The Human Centipede Movies Are Shitty (In Both Meanings) And Hard To Digest
What is the most disgusting and sick horror film you have ever seen? It is very possible that your answer, like many others, will include a reference to one of the films in the “The Human Centipede” franchise. The truth is that you can understand why. The idea behind the films is sick, even if it is possible (to a very certain extent) from a scientific point of view. “The Human Centipede” are a clear example of “Torture Porn” for all intents and purposes; some would say a film that seems to have been created solely for the sake of shock, provocation, and so on. Even if I don’t think the movies are THAT terrible – what does that say about me? – it is clear that we must address them and the myths created around them.
You are welcome to read the following review about “The Human Centipede” movies and understand the buzz. A little advice: don’t think about food in the following paragraphs because it may be disgusting. If you have children with you, keep them away for a few minutes – for example, you can direct them to other texts on the site that are much more educational and friendly to young children, such as horror films for children or scary dolls – because the following paragraphs contain quite shocking graphic descriptions.
Is The Human Centipede Real? (No, Thank God)
“The Human Centipede” film series is one of the most controversial and disturbing works in the history of horror cinema, which is saying a lot. The series, which began in 2009 with the first film and continued with two sequels in 2011 and 2015, provoked extreme reactions among viewers and critics alike. Recently, many horror fans have discovered the movies due to social media. You know how it goes: posts describing the viewing experience, reaction videos from viewers, etc.
What’s impressive is that it all started with a joke, not a successful one. Tom Six is a Dutch director and filmmaker who, early in his career, made several films – primarily comedies – that you’re unlikely to have heard of: a comedy-drama called “Gay in Amsterdam” (2004) or an action-comedy called “Honeyz” (2007). He also directed commercials, video clips, and some episodes of the Dutch version of “The Big Brother.”
One day, he was sitting with his friends and saw a news report about a child molester who had been caught. Six humorously noted that, in his opinion, an appropriate punishment for people like this would be to have their mouths sewn to the buttocks of a chubby truck driver. Fortunately, I never encountered such an ass, but it’s certainly an experience that sounds disgusting.
From Mengele to Cronenberg: What Inspired The Human Centipede Movies?
Six, whose biography lists hobbies such as wearing cowboy hats and collecting weapons, returned home and began to think about how he would develop the idea. Then he had the idea of creating a film that takes this concept a few steps further, on a human chain like you probably haven’t thought of.
The very creative idea is a surgical connection of people from mouth to anus, mercifully, to create a long “Human Centipede.” He took inspiration, among other things, from the experiments that the terrible Dr. Josef Mengele conducted during the Holocaust in the Auschwitz camp. Evidence of this “inspiration” can be seen in the films, for example, the fact that the villain in the first film shares Dr. Mengele’s first name (Joseph) or the Nazi soundtrack that accompanies some of his scenes.
Other inspirations, a little more sane, are the early works of David Cronenberg, the films of David Lynch, and an equally shocking Italian film, “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. This disgusting film depicts four wealthy, fascist men during the Mussolini era who kidnapped 18 boys and girls and subjected them to four months of physical and mental torture until their execution. You’ll also find “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” on almost every list of the most gruesome films, thanks to torture scenes that include eating feces, burning, and dismembering organs.
What The Hell Is Conjoining People Surgically?
At some point in a horror fan’s life, there comes a moment when they try to digest the idea of ”A Human Centipede.” The truth is that digesting this topic can be a bit complicated in all respects.
The idea expressed in the films, through mad scientists who do it to innocent victims, is that they perform an operation that connects the spleen of the first person to the esophagus of the one behind him.
The people are connected from the buttocks to the mouth, which could be problematic, for example, when one of the people in the chain (who is not the last) needs to defecate.
Is The Human Centipede Possible In Reality?
The question we must ask is how scientifically feasible Six’s idea is. One of the film’s promotional slogans claimed that it was “100% medically accurate,” but to a horror fan, this might sound like “based on true events” (i.e., probably a rip-off of reality). The director later said that he had the help of a Dutch surgeon to formulate the idea and make it scientifically correct.
Various experts worldwide claim that, shockingly, you can perform this type of surgery, and the people connected can also survive for some time. The problem is that they should survive for a short period, a few days or weeks at most, contrary to Six’s claim that the chain members can survive for years with the help of a medical transfusion.
In practice, the only person who can survive longer is at the top of the chain. To understand why, you must understand what happens in the body and what is left outside it. Feces are what is left of food after the body absorbs most nutrients, plus a little water. Most of the feces are intestinal bacteria; the other components include mucus, bile, dead epithelial cells from the intestinal wall, and other compounds, which explain its toxicity.
The first person in the chain is the only person who could hypothetically survive life as part of a human centipede. The rest of the “members” are likely to die of dehydration unless they receive intravenous infusions of fluids and other minerals that they need. If they do not die of nutritional deficiencies, then ingesting fecal bacteria that can cause severe lung or stomach infections is likely to do so.
In 2019, a popular podcast called “Hi Everybody! A Bad Medicine Podcast,” which examined, among other things, the representation of medicine in film, decided to take the film as a reference point. Since the film described itself as “100% medically accurate” – which it is not – they compared other films to it and determined their “medical accuracy score.” If a film was, they said, twice as accurate as “The Human Handel,” they rated it “200% medically accurate.”
How Many Human Centipede Movies Are There?
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
“The Human Centipede (First Sequence)” is a low-budget, quite mediocre film that started all this buzz. Written and directed by Six, the film is about two sexy young women (Ashley S. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie) on vacation in Germany on their way to a nightclub. But at some point, the car stops in the middle of nowhere since it is a horror film, the two look for a place to hide and end up in an isolated house.
The problem is that this house is home to Dr. Joseph Heiter (German Dieter Laser, with his frightening facial features), a retired surgeon whose specialty, ironically, was conjoined twins. He locks them up with another unfortunate guy (Japanese Akihiro Kitamura) and tells them about his evil plan to join them. The film follows the experiment and the victims’ attempts to survive the impossible.
As strange as it is to say this about a film whose plot is so horrific, I didn’t find “The Human Centipede” all that disgusting. Much of the horror and disgust here is more implicit and saved for the end of the film, by which time we hear descriptions of the surgery and witness the victims’ not-so-successful attempts to free themselves.
Is “The Human Centipede: First Sequence” a good film? The fact is that the film was problematically made in most respects. The budget was quite limited in advance, and according to reports, to raise it, Six and his gang told investors that they were making a film about “connecting people” and not such a horrifying operation. Obviously, these are not the films you come to for decent dialogue or acting, but my expectation is still for reasonable filmmaking, not just shock for shock’s sake.
The acting of most of the cast was problematic, except for Laser, who managed to create a creepy and frightening character that seemed to fit his physical appearance perfectly. The reason for this is that it was a bit difficult to cast actresses for this film in the first place: many of the actresses who came to the casting session left in disgust after they saw a drawing of the human centipede.
I found the film a little boring, and I had difficulty getting to the later parts. When I finished it, a thought occurred to me that the monster wasn’t so terrible. The reviews are naturally bad: a 4.4 rating on IMDB, for example. The legendary film critic Roger Ebert refused to give the film any stars because “the star rating system doesn’t work for it,” so “It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don’t shine.” Then came the second film, showing that it’s possible to stoop even lower and more disgusting.
The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (2011)
Two years after the first, we got “The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence),” which was even more extreme. The film centers on Martin Lomax, played by the British actor Laurence R. Harvey, who, according to reports, was asked to “rape” a chair during an audition.
In a role that includes no dialogue except for one word, Elliott played a physically and mentally challenged young man who lives with his troubled mother. The father is in prison after being accused, among other things, of sexually abusing Martin, and the mother harbors a grudge against her son. This may explain why Martin becomes obsessed with one film in particular. You guessed it, that film is “The Human Centipede 1”.
In an underground parking garage where he works, Martin tries to give birth to the idea of the human centipede and take it a few steps further. His vision is to connect a dozen (!) people, including one character From the first film. The road there passes through many realms of disgust, which include horrific sexual scenes (such as masturbation involving sandpaper), abuse (for example, a not-so-simple scene involving a hammer, or rape performed with a barbed wire) and also “all the blood and shit,” as one of the actresses defined it, which we were pretty much absence from in the first film.
An interesting anecdote is that the “feces” used by the cast included, among other things, cocoa powder, vegan condensed milk (one of the actresses in the cast was vegan), crushed biscuits, and more. Rumor has it that the cast members were eating, between takes, something that looked like Pooh but was actually delicious.
Speaking of feces, “The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” was filmed in color, but the version you can find is in black and white. They say they wanted to eliminate the color to make the film less disgusting for the eyes. In a way that may be a reference or even parody of the shocking and famous scene of the girl with the red dress in Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” they decided to leave only the color brown in the film. You can probably understand why they chose this specific color.
Many consider the second film worse than its predecessor, both in plot and execution, and it is undoubtedly more horrifying. We must ask if “Body Horror,” or if you prefer “disgust for the sake of disgust,” can sustain an entire film. The answer is complex and may depend on the reason that attracts you to watch horror films and the feelings you want to feel during it.
“The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” is not the film for complex psychological analyses. It tries to go in that direction rather sloppily, but some have argued that the film constitutes an interesting critique of fan culture and the obsession with extreme films.
The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence (2015)
The third and final film in the series, “The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence,” takes place in an American prison, where prison warden Bill Boss (Dieter Laser, who returns from the first film in a different role) decides to create a massive “Human Centipede“ of hundreds of prisoners.
The plot of “The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence” contains “justification” for the terrible acts, at least from the perspective of the person who commits them. After a prank by one of the prisoners, he decides to take revenge on him rather brutally, including several buckets of boiling water. This person receives a reprimand for this violence and decides to respond in an even more violent way: through a mass “castration” of the prisoners, which perhaps connects us to that joke about the truck driver that started it all. The belief is that this punishment will “educate” the prisoners, which will also become a profitable financial move for the prison.
Here is the trailer for “The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence”:
The third film is seen by many as an exaggerated and unnecessary attempt to continue the series, with some gruesome scenes that include The human connection and its consequences, eating testicles, rape (including a character who is in a coma), and more. It also went in a rather comical direction in some cases, intentionally or not: it includes, for example, a reflexive guest appearance by Six himself, as the director of the first film who comes to the prison to explain the experiment and that it is “100% scientifically accurate.“ Lawrence R. Harvey from the previous film also appears in a different role.
Critics noted the level of disgust and the increasing reliance on shocking effects instead of a significant plot, and that after the second film, the disgusting impact probably won’t be so significant (or at least: if you survived the second film, you could probably get through that one too). The film received an awful score of 2.7 out of 10 on IMDB, which says a lot.
Why Did The Human Centipede Movies Come To Life?
In recent years, we’ve seen some insignificant horror films that have received a particularly new and curious audience. We saw this a few years ago with “Megan is Missing,” which you’ll probably find on many lists of particularly awful horror films (I don’t think the movie is that horrible and creepy. What does that say about me?).
The Human Centipede Movies In Social Media
In the case of “The Human Centipede,” part of this story can be attributed to social media, relevant hashtags, and people’s desire to show how disgusted they are when watching films of this type. The film has been screened at several horror festivals in recent years and has received a lot of buzz. Home viewing and streaming options have made it more accessible, so more people are discovering it. The fact that the film was banned from screening in several countries has contributed to the hype surrounding it.
The HumanCentiPAD Soutpark Parody
Some of the hysteria surrounding the film can also be attributed to the brilliant animated series “South Park“ by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The opening episode of the 15th season of the series, in 2011, included a parody of “The Human Centipede” movies. In the episode, Kyle makes the common mistake of approving a digital usage agreement without reading it, and in this case, of ITUNES. The problem is that he got involved in a scientific experiment, which is trying to create the Human CentiPad – Yes, a human iPad.
In the episode, Steve Jobs talks about his idea to take all the “shit“ that people share on social networks and create an iPad that can also walk and talk. This provocative episode will explain why it is worth always reading the terms and conditions and why a burrito sandwich is one of the most terrible things for anyone in this chain.
The Human Centipede: Full Sequence
In 2016, we got a “connected“ version of all three films named “The Human Centipede: Full Sequence.“ As part of it, you could also see the “The Human Centipede” color version, as Six and the crew initially shot.
Besides, you could find, for example, a porn version of this film, which I do not intend to watch (and certainly not post here) so that the authorities do not come after me, and because I am not a psychopath who watches some sick videos. Bloody hell, in Australia, they even made a musical based on the story of the Human Worm.
A Perfect Body Horror, Or A Shitty Franchise?
Undoubtedly, “The Human Centipede” films are very provocative. The films present graphic violence, torture, and the humiliation of humans in a way that is considered extreme, even by horror film standards. They deal with complex topics that are taboo for some, such as torture, sexual coercion, cannibalism, and the relationship between violence and sexuality (which is also expressed in the term “Torture Porn,” a subgenre of horror films that walks the seam between these worlds). The treatment of these topics is presented visually, especially in the second and third films, which may provoke shock and disgust.
The films certainly raise doubts about the boundaries of “art“ in cinema. Horror films set a high bar, but films of this kind raise artistic, perhaps even ethical, questions about their limits and, in general – what is appropriate and proper to present on screen. One could argue that the films express artistic, even social, criticism of complex issues that we aren’t usually happy to deal with.
Should You Watch The Human Centipede Movies?
Do “The Human Centipede” films deserve the myths that have been associated with them, or to paraphrase Russell Brand’s amusing quote in the excellent “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” we can see it as “a metaphor for a crap movie“ (or in this case, not exactly a metaphor)? I don’t know. These films are not easy to digest, literally, and therefore more disgusting than scary.
I didn’t find the films too disturbing, beyond the shock and nausea that some may feel while watching them. Maybe after a few thousand horror films, I’ll find it hard to get excited, like that episode of “South Park” in which Cartman sees something so funny that he thinks he’ll never be able to laugh again. It may also have to do with the fact that the films, beyond the disgusting effect, did not interest me much and were difficult to watch for other reasons.
Still, whenever there is a discussion about the list of the most outrageous, sick, and disgusting horror films ever made, I am confident that “The Human Centipede” will also be there.
Just don’t make a remake of it, because I have to eat sometimes.