Most people seem to have an extreme reaction when you mention the Human Centipede around them. The majority says that it sounds sick and disgusting, and they will never watch it. Others think it is gruesome, awesome, and hilarious. I'm sure there are a few people out there that have no strong opinions on the movies, but I have yet to meet one.
The premise of the films is that there are people sewn together ass to mouth, to create a large chain of people that resemble, well, a human centipede. The first one is fed through the mouth, and then in turn shits into the mouth of the next person, who then shits into the mouth of the next person, so on and so forth.
I'm definitely not one of the people that are sickened or overly disturbed by the premise of the films. In fact, quite the opposite. When I first heard about the original movie, I was like "yes! Must see that one!" I like blood and gore, and it sounded like it would be right up my alley.
The first movie was gross and all that, but pretty slow for the most part. It had a traditional horror movie feel to it. Two girls are caught in a rain storm and seek refuge at a creepy doctor's house. Little do they know he has a man tied up in the basement, and he was JUST looking for two extra people to participate in a crazy experiment of his. There is a lot of build up leading to the end, where the actual centipeding doesn't happen until the last half hour of the movie. When it does, though, it is well worth the wait.
The second movie ups the ante quite a bit. It is very different from the original. It is filmed in all black and white. It tells the story of a psychotic fat man who never speaks. His favorite movie is: guess what? The Human Centipede. He goes around, drugging people and knocking them out. He takes them to a large storage facility and stashes them all there. The movie doesn't come right out and say it, but we know what he is up to.
After the man has captured enough people, he gets to work. This is definitely the most gruesome of all the movies, and my favorite. In the first movie, the victims are drugged - and when they wake up they find themselves part of the human centipede. In this one, we get to see detail for detail all the gory moments of the procedure. It is definitely not for the weak of heart. Even I was repulsed watching this movie, and I love this kind of stuff.
Since the ante had been upped so much for the second movie, I thought for sure that the third one would be the wildest and best yet. I had heard it was set in a prison (imagine the centipede that could be made!) and also had porn star hottie Bree Olson in a starring role. What could go wrong?
But something did. I was very disappointed in the third one.
The story begins in a large maximum security prison being run by an extremely psychotic and homicidal warden. The man has clear mental issues. He rages around the office, deriding his employees, abusing inmates, and sexually assaulting his secretary right in front of people. How he got to be in charge of this prison is beyond me. So unrealistic.... God!!
The whole movie is just watching this insane warden act out one maniacal fantasy after another. He is mean to everyone. He pours boiling water on an inmate's face, cuts the balls off another one, breaks the arm of another. He is extremely paranoid that the inmates will want to take revenge on him, and regularly has freak outs in his office.
It is gory, yes. But not as extreme as the second one. I just kept waiting for it to get to the centipeding.... and then it didn't. It doesn't actually get to the centipeding until the last 20 minutes of the movie. Literally. The warden only resorts to stringing his inmates together ass to mouth as a way of encouraging good behavior and making the rehabilitation process something that will actually work. It's a sound idea, in reality. Obviously it would never happen, but I think people would commit a lot less serious crimes if they knew they had THAT to look forward to if they were caught.
The actual centipeding itself is much tamer than the previous movies. Since these people are prisoners that need to be released after their sentences, the work done on them isn't fatal or too disfiguring. Their lips and assholes have stitch marks in them when they are removed from the centipede, but that is it. No broken limbs, no skin peeled away from the face. They even use masks and straps to keep the centipede intact.
Seeing as how each movie has progressively gotten more gruesome and intense as the series has gone on, this was a big disappointment to me. I wanted more gore, damn it! This movie is nearly an hour and fifty minutes long, and the first hour and thirty minutes is the warden running around like a psychopath. This is the Human Centipede. Get with the picture, film makers! And then when we do get to the centipeding, it is a lot more tame than the previous films.
I wanted to be grossed out. I wanted to be disturbed. I wanted to watch a movie that would make me regret firing it up in the first place. That is what the Human Centipede is all about. This movie did make me regret firing it up in the first place, but for the wrong reasons.
I have no idea what they were thinking with this one. Seeing how this is the last Human Centipede movie (it is in fact sub titled the Final Sequence) I expected much better. I have learned never to rely too much on names, so I am holding out hope that this is indeed NOT the final sequence. Us fans of the series (and yes, we exist) demand better.
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