I’ll cut to the chase: the central sequence of the sequel to the cult hit The Human Centipede involves a sadistic man-child shrieking with glee as a bunch of people get shit sprayed in their faces.
Sorry, did I say “central sequence”? I meant central metaphor.
As one of the few weirdos who actually thought that 2010′s ass-to-mouthiest water-cooler phenomenon was actually a decent movie, I approached the sequel – clumsily titled The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) – with cautious optimism. Who’s to say that writer/director Tom Six couldn’t continue to walk the fine line between pitch-dark gross-out comedy and visceral terror while telling a unique and compelling story?
I’m to say he couldn’t.
Yes, HC2 is pretty much the movie that most of us expected HC1 to be: A childish, empty exercise in mind-numblingly stupid excess. It’s probably the most worthless sequel I’ve ever seen – and remember, I sat through Hatchet II. And before I get into panning this fucker, let me make an important distinction: I didn’t hate this movie because it was about pointless violence and misery; I hated this movie because it WAS pointless. And boring. And poorly-made. I could go on.
Here’s the story in a (smashed) nutsack: Martin (Laurence Harvey – no, not that one), a fat, short, mute, British parking attendant who is obsessed with the original HC movie, decides to make his own centipede. The problem, of course, being that it’s a fucking movie and a ridiculous one, at that – and even if this guy had a speck of medical training it would be impossible.
Martin collects a dozen people with ease by walking up to them, shooting them in the leg, and then bashing them unconscious with a crowbar.
People – literally HALF OF THE MOVIE is this little man hitting people in the head with a crowbar. I’m not exaggerating – I swear that a full 45 minutes contain nothing else. It’s like being forced to watch the same Three Stooges gag over and over until someone finally farts in your face and lets you go home.
Of course, no one ever hears Martin shooting people, or stumbles upon him loading several bodies at a time into his molester van, or actually MISSES any of the people that he has abducted, which gives him plenty of time to watch HC over and over (and we really do have to sit through almost the whole film again) while masturbating with sandpaper.
Here’s where we hit a major snag: Tom Six either seems to think that his first movie was far more disturbing and profound than it really was, or he thinks that anyone who took HC1 seriously is patently ridiculous. Either way, he’s clearly the one beating off as he makes us sit through it over and over. Also: Why, when you make a cheap and aesthetically inferior sequel (this one is in black-and-white and has none of the production values of the original), would you insist on reminding your audience of how much better your last movie was?
Anyway.
We know nothing about any of the victims – most don’t even get the chance to speak. A few of the guys are kinda hot, at least, and one woman is about to go into labor, which could be fun? Eh – nothing that we haven’t seen before and that doesn’t scream “See how gross I can be?!?!” in the most desperate and obvious way.
Turns out the little mute guy has one final ace up his filthy sleeve, which is to lure one of the actresses from the original film to his hideout so that he can add her to the centipede. And she does appear – playing what I’m sure she has convinced herself is a much stupider version of herself, although I think evidence of her critical decision-making ability is right here on screen.
It’s hard to go downhill from eating shit and dying in your last movie, but she somehow manages. Atta girl! I would post the actress’s actual name, but it’s really not worth the effort of my looking it up, because I’m sure we’ll all be hearing about her come Oscar time anyway.
Apart from the dozen-plus nude and bleeding people squirming on the filthy floor of Martin’s warehouse, there’s a meager attempt at a backstory, presumably to add some sort of context to this stupidity. Martin’s father molested him (and, for whatever reason, his therapist wants to molest him as well), his mother’s a bitch, and his only interests lie in his beloved film and his pet centipede, which is probably responsible for devouring most of the budget and delivers the only real chills that the film has to offer when it attacks its food in close-up.
Once he begins assembling his centipede, things at least become INTERESTING for a few minutes. This may seem like a sick thing to say when the last 20 minutes are filled with shit, blood, torture, and graphic murder, but I would much rather be disgusted than bored, which I was for the first 70 minutes. By the time Six makes his dubious and confused point, it’s far too late to make an impact.
In fact, at the screening I attended, when “WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY TOM SIX” came up on the screen at the end, a well-known writer sitting near me shouted “Fuck you, Tom Six!” After actually giving the guy the benefit of the doubt, that pretty much sums up my reaction, too.
RATING (OUT OF 5 SKULLIES):
ZERO
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) is unrated and does everything it can to earn it. It’s full of body terror, shit, allusions to rape and child molestation, torture, blood, profanity, and murder. Still, its most obscene feature is that it is dull.
Nothing can tame my enthusiasm to see this, and I found the first one so disturbing I had to watch it through my fingers with the sound nearly off. (Unnamed) actress Ashlynn Yennie will be at the first show in Hollywood tonight, and there will be giveaways of barf bags, staple removers and copies of the original Human Centipede. Just got my ticket.
I love shit!
“It’s like being forced to watch the same Three Stooges gag over and over until someone finally farts in your face and lets you go home.”
Haha, that’s brilliant.
I really don’t know if I will or won’t end up watching this. I thought the first film was decent too, but I’m tired of movies that make me feel like I need a shower after watching them. I don’t even like the “Saw” films, but I’ve seen six of them now, so it seems I don’t follow my own advice.
Thanks for the laugh-out-loud review. I liked the first film enough to watch it twice just to see different friend’s reactions, and to laugh, because I thought it was pretty funny. However, since first reading about the sequel and its contents, and seeing the preview, I’ve had zero interest in watching the sequel. Fuck Tom Six, indeed. Funnily enough, I know the fucking idiot who “famously” got the Human Centipede tattoo on his feet, and I kinda wanna go smack him in the face for reasons that should’ve been obvious before now.
This review is win. I don’t even need to see this movie to know that this review is win.
Of course I’ll be seeing it anyway. And I won’t be able to win like you just have.
Awesome.
I had such high hopes for a sequel, until I read this stupid plot sypnosis on IMDB. What a goddamn waste.
At the Coolidge Corner theater tonight in Brookline, MA, we had two vomits as a result of this midnight screening. I guess that’s one point for inane gratuity, sadly.
I saw the first, and loved actor’s over-the-top performance as the German doctor. All those nostalgic pictures of his beloved, dead rottipede.
I saw II which certainly gave me the one thing I was grateful I didn’t have to see in the first – namely, shit. Let’s just say its not discrete droppings, but copious amounts of the results of too much laxative.
Yet I kept being reminded of “Erasurehead”, on several counts: black & white, close third person POV of a freak, series of gross outs (wasn’t the chipmunk lady crushing fetuses with her shoe to music?), and it all might have been a bad dream rather than reality. That’s not to say Six has any of the artistic aspirations of Lynch in this sequel.
You gotta hand it to Six that he can pick actors who create disturbingly memorable villains.
awww…. most of your reviews are perfect, but this review i almost completely disagree with. you must have had a real bug up your ass about something that day because even this review is not as witty as everything else you write
i saw the complete uncut version last night in Australia. throughout the whole film most of the audience was pissing themselves laughing along with the film – mostly dumpy little Martin’s googly Marty Feldman eyes and buddha belly. the repetative crowbar clubbing got a bit boring, but the comedy of Martin was brilliant
“hey, there’s a midget ‘avin a wank!”
only during the barbwire rape scene (in the fully uncut version) did the laughter dull down. i thought HC1 was a great comedy and HC2 was far superior and everything everyone expected to see in the first film. it was like A Serbian Film in the style of Eraserhead, but a dark comedy with a homage to Schindler’s list
it’s a shame you didn’t appreciate the snotty childish humour. a lot of other people did enjoy the fart jokes
Laurence Harvey (Martin) was there for the screening telling tales and signing vomit bags for every audience member. write HC2 off as boring trash if you want, it’s still a better and more orignal (in it’s one simple idea) than many average horror films you have given praise to
D’you know, I liked it a little more than the first one. I kinda dug the high-contrast b&w look too. It gave the scenes in Martin’s grubby little council estate a weird resemblance to a BBC kitchen-sink-drama from the 60s, only instead of “Cathy Come Home”, it’s like “Cathy Come Here So I Can Knock Your Brain Out With A Fire-Poker”.
I’m not saying it was good, but I didn’t think the first one was much good either, save for Dieter Laser’s manic, scenery-chewing, Udo Kier-invoking performance. It’s sad that part 2′s acting lacks that degree of enthusiasm (although I found Martin vaguely adorable), but the overall pacing was much better in this one: to state the obvious, it’s a one-trick franchise and I think Tom Six shot his load prematurely in the first film by unveiling the titular centipede too early. Once the centipede was out in the open, and the inevitable shitting scene took place, there was really nowhere else to go, to the point where he fell back on that old horror film technique: dicking about with a rudimentary police procedural subplot.
At least in part 2 ol’ Tom Six remembered to save the film’s one trick for the climax. It’s still a load of old bollocks but I’m vaguely comforted by the fact that he’s getting better as a director.
I would also advice anybody who worries about the squeamish nature of this film: it’s really not that bad. It’s graphic but it’s devoid of any impact at all.
I saw both these movies with my mom..she was totally disgusted by Part II because of the intense ugliness of that rat man.