The Human Centipede

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I just watched the movie the Human Centipede. Here is my critique/review:

The first half of the movie is so scary it was hard to watch. I knew something awful was gonna happen, but I didn't know what- and I have to give them credit for effectively getting under my skin.

The second half felt more like a campy porn than anything thrilling. (I'm talking generally of course, there was a few moments that were like 'Oh fucking god how sociopathic.') There was a definite relief when the doctor finally made them all into a centipede, even if it was a tense one. The way the villain looked in the mirror after he did it like "Look at me I'm a narcissist!" was like some campy overly done thing I would write in my stories, or something you'd see off Buffy/Xena. Like really, proudly looking at yourself in the mirror after you just made three human beings into a centipede? I think it would be more creepy if the villain was more conflicted with what he was doing. Plus that scene where he asked the japanese man to fetch the paper for him felt like something for 16-year-old boys to laugh at rather than something authentically terrifying.

These movies have to go through sensors so nothing can be truly trolling otherwise they will probably be afraid they will give people heart attacks or panic attacks. So there are times when the villain breaks the 4th wall and "Smiles evilly" instead of being cold and creepy. I mean, I just know in real life when people do sociopathic things to me, they don't smile evilly- they are instead cold, calculating and cutting. That 'smiles evilly' thing is a very campy and "gay" non-scary thing. At that point the antagonist might have well just twirled his mustache or something.

Villains in the real world are conflicted, and finding the right balance between punishment and rehabilitation is difficult and cumbersome. With this guy he was so obviously bad that you were just begging for him to die. When he suddenly got killed it was like YESSS and it was fun, but it felt kind of simplistic. Still I think that's the beauty of the movie too. You were cheering for humanity and good to win all the way through. You were rooting for the empathetic underdog; the shy, the nerd, the jew, the fag- to be the hero and save the day.

[Aquagraph]

This is the single movie I regretted watching. It was awful. This is not criticism towards it. On the contrary, it worked too well for me.

[Creepy-male]

I saw the trailer for it and just laughed through the entire thing -- mainly because its so sick and twisted, I have a reaction to laugh at things that overload my emotional quota for disgust. I think my reaction out of the trailer was "I'm probably not going to see this unless I want to feel disturbed and disgusted for a few hours" -- I'm wondering if that's the attraction to those movies, it kind of gives you a catharsis to feelings of disgust and being disturbed -- you watch it and then the guy dies and it just releases all the pent up disgust one has in them.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Exactly. I *wanted* to be trolled.

[Kim]

I just watched Human Centipede II and I am scarred for life. I didn't even really watch it. I was playing a game and the video browser was halfway hidden behind the game. Don't ask why I did this to myself. It was just awful. If you are curious, just read the summary on wikipedia, but don't watch it. It's much much worse than the first one (the first one is awful, too, and I had to skip over some parts, but it's not nearly as horrible as the second one. He is making a third one which supposedly will make the second one look like a Disney film. I told my boyfriend to NOT LET ME WATCH IT).

(I have a high level of tolerance for cinematic gore and violence because I know it's not real, but this film is so depraved that I had to watch a bunch of Family Guy episodes to recover).

WHY DID I DO THIS???? WHY??????

I will say, however, that it's very well-made and self-ironic. I wish he had gone a bit easier on the violence for the film to be more accessible because it does have merits. And the performance of the guy who plays the crazy villain is crazy good!! But it's just too much (which of course is part of the point). Still, just don't watch it...

[ClownsandEntropy]

My exposure to the film involves me standing outside the living room blocking my ears and waiting for my brother to tell me he wasn't watching the trailer any more. I have no idea how producers/directors/scriptwriters can bear the production process: "So my idea for a movie is that someone sews three people together into a centipede, then they all die." "That's genius!"

[Creepy-pokeball]

I want to be the 16t head so I can fart songs down us.

[marooned]

I think I'll stay away from this movie. I really hope "human centipede" isn't literal... I bet it is. Yes, I think I'll stay away.

[ashlesha]

i watched this movie figuring if it wasn't a) scary, it could at least be b) funny. but it fell short of both imo.

highlights (spoilers):

when they had to eat eachothers poop. the only part i laughed out loud about.

when they had to climb the stairs. the only part that really made me cringe.

the premise is great. i mean, lol. but it could have been better, scarier and/or campier.

[Creepy-pokeball]

"Im so sorry!"

[FDG]

I need to stay far away from this movie, lest being shocked for at least 1 year. Yes, I'm a pussy @ horror movies because due to my Si PoLR I can't distinguish reality from my own imagination.

[Creepy-pokeball]

I need to stay far away from this movie, lest being shocked for at least 1 year. Yes, I'm a pussy @ horror movies because due to my Si PoLR I can't distinguish reality from my own imagination.

uh huh

[glam]

I need to stay far away from this movie, lest being shocked for at least 1 year. Yes, I'm a pussy @ horror movies because due to my Si PoLR I can't distinguish reality from my own imagination.

interesting... all the people i know who are the most avoidant of watching horror films are men. i haven't figured out why; of course maybe it's just a coincidence.

[Absurd]

interesting... all the people i know who are the most avoidant of watching horror films are men. i haven't figured out why; of course maybe it's just a coincidence.

I'm not a man, then.

[ArchonAlarion]

Horror films usually have little thought put into them. Half of the film is shit popping out of closets and toilets or w/e and the other half is the screechy musical score leading up to the "surprise." What if everything was scary for 90 minutes and left you unsettled? The Human Centipede sounds like it's disgusting for the purposes of being disgusting. I bet the director/writer get's a boner every time someone scolds them for creating the movie.

[strangeling]

THIS MOVIE IS SICK.

[Creepy-male]

Horror films aren't that bad, I just think they show too much, they make it too explicit. I think its a very difficult genre to make a good movie in.

[strangeling]

^ Imagine having to eat diarrhea

[Creepy-pokeball]

Horror Comedy is probably my favorite genre, but there are so few examples that exist.

[tcaudilllg]

I need to stay far away from this movie, lest being shocked for at least 1 year. Yes, I'm a pussy @ horror movies because due to my Si PoLR I can't distinguish reality from my own imagination.

Go out and shoot a company exec in the legs.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Jake have you actually seen the movie?

The movie is actually really scary in *some* parts, I don't know how anybody could say otherwise, unless they were trying to pretend like they weren't effected by it for some sort of social acceptance. But yeah, once he made them all into the centipede it was more campy/disgusting than scary although there was moments.

I wish I could have more empathy for the victims though. Those two girls could be so bloody stupid at times that it almost made me feel like they deserved it.

[tcaudilllg]

I just watched it. No worse than many other horror flicks. At least it had a "happy" ending (e.g. one of the protagonists makes it out alive).

House of a Thousand Corpses was much worse.

But really, don't you think Human Centipede is a metaphor for what we are living right now? I mean don't you see Wall Street as basically the doctor in that movie? What is the difference?

Particularly from an IE point of view.

[FDG]

Go out and shoot a company exec in the legs.

That's not funny

[tcaudilllg]

That's not funny

Indeed it's not. It speaks to the insanity of our times.

[marooned]

I'm not usually fond of horror movies because I end up imagining myself in the place of the character. It's not really the actual physical thing being done to them but the emotional impact. For instance if something forces someone to cut themselves up against their will what gets me isn't the actual cutting, but how that would feel knowing you're doing this to yourself, hurting yourself, and you can't stop. That's the true horror of it. The gore feeds into this horror, but the gore alone isn't what is horrible.

It's kind of like this:

The Buddha said: "The untrained, unenlightened disciple has two darts that pierce him. The trained, enlightened disciple has one."

Life must necessarily involve the experience of pain. The nature and intensity of pain can be different in different people, particularly in contrast to their experiences of the opposite - pleasure. The Buddha equates this with the First Dart that strikes us. But too often, the pain recedes only to resurface as suffering, the Second Dart. This Second Dart causes disproportionately more harm to us than the First Dart of pain. The Second Dart is a result of the mind reacting to the first experience.

(Also, the Second Dart is the one you hit yourself with.) Seeing the gore, well, it's just gore. But what it all means creates this sense of horror about it.

[ashlesha]

I'm not usually fond of horror movies because I end up imagining myself in the place of the character. It's not really the actual physical thing being done to them but the emotional impact. For instance if something forces someone to cut themselves up against their will what gets me isn't the actual cutting, but how that would feel knowing you're doing this to yourself, hurting yourself, and you can't stop. That's the true horror of it. The gore feeds into this horror, but the gore alone isn't what is horrible.

yeah, same, except this is why I like horror movies I like how they can get under my skin.

saw was the worst for me because they were put in positions I don't think I would be able to escape. but I would presumably technically be able to if I was strong enough. so it made me confront my weakness. a lot of people thought it was silly or just a generic gore flick but it scared the shit out of me for that reason.

[FDG]

If I watch a horror movie, I literally see the "monsters" or "evil characters" or w/e for 2-3 weeks whenever I'm walking in a dark room or corridor; moreover, my dreams end up being often centered on the horror movie's scenes etc. - It's traumatic.

[mu4]

I need to stay far away from this movie, lest being shocked for at least 1 year. Yes, I'm a pussy @ horror movies because due to my Si PoLR I can't distinguish reality from my own imagination.

I won't watch these either, I almost never watch Horror movies.

[marooned]

yeah, same, except this is why I like horror movies I like how they can get under my skin.

saw was the worst for me because they were put in positions I don't think I would be able to escape. but I would presumably technically be able to if I was strong enough. so it made me confront my weakness. a lot of people thought it was silly or just a generic gore flick but it scared the shit out of me for that reason.

I did that with Event Horizon, at least I think I did... I felt I emerged well from it. I don't know if I've just become detached and indifferent though instead.

The movie that really got me was Hannibal & the scene with the guy's exposed brain and Hannibal removing parts of it methodically. I didn't even watch most of this scene, but somehow it did not matter. The guy (played by Ray Liotta) was so drugged out he was just laughing and saying stupid things (out of his mind) and it was all this sick joke to Hannibal who I think truly reveled in completely debasing this person. Anyway just being in Ray Liotta's place was just too horrible of a thought, especially since it reminded me of my time working in Assisted Living and how I felt traumatized by all the people with Alzheimer's and Dementia & who had had strokes (not by the people, but by the reality of what had happened to them & was still happening to them). I think that this all goes to this fear of losing myself so the scene in Hannibal where Ray Liotta's character is losing himself piece by piece and is laughing about it because he's brain dead was rather awful. I would imagine that on some level he knows what is happening to him and that he's being swept away bit by bit by someone completely unsympathetic who wants to destroy him in the worst way possible--he knows he's lost in this drugged out glee while he's probably crying inside. Anyway I think it's not the movie but that it had been in my mind already and had been bothering me ever since working in Assisted Living. However, after my reaction to Hannibal I kind of thought that I should be a little more careful about what I watch.

Probably the unsympathetic nature of the characters in horror films gets to me as well. That might be what would end up bothering me about Saw if I saw it. I don't like the cold feelingless horror movie character generally. I did like it in Event Horizon because I felt the Ship and Dr. Weir had a relationship and I found the relationship strangely warm in nature, and actually kind of mutual. I thought that Dr. Weir gave the ship a voice and concepts to express itself with. Before it was so closer to pure chaos and it couldn't articulate itself. But Dr. Weir provided it with something it could barely touch before... he knew things and could express things in concepts and words. Anyway I think that largely I didn't really believe the evil chaos universe was really so horrible even though if one were to enter it, it would be the worst suffering imaginable. It could not help that that's just what it was. How else could something from it communicate other than through its own means or way?

Although regarding cold, feelingless, merciless sorts of characters, I actually like John Druitt's character in Sanctuary. But perhaps this is because I don't see the character as actually feelingless.

[Kim]

This thread makes me feel so much better about my strange affinity to horror films. I really admire the Saw series for its cleverness and I agree that it makes you imagine yourself in situations like that and question your strength, perseverance, will to live, etc.

The first Human Centipede was terrifying because of the absolute torture he inflicted on them. But the film is very "clean" as opposed to the second one. The second one combines the same torture with awful awful gore (the villain is not a doctor, everything is dirty, and every procedure is shown in close-up), so it was just too much. The gore and violence really takes away from what could have been a clever and allegorical film. Again, don't watch it!!!

My boyfriend does not watch horror films at all and he thinks I am crazy for watching these two...

[ArchonAlarion]

I thought Paranormal Activity was scary. The whole concept of "being" the camera freaked me out. I hated it when the couple left us in places to watch the shit unfold. Every time the night scenes came around, I got ancy.

[Radio]

Paranormal Activity was meh.

The two movies that have freaked me out the most are coincidentally both Japanese: Noroi and Pulse. Both gradually build up the atmosphere and mood, rather than employ jump-scares. Pulse is heavy, not only because it's fucking depressing but because the imagery in the film is dark, sparse and almost entirely sepia-toned. It's like stumbling through a dream trying hard to wake up.

Oh yeah, I liked Blair Witch Project too, and Rosemary's Baby.
Oh and this is awesome but it's not scary. This, too. And this (it's like a Korean Rosemary's Baby).

I haven't seen centipede and I don't intend to.

[Finale]

I watched Human Centipede and just shook my head through the whole thing.

I didn't find it particularly disturbing, "scary" or even disgusting. The acting, characters and story were so poorly done that it really didn't get much of any reaction at all. Maybe if they fleshed out the characters or solidified the story somehow....

Interesting concept, but total fail on delivery IMO.