THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE)
(Netherlands, 2009, d. Tom Six)
An example of a minor horror film (mad scientist experiments on abducted tourists) that has found its reputation growing as marketing informs prospective patrons (but, maybe, far more prospective non-patrons) what the film is about to capitalise on the disgust factor. It sounds repugnant, though its surprise value makes people think it is worse than visualising a chainsaw massacre (and there have been lots of those over the years on screen). It isn’t.
Actually, this brings up the old question of making the distinction between ‘what’ is presented and ‘how’ it is presented.
The grisly ‘what’ of this film, a human centipede, sounds awful, and it is. However, it is not nearly so explicit in gore and ugly sequences as publicity would lead us to believe.
The plot is straightforward. Two American girls (the synopsis refers to them as ditsy but they seem much more sensible than most who finish up being tortured in movies like the Hostel series) get lost one night on a road in Germany. A mad man whom we have seen menace a stranger with a rifle offers to ring for help when they stumble on his luxurious home in the forest. As expected, especially from this doctor whose face is overtly reptilian, he drugs them, kills the man he abducted and finds a Japanese substitute. One of the girls breaks free and the doctor pursues her through his house – more time on this than on the actual surgery.
The doctor is famous as a surgeon for his skills in separating Siamese twins. In his madness, he wants to reverse his surgery and connect his victims and make them function as one, a human centipede. He explains with diagrams what he intends to do but, mercifully for those who watch it with good intentions, very little is actually shown of the surgery. We move to the fair accompli. However, the resulting creature, with the three joined together and suffering, shows his sadistic nature and, perhaps, our masochistic nature in watching it.
The rest is a conventional police investigation and search, the Japanese thwarting the intentions of the doctor and... Since the title of the film says First Sequence, the ending is an abrupt one. Presumably, the writer-director set off to find the money for his Second Sequence.
Much less repulsive than many a current slasher movie, the film has relied on word of mouth and marketing to gains its sensationalist reputation.
