Tom Six’s Shock-Fest ‘The Human Centipede’ is a Silly Film that Offers Little Past its Premise

Tom Six’s “The Human Centipede” (First Sequence) suffers the same fate as “A Serbian Film.” Its advance billing and word of mouth in horror communities kills it. It’s created for horror hounds who seek the next worst thing to watch and not the average filmgoer. Yet I frequently see it streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime, and after watching it, I can almost see why. This is the third “worst film out there” I’ve hurled myself into (the two previous were “Martyrs” and “A Serbian Film”), yet it’s also the tamest of the three. Note: I’m fairly experienced at watching the worst the genre has to offer, and am not suggesting couples looking for a scary film give this a try with no advance warning. However, compared to the gore and desperation of the “Saw” series, it left me unaffected. It’s also blindingly stupid. Its third act contains so much contrived plotting that it destroys any scares it dredged up prior.  

“The Human Centipede” is not a gory film. That’s the first point to understand. The opening is creepy, featuring the film’s unfortunate duo, Lindsay and Jenny (Winter Williams and Ashlynn Yennie) trekking through the dark German woods, looking for help, after their car breaks down. Before this, we’ve already seen the film’s mad scientist, Dr. Heiter (a creepy Dieter Laser), looking (sadly?, I think) at a trio of dogs he’s already turned into a canine centipede. Of course, his magnum opus is to make a ‘human centipede.’ A truck driver behind him stops to take a leak, and Heiter hides a rifle under his coat and starts off towards him. The scene is honestly confusing. Heiter drugs the rest of his victims with the date rape drug Rohypnol—the film makes a point of naming this to show off Heiter’s medical acumen. I don’t understand how the thin, ungainly scientist was going to compel a trucker into his car with a hunting rifle. But I digress. 

It’s All in the Premise

In fairness, the first half “The Human Centipede” features good production and is earnestly creepy. Both Williams and Yennie are adept at playing bumbling yet well-meaning Americans traveling abroad, and it’s doubtless Tom Six is pulling from 2005’s “Hostel” here with his plotting. Watching the unsuspecting girls get taken in and “helped” by Heiter also reminded me of “Knock Knock”—except this time with a reversal of the roles. Yet Six seems to have no intention of letting us think, for even a second, that Heiter’s a good guy. The way he acts towards the two is overtly creepy. We see Heiter lock the door with a key, so it’s unlikely they could escape, but no sane person would see the way he’s acting and think “I’m safe here.” But this is a thriller after all. Jenny and Lindsay must fall for his ploy or the movie won’t take place. 

At the film’s 45-minute mark—after Heiter has “explained” the surgery he’s about to put the two girls and an Asian man (Akihiro Kitamura) through—to much yelling from all involved—Six’s real film jumps off. Somehow, it’s eerier that Heiter proposes—and completes—his monstrous surgery to join the three victims—mouth to anus—under full anesthesia. Watching poor Lindsay sleep peacefully while he makes hideous cuts was one of the film’s few disturbing moments. As was an early sequence where Lindsay tries to escape. Heiter tells her this act has cemented her place ‘in the middle’ segment of his creation. And later, after the three have been joined and Kitamura’s character Katsuro reaches back to grasp Lindsay’s hand in support, the moment is a bit heartbreaking. There’s something about a person in the same predicament reaching out to help someone in worse mental shape that’s psychologically troubling. It’s the one piece of terror Six got right in his 1 hour and 32 minutes. 

The Film Implies its Worst Bits

The rest of “The Human Centipede” fixates on Heiter (torturing, playing with?) his creation, mostly in broad daylight, fending off whatever protests the centipede can offer. Jenny and Lindsay are in the back and middle and cannot talk, and most of the protestation comes from Katsuro, who yells Japanese obscenities at Heiter to no avail. Once he bites him on the ankle. Heiter responds by kicking him several times and threatening to pull out all his teeth without anesthesia, as if Katsuro could be in any worse shape. There’s one gross implication when Katsuro must defecate—apologizing to Lindsay beforehand—but the keyword is implication. Six doesn’t really show a lot. Heiter covers most of the trio’s hideous surgical wounds with diaper-looking bandages. And shockingly, the film has virtually no nudity or real, discernible gore. 

And that’s about all there is to “The Human Centipede.” Heiter continues prodding and insulting the centipede (I guess that’s what it is now) while the horror never goes anywhere. Viewers who have stuck around to this level will feel sorry for Katsuro, Lindsay, and Jenny, and this is the one place Six doesn’t gum up the works. But that’s not his intention. Roger Ebert cited Six as claiming to “get a rash from too much political correctness” and that “The Human Centipede” was a “thrill ride” for boozy fanboys of the midnight circuit. On that latter, I’m not sure. “Centipede” offers little in terms of actual terror, minimal gore, and asinine plotting that rivals B-movies. The last 15 minutes insult the audience’s intelligence (although you can question mine for even watching this film). It turns Heiter into an indestructible villain who just keeps coming. It also includes a plot decision involving Katsuro that’s so anticlimactic and inane I began to lose my patience.  

‘Centipede’ Spins Out of Control

“The Human Centipede” is yet another horror film I heard so much about I just had to watch that wasn’t worth the effort. It won’t haunt my dreams and it’s nowhere as disturbing as other films I’ve seen. The film starts eerie, descends into absurdity, and finishes with utter stupidity. I question what kind of film Six wanted to make. It’s not a gross-out fest like “Terrifier,” nor as depraved as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2003). It belongs in the escalation of torture porn that’s been happening ever since “Saw” popularized it. It’s doubtless Six made “The Human Centipede 2” to appease fanboys who didn’t get their money’s worth this time. And while an actual movie exists beneath its vulgar plot, Six finds it for the first 40 minutes, loses his grasp during the middle, and throws it away by the end. The Human Centipede” isn’t as traumatic as its advance billing nor completely artless. It’s just a bad movie with a worse reputation. This is either your type of horror film or it isn’t. And if you’re not already sure, it probably isn’t.