A perfect example of style over substance, "The Human Centipede" is one of the more unsettling films you'll ever see.
It's perhaps the first of the so-called "torture porn" films to not be excessively graphic or gruesome in an overt fashion. Though it doesn't feature copious amounts of blood and guts, make no mistake: it's one of the most disgusting films ever made.
"Centipede" is being marketed as a horror film, but is very much a more psychological offshoot of that genre. Yes, there's some blood, and we see Dr. Heiter's finished product (or do we? More on this in a moment), but there's little overt scares or gore.
The film stars Dieter Laser as the German Dr. Heiter, a retired surgeon who in his working days separated conjoined twins. Now, living in an oddly metropolitan home, he has given new meaning to the term "mad scientist," and is now obsessed with actually conjoining human beings into a sick and twisted being he terms a "human centipede."
How might he achieve this feat, you may ask? Glad you asked. His fantasy is to join them via the gastric system. Yes, that's one person's anus attached to another person's mouth, forming a macabre, permanent daisy chain from which there is no escape.
Dr. Heiter stalks potential victims, but he strikes gold when two young American women, touring through Europe, get a flat tire and come knocking on his door for help one rainy night.
Laser is absolutely magnetic as Dr. Heiter, and somewhere in Eastern Europe Udo Kier is sitting in his dungeon kicking himself for not taking this role.He's mega creepy, and vascillates from kindly samaritan (with definitely ulterior motives) to out-and-out creepy with no effort.
There is an odd dynamic to this film in that the actors really cannot communicate with each other. Dr. Heiter speaks English, so he can talk to the American women, but they cannot reciprocate (since they're...muzzled). The front of the centipede is a Japanese man who speaks no English. It creates a interesting synergy that adds a layer of intrigue to the film.
The rest of the actors don't particularly stand out, but neither do they pull us from the film. There is a certain moment in this film, though--yes, that moment--where the front of the centipede just can't hold out anymore, that's more horrifying than any slasher or monster movie you'll ever see.
Of course, the real star of the film is our own gag reflex, and "Centipede" is unabashedly exloitative. The "members" of the centipede are largely nude throughout the film, and their lumbering, slo-mo moves when they finally try to escape is a true bit of suspense, and it's truly the first film in a long while where I wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen to these people. What does happen is a real surprise, and not in that ha-I-fooled-you gimmicky way that's the rage in cinema lately.
Perhaps most troubling of all is that this film has been a big hit on the film festival circuit, and Six has announced his intentions of making a sequel, in which Dr. Heiter attaches 12 people in a single, perverse centipede.
It goes without saying this film isn't for everyone. Heck, it's probably not for most people. But for some of us the pure, morbid curiosity is simply too much to bear, and for those people "Centipede" really delivers.