I can safely say I came off worse in the end.

One final note before I pass over to Luke. I managed to cope with this atrocity thanks to two things. The first was a healthy respect for the medical profession; even the best of surgeons will eventually end up converting their basement into a makeshift surgery where they drag unwilling, supple backpackers and the like down into a swamp of moral ambiguity and infected stitches. It’s something they teach you your first year at med school. Which, upon reflection, might be part of the problem. The second thing, however, was Luke. Whether he was fumbling about panicking for the chocolate, or twitching like a mangled post-op butthole (an image I only tolerate deploying given how many of them - aright, two - I had to witness), he managed to provide a swaying, tottering, slightly green comedic yin to a fecally congested yang. If you ever decide to watch The Human Centipede, I highly recommend (a) not watching it, and (b) bringing a blindfolded young man into the room with you. If nothing else, it will give you something to chew on. You know, like when they gave people getting lashed a wooden bit to chew on? No? Clearly you’re not a fan of state endorsed floggings.

The Human Centipede: An Aural Extravaganza

Intently listening to a film without being able to see what’s going is a truly bizarre experience. I highly suggest you try it sometime. Perhaps with The Human Centipede. Perhaps with Ernest Goes to Camp. Perhaps both at the same time. Your call. With that said, in a film like this, not being able to see a thing really does ratchet up the tension. You sit there in darkness, knowing that at any moment something really loud, abrasive and potentially meaty is going to implant itself in your mind’s eye and you’re going to have shit-all warning when it does. I spent most of the film with every muscle in my body tensed, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. If Paul had made any kind of attempt to frighten me, I would have punched him. Or soiled myself.

The film is short on descriptive dialogue (but high on screams), however reading the synopsis just that once had scalded the exact sequence (pun intended) of events into my mind for all eternity, so I wasn’t entirely at sea here. The opening twenty to thirty minutes of the film were relatively easy to take. Much of it was filled with stock audio mood music, punctuated by the incessant and exceptionally poorly acted babble of the two main “actresses”. Indeed, so bad and shrill were their characters that I, on at least one occasion, had the distinct thought “Goddamn, I cannot wait for the operation to take place just so these two shut the hell up”.

In retrospect, I’m willing to admit that was a little harsh, as the following sixty minutes of the film was essentially just sixty minutes of listening to the sounds of abject human suffering, first expressed as screaming and crying and then later expressed by muffled screaming and crying. Because the two girls no longer had mouths. Because they were sewn into the anuses of the person in front of them. I probably didn’t have to explain that. Also, there was a lot of Japanese shouting. Because the front guy is Japanese. The doctor is German. The two girls are American. According to director Tom Six, the film is some kind of metaphor for World War Two. Deep.

There were a couple of aural highlights, by which I mean there were a couple of moments that made my mind produce some images that I really, really would have preferred it didn’t. First was during the surgery. They really nailed the sound of patellas being removed. I also got to hear Dr Heiter’s monologue where he described exactly what was about to happen in said surgery, so my brain went to town constructing its very own version of RPA: Psycho Doctor Edition. And second was during the inevitable but thankfully one-off coprophagia scene (you know what I mean), which was filled with some truly hideous and detailed reluctant swallowing noises as Dr Heiter yelled “Swallow it, bitch!”. Yep. Heiter’s gonna hate.

Also worth remarking on was Paul’s remarkably ethnically insensitive Hogan’s Heroes style German accent, used while explaining subtitles to me, and generally yelled in my ear because he was wearing headphones. Same goes for his maniacal, Heiter-esque laughter every time something really heinous happened on screen. Often accompanied by comments like “Oh God, it’s stretching!” or “Wow! They sure made a mess” or “He’s biting his face!”. Times like that, when I could hear the cracks appearing in his fragile psyche, were the times I was truly glad for this gaudily coloured cravat covering my eyes.

Paul’s Final Thoughts

Dieter Laser is a cunt. No stars.

Luke’s Final Thoughts

Now that I’ve heard it all, I have this awful feeling that sooner or later final curiosity will overtake me and I’ll actually watch the whole thing. With headphones on.

** Paul’s Playlist **

Songs marked with stars played during particularly fucked-up moments of the film, or were brutally confusing for me.

The Power of Love - Huey Lewis and the News
Back to the Future Overture - Alan Silvestri *
Lupin ‘80 Car Chase - Yuji Ohno
Fight! - Nigel Godrich
Soul Power ‘74 - Maceo and the Macks
Main Titles - Barry Gray
Let’s Stay Together - Al Green *
Movin’ Out - Billy Joel
Barbarella - Bob Crewe
40 Day Dream - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Ragged Wood - Fleet Foxes
Animal Arithmetic - Jonsi
All Is Love - Karen O and the Kids
How High the Moon - Les Paul and Mary Ford
Pon De Floor - Major Lazer ***** (the front segment was pooping into the mouth of the middle segment when this played. I almost cracked.)
I Am the Black Gold of the Sun - Minnie Riperton
Hanging Around the Day Pt. 2 - Polyphonic Spree
Coffy is the Colour - Roy Ayres
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? - She & Him
Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder *
Skating - Vince Guaraldi Trio *
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer - Billy May *
La Valse d’Amelie - Yann Tiersen *
Chrono Trigger Theme - Yasunori Mitsuda
Yamasuki - Yamasuki
Le Moribond - Jaques Brel
Too Young - Phoenix
Non Je Ne Regrette Rien - Edith Piaf *

For those of you who are as obsessed with Inception as I am, the final track played as the camera pulled away from the house at the very end. I’ve never been more grateful for a kick in my entire life.

** Luke’s Playlist **

Ominous Music
Gunshots
Annoying American Girls
Creepy German Man
Angry German Man
Outraged Japanese Man
Screaming
Crying
Miscellaneous Surgery Sounds
Muffled Screams
Muffled Crying
Happy German Man
Swallowing
Sad Japanese Man
More Gunshots
Muffled Crying
Non Je Ne Regrette Rien - Edith Piaf (Clearly audible through Paul’s headphones)

The Human Centipede opens in select Australian cinemas on Thursday, August 26.
The Human Centipede movie trailer: