ComplainerMan

This movie is so many kinds of bad. It’s got cultural stereotypes, torture scenes, surgery, poop eating, death, cough fetishism cough, and a demented German doctor who specializes in separating Siamese twins to tie things all together. It’s obviously a movie dedicated entirely to shock value, but that makes it a piece of modern cinematic art, am I right? I know why you watched Hostel, and why you laughed during the opening sequence of Scream. You’re a weirdo. The good news is, so are a lot of people.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. The protagonists are two ditzy American girls vacationing in Europe. They say “oh my god” and “like” a lot, and they don’t speak any German whatsoever. We’re off to a fantastic start! The antagonist is the previously mentioned enigmatic German doctor, now retired, who happens to have large amounts of GHB on his hands. Add a little flat-tire to the mix, and what do you have? Oh my god, our car broke. Like, what do we do? Oh my god, there’s a house! Let’s get some help! Like, this doctor is creepy. Let’s call the car company and go. But I guess we can accept drinks from a strange, creepy man while we wait. Two glasses of water, please. Thud, thump. Never has there been an easier introductory sequence! Now for the real plot.

It’s all downhill from there. They did add in a lovely failed escape sequence where one of the girls manages to escape his basement “emergency room,” but a blind and deaf hermit who lives in a cave on the bottom of the sea could tell you how that ended. The hermit could be dead and he’d still know. But I digress. After the escapee is re-captured, they are introduced to a third, Japanese speaking captive who is apparently going to be the “front.” And so the surgery begins. Teeth are pulled, lips are removed, and anuses are removed in order to create the three-part butt-to-mouth abomination that our own beloved doctor has apparently dreamed of for years. The failed-to-escape girl winds up in the middle. That’s what she gets for not wanting to eat poop.

That is all the plot I will reveal, because I really don’t feel like describing anything past that. If you watch this and then Hostel, you ask me which one is worse and I won’t have an answer. And now, an outwards perspective on the other aspects of the film. I’ll leave you with a list of what The Human Centipede did right:

• The blood looks realistic. I didn’t expect that from… this sort of movie.
• The effects are well-done. Wouldn’t be as gross if they weren’t.
• As far as acting goes, they did well without situational reference.
• It takes true creativity to come up with something this grotesque.
• If you don’t want to watch it, you don’t have to. That is a good point.