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.