A fat loser (Laurence R. Harvey) who lives with his mother (Vivien Bridson) and has an abusive past, has sick fantasies inspired by the first “Human Centipede”. His goal? To create a ten-person human centipede, mostly random people, but also several people who he feels have wronged him, including a pretentious and sick psychiatrist (Aussie actor Bill Hutchens, take a bow, sir!). Also taking part? Actress Ashlyn Yennie herself, from the first “Human Centipede” film.
For this 2011 sequel to his controversial original, writer-director Tom Six has at least given us a legitimate movie. That’s something. Sure, it’s a bad movie, but it’s certainly well ahead of the first film. I won’t ever watch this one again, but at least I didn’t spend the whole time trying not to fall asleep. Laurence R. Harvey has big shoes to fill as the film’s villain. The performance by Dieter Laser in the original was the only element of the film that didn’t suck. Harvey (or perhaps Six as screenwriter) does a smart thing in not giving us the same character. His Martin, is a sick and twisted fan of the original film, and a pathetic excuse for a screwed-up human being. More disgusting and repellent than creepy or threatening, really. If there’s a reason to see this film (and there isn’t!), it’s this performance, and the character of Martin is at least moderately interesting and fleshed-out. He’s like a fat, repulsive, non-transvestite Norman Bates. Or a latter-day Peter Lorre, perhaps. The character has the same ‘because he’s a sicko’ explanation for the goings on that the original did, but it’s further explored and explained. In this case, he’s a guy with a pathetic life and tortured/abusive past who gets turned on by the first “Human Centipede” film. I appreciated that extra detail, though fans of the original might not care to watch 40 minutes of a creepy, fat Norman Bates and his overbearing mother.
I also liked the sadistic moment where he slowly lays out all of his nasty little tools, each one more spine-chilling than the previous one. Caution: Don’t bother looking away when he brings the hammer out. The sounds, and your imagination will still fill in the gaps.
So, before the film devolves into the standard ‘human centipede’ stuff, it has its own thing going on that isn’t exactly awful due to Martin and the way the character is written. It’s still sick (and the most messed-up game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey ever!), but not as stupefyingly boring and single-minded as the first film. Other than that, this didn’t do a whole helluva lot for me, though Mr. Six obviously saw something of an art film in this, shooting it in B&W. Isn’t he just precious? That said, I think more horror films actually should be in B&W, it’s beautiful, interesting, and hides a low-budget pretty well. I was a bit surprised to see one of the main actresses from the first film playing a version of herself here. I guess if you’ll star in one film with your head up someone’s butt, you might as well make a second one. It’s not like you’re gonna be getting any other offers.
Once the centipede action starts, the film becomes far less interesting. Once the laxatives turn up, it becomes just plain stupid. But for a little while there, I was almost hopeful. Nope, at the end of the day, it’s just a film about people eating crap, and it’s more graphic about it this time. Pretty disgraceful, really.
OVERALL SUMMARY
“Human Centipede” didn’t deserve to be considered a film and bored me to tears. The best thing I can say about this sequel is that for the first 45 minutes, it’s a film. It’s a shame then that it sucks.
