Tuesday, December 7, 2010

One of a kind; The Human Centipede (First Sequence) Review

I've seen a lot of horror movies in my day, While I can safely say that most of the movies I have seen where scary, Human Centipede has to be on of the most disturbing concepts I've come across. This film is a very unique story that tries to unsettle the audience as much as it possibly can, and it does a fairly successful job.

The film focuses on the story of a crazy surgeon, Dr.Heiter (Dieter Laser) who specialized in separating conjoined twins but has decided to start joining people together to make the titular "Human Centipede." To do so he kidnaps tourists in the area to make his masterpiece.

Dieter Laser does a great job as a menacing figure. Watching it there is a constant air of dread when he was in a scene. He is a cold calculating psychopath and may be one of my favorite horror villains. The thing that makes him so scary is that he is completely unrelenting, but unlike Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers or any other horror characters he's just a guy. The fact that he is a very human character makes him much scarier, and you can relate to the fear of the victims.

As for the acting of the captives it is kind of a mixed bag. Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) seem to be the ones we're really supposed to feel bad for, but the performance of Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura), the "front" of the centipede was pretty gripping. Much like Dr.Heiter, Katsuro is a very motivated character, so it leads to some great conflict between the two, despite the fact that neither speaks the other's language. What there is from the girls is good, but all in all it's kind of relieving  that they stop talking after awhile.

It's really hard to say that I would recommend this movie, but I don't think it was bad. It's hard to say much about it because it is a very unique movie. The creator, Tom Six, came up with a very very disturbing idea and he executed it to the best of his ability. From that perspective its a great movie, but that doesn't mean it won't be any more polarizing. There's little gore, the most graphic scene is the surgery and there is little of that shown. Even when the centipede is made, the worst of the "changes" are obscured by bandages. The true horror in this film comes completely from the idea, which to me, seems like the sign of a good movie. This obviously isn't true for every film, but in this case it may be.

All in all this film is definitely a "must see." Not because it's a superb film, not because it's a bad film, but because it's just one of those movies people will talk about for sometime to come. If the mention of surgically grafting people anus to mouth is too off putting, than maybe you should sit this movie out. Personally, I find "body horror" extremely fascinating, movies like "Saw" and "The Fly" are my favorite films, so I am wholeheartedly for this movie. It's impossible for anyone to give a unanimous verdict on the film, it is just that peculiar. To me though it has to be a 4 outta 5!

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