The Human Centipede 2 wasn’t shot in black and white.
Color simply ran away from it. Now, I’m not sure which is worse here: the fact
that we’ve turned a favored lesbian porn position into a horror franchise or
that I am saying that this franchise has actually gotten better as it’s
progressed. Considering the 3rd movie is featuring the same villain
from the second one, it’s almost like the shitty (no pun intended…for those
who’ve seen the movies) Human Centipede
1 was made to give the other movies a
disturbing validity that actually almost works.
The
premise of Human Centipede 2 is
essentially an over-glorification of the first movie, focusing around the
mentally deranged Martin, a parking garage security guard in London (the same
London that banned this movie…). Being a victim of the typical “my parents
didn’t love me” childhood traumas, Martin becomes inspired by the original Human Centipede and sets out on a
mission to create a larger centipede of his own (a “centipede” being people
stitched anus to mouth for the sake of connecting their digestive systems
together). Using non-lethal tools like guns and obscenely sloshy-sounding blows
to the head with a crowbar, Martin abducts a group of cliché social misfits,
locks them in the most suspicious looking van in the UK and eventually makes
his obsession a reality.
The
biggest issue I had was this movie’s dependence on the convenience of ignorance
(sorry, I burned up all my loathing towards the general premise on the first
movie). Gaping plot holes and obvious logical obstacles were blatantly ignored
for the sake of keeping the film “sick and twisted” and to questions like “how
did mentally deranged Martin get a gun…or a job…or a driver’s license and how
long were these people locked up and why didn’t they die from starvation and
blood loss?” I could only come up with one answer: “It must be some London
thing.”
On top of that, characters were simply thrown in for the sake
of adding to the perverted reputation the franchise felt it had to live up to.
From psycho-mothers to sex-starved old psychiatrists to pregnant women, Human Centipede 2 seemed to think that
by being more offensive you were, in fact, being scarier, which is like saying
by adding ponies and singing and rainbows to the Saw series it made it more of a kid’s franchise.
The
problem with most horror movies that center around the “torture porn” mechanic
is that they include victims that the audience doesn’t mind watching die. We
don’t feel there’s any real loss there, hell, the pregnant woman in this film
seemed like she was going to sell her kid for drug money and for that, I wasn’t
bothered. Sympathy is one of the driving forces of fear and I would have been
more afraid of The Human Centipede 2
if I felt any longing for a character to survive the ordeal.
Despite
that this film regularly sacrificed intelligence for “things that make you go
bluh,” there was one aspect of this movie that I found expertly handled and
captivating: the character study of Martin. Martin had no lines, he just
giggled and squee’d and would cry when things didn’t go according to the plan. When
he got frustrated, his anger took over and you almost felt pity like watching a
short kid trying to reach cookies on the tall shelf. He approached his madness
with a childish glee, like a lunatic from House
of 1000 Corpses. If I were willing to throw all logic out the window,
Martin’s character just worked and fit and under a different director and
overall story, he could have become an iconic madman.
The Human Centipede needed a sequel as much as the
Geico Cavemen needed a TV series, but, like the show, this is only going to
last 3 episodes. With all the gut-wrenching, nausea-inducing overly-ridiculous
special effects, more plot holes than Lost
if you skipped every other episode and a concept that should cause its director
to be locked up simply for having it, it makes logical sense that The Human Centipede 2 should be cast
into the fiery pits of my microwave never to torment my DVD collection again.
However, this movie did what it set out to do and it was immensely effective.
Martin’s character was downright diabolical despite the world around him not
making any real sense. My stomach did churn a bit as I watch victim’s rubber
bands…errr…ligaments get sliced into two, pouring out pools of chocolate
syrup…errr…blood while Martin danced around them, giddy that this constant
failure did something right for a change.
I can’t
honestly give this movie a 1 for the sake of getting to destroy it. It was an
absolute travesty but so often are we met with horror movies that feast on the
supernatural or some psycho-killer with a disappointing motive that to
discredit this movie so much for simply being obscene, considering the fact
that I discredit most other horrors for simply being cliché, would just be
unfair.
The Human Centipede 2 is sick and twisted. It’s dark
and disturbing and will probably make you think twice about making fun of
short, balding fat men who masturbate with sandpaper. The fact that it pulls
off being so grotesque doesn’t make it a good movie because so much else about
it sucked. The acting, sans-Martin, was atrocious, sounds and effects were
over-done to near Looney Tunes
hilarity, and the pacing of the story gave you no idea how slow or fast time
was moving…like it just didn’t exist at all.
But
this wasn’t out to win any Academy Awards, as are many of the cult classics
that seem too far-fetched to have made it past the planning phase (see The Big Lebowski, Rocky Horror Picture Show,
and Star Wars). I award The Human Centipede 2 a low, but still
surprising, 3 dustbusters out of 10 and still wish that director Tom Six would
live by his movie’s example to “eat shit and die.”
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