Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence

Miss this connection

By Michael O'Sullivan

Friday, Oct 07, 2011

Warning: This movie - and the review - is not for the faint of heart.

How do you even begin to review a movie like "The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence"? Perhaps by clarifying that there really is no other movie on Earth quite like it. And that's including "The Human Centipede: First Sequence," the 2009 horror film on which this dismal, nauseating and yet bizarrely artful sequel is based.

The original tracked the efforts of a mad scientist (played with histrionic, eye-rolling glee by German actor Dieter Laser) to create a set of freakishly conjoined triplets by sewing together three unwilling human subjects, mouth to rectum, so that they shared one long digestive tract. It was groundbreaking, in a way, considering the sheer offensiveness of the concept, which was presented with an appropriate dollop of silliness on top of a deadpan foundation, like whipped cream on a pile of . . . well, you know what I mean. The first movie, as its nutty PR campaign boasted, was "100 percent medically accurate."

It was also - for those who had the stomach for the gruesome special effects, amateurish acting and bad writing - something of a lark. As a result, many hard-core horror fans complained that the film was not hard-core enough: that it was insufficiently graphic in its depiction of the actual procedure.

"The Human Centipede II" ought to shut those critics up.

Shot by returning auteur Tom Six in a high-contrast, black-and-white style that is both grimy and, in a perverse way, photogenic, the sequel follows Martin (Laurence R. Harvey), a disturbed parking garage attendant who is obsessed with the first "Centipede" film. Martin is a copycat criminal and intends to replicate the procedure in the first film, only this time after amassing a dozen subjects, including the three unfortunate actors who played the first film's victims.

He gets pretty close, first by using a crowbar and a gun, and then by pretending to be a casting agent for Quentin Tarantino. Although he never utters a word in the film, we hear a number of voice-mail messages left for him by the actors' agents. Ashlynn Yennie, who played Jenny in the first film, actually shows up, playing herself. That demonstrates that she has either a superhuman - albeit seriously sick - sense of humor or the world's worst talent manager.

Martin may be mad, but he is no scientist, and he carries out his butchery with an assortment of nasty-looking cutting implements, accompanied by a sound design that amplifies the buzz of every fly and the meaty squish of every body part that he slices into. Speaking of nasty-looking, Martin himself - a balding, bug-eyed and obese homunculus - isn't easy on the eyes. It could be that his sweaty, leering countenance is destined to become more popular this Halloween than Freddy Krueger's, but I just can't believe that that many people will pay to see this film.

For those who do, I salute you. I also - and I mean this quite sincerely - pity you.

Contains obscenity, nudity, sexual content and extremely violent, disturbing imagery.