06.18.10 | George D. Allen | Staff NotesPrint this Post
Maybe you’ve already heard about the concept guiding the much-talked-about indie horror mini-sensation The Human Centipede (First Sequence). If so, you’ve probably already decided whether or not you’ll a) go out of your way to see it on the big screen at an art house midnight show, or b) safely download it via on-demand and then never cop to your friends and family that you ever laid eyes upon it, or c) steer yourself way, way clear.
Most people are going to choose “c.” Good for them. Truly, this is a movie for a small audience, one to be found within the confines of those who are on the lookout for films that shock the most completely jaded.
In that regard, the picture succeeds rather inventively. If you know about the movie, you already know the concept, so it’s safe for me to reveal there will be no specific “spoilers” involved from here on out. Those with delicate sensibilities are advised to move on, because I chose “a,” and feel compelled to react to the film. So, much like that unforgettable Sesame Street tome The Monster at the End of This Book, I’m imploring you. Don’t turn the page. Don’t turn the page.
Oh no--you’ve turned the page! Now let’s continue.
Writer/director Tom Six’s film has one whopper of a premise, drawn from the reliable “mad doctor” genre that goes back as far as the silent film days, but updated with the kind of grotesque novelty only possible in our wonderfully liberated era. Ready? Here it is. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) tells the story of Doctor Heiter (Dieter Laser), a German surgeon once respected for his expertise in separating Siamese twins, now living a hermetic existence and obsessing with his uniquely sick determination to stitch together three human beings by way of a “single gastric system.” If you haven’t quite managed to picture that from both the title of the film and that description, let’s make it clear by revealing that it looks like this:
The above photo is from a drawing seen in the film, made by the doctor himself as he explains his intentions during a queasy slide show in front of his three captive guinea pigs—two American young women (Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie) who stumble upon his home after their car breaks down, and a Japanese man (Akihiro Kitamura) kidnapped by Heiter after his original male specimen proves to be an imperfect “match” for the girls.
Viewers don’t have to wait long to see the results of the surgery. After one of the young women fails in her escape attempt, Heiter decides to make her the “middle” piece of the human centipede as punishment. You can imagine that, of the three, she will be forced to endure the worst torments—if one can even begin to differentiate that kind of suffering.
What’s shocking about the film—truly, truly shocking—isn’t what’s actually shown. Director Six manages to stage just enough of what viewers “need” to see to complete the ghastly picture in their minds. Moviegoers fed a steady diet of horror (myself included) have seen plenty of works that exploit much more and achieve much less.
Six reveals genuine artistic ambitions for the story in addition to the searing succession of depraved grand guignol thrills. Without spelling this element of the story out in simplistic detail, he achieves something profoundly upsetting and spellbinding at the same time by dramatizing the overwhelming compassion each person—or “part”—in the human centipede truly feels for the others.
As the film’s second act sets in, you are set up to root for Heiter’s unfortunate victims as they mount a rebellion against their tormentor. They’re led (of course) by the only member of the human centipede that can still talk—the sympathetic and darkly amusing Kitamura, who rages against Heiter and doles out threatening (and sometimes funny as hell) insults about the revenge he plans to wreak upon his captor.
Complications continue as two police officers visiting the house in search of the missing people close in on discovering just what horrors await them in the basement of Heiter’s home, an exquisitely decorated set that brings to mind both the clinical nature of David Cronenberg interiors and the ambitious design work of early horror fans’ favorite Satanist and architect, Hjalmar Poelzig (from The Black Cat).
Is evil vanquished? Do the victims escape? If you’ve made it this far, you might actually be interested in seeing the movie, so perhaps an extra “spoiler warning” is warranted for the next paragraph, even though I won’t reveal any details.
What turns out to be the most effective thing about this movie is what will ultimately work against it in moving out towards broader audiences. The story’s resolution is rare in its cruelty. After some consideration—it’s been a few days since I’ve seen it, and yes, it’s still “with” me—I feel comfortable in saying that this movie belongs alongside films like Salo, Or the 120 Days of Sodom, which is to say that it contains ideas of shattering power, combines them with the darkest gallows humor, and then offers absolutely no “release” or “satisfaction” of a purely commercial variety. This may make the film more artistic and more important, as I certainly believe this movie will have an extensive shelf life and continue to be talked about for a long time—but it also means that it will be seen and appreciated by a very limited audience.
When I first heard about it from a friend who’s as die-hard a horror fan as myself, my first reaction was that the role of the mad scientist sounded like a great fit for Bela Lugosi, were he alive today. Primarily I was thinking about Lugosi’s performance as Dr. Richard Vollin in The Raven, in which he gleefully expresses his admiration for the sadism of Edgar Allan Poe and later disfigures the face of gangster Boris Karloff, laughing madly as his mutilated co-star stumbles around the laboratory in dismay and anger upon beholding his wretched appearance.
In the lead role of Six’s film, it’s amazing just how much Dieter Laser calls to mind the kind of exotic, stylized performance Lugosi made famous. But, here’s the thing:
In the underrated Clint Eastwood movie White Hunter, Black Heart (a thinly disguised account of the making of The African Queen), Eastwood (in the John Huston role) is seen arguing with his screenwriter (Jeff Fahey) about whether or not the Bogart and Hepburn characters should be allowed to live at the end of the story. Eastwood says they should die, feeling as if that’s the way the story should go, as one of the “lousy little gods” left in charge of deciding their destiny. Fahey argues they should live, and that, he says, is what makes him “a swell God.”
“That makes you a flea on an elephant’s ass,” Eastwood snorts.
They were allowed to live, of course. If there’s truth contained in that film’s fiction, one has to wonder if The African Queen would enjoy its status as a beloved film decades later if Huston had exacted such an uncommercial fate for his characters.
It’s the understatement of the century to say there are many other differences between Huston’s enduring classic and The Human Centipede (First Sequence). Tom Six’s decision to keep his film rooted in its utterly nihilistic integrity, I believe, makes his movie the flea. The audience is the elephant.
You supply the rest.
