As I sat amidst a pile of shredded wrapping paper, finishing my last syrup-soaked pancake, I flipped on A Christmas Story, once again watching a child regaled with the dangers of firearms. He did in fact come close to shooting his eye out, and yet, there is still debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment. Clearly, had our forefathers foresaw Ralphie’s predicament, they would have been a bit clearer in their verbiage. Soapboxing aside, four hours into the twenty-four-hour marathon of the holiday redundancy, I had had enough “fa ra ra ra ra”s and “barrs of horry.”
Thus, I turned to perhaps the most appropriate movie to watch on Christmas. This superlative is not based on content, It’s a Wonderful Life and Scrooged steal that label for my Holiday canon. Instead, The Human Centipede: First Sequence reminds me to be thankful for what I have, what I’ve received, what I’ve given, that I’m not in Germany, and that I know how to change a tire. Perhaps I’m most thankful for the last element because this lack of fundamental automobile knowledge is what binds Lindsay and Jenny into an intimate, visceral, and ultimately nauseating predicament.
First and foremost, The Human Centipede is not good, although it has its moments, particularly Dieter Laser, the actor who plays Dr. Heiter, a renowned surgeon who specializes in the separation of conjoined twins. Despite his separation-based profession, he has a fetish that drives him to connect living beings together, attaching one’s mouth to the other’s rectum in order to form a living chain wherein one mouth feeds subsequent living segments through its feces. It’s never clear why he has this fetish, only that it first culminated in his “3-hund,” a chain of three Rottweilers. Predictably, this 3-hund has passed away and the good doctor is mourning his loss, thus when Lindsay and Jenny wander through the woods on a dark, rainy night, Heiter proceeds to drug them and then tie them up in his downstairs laboratory.
Initially, I thought Centipede would be downright horrendous because of the subject matter, assuming that the film would devolve to a snuffy ride with predictable moments left and right. However, the weakest part of the film is actually the screen play written by director Tom Six. The actors who play Lindsay and Jenny are great when their mouths are closed, or fastened to another rectum rather, but when they are open, the only thing that spills out is exposition and terribly delivered lines. For example, as Jenny tries to get directions from the hotel concierge to a club, she redundantly explains, “I need driving directions. How exactly do I get there?”
Perhaps this is Six’s way of illustrating their ditziness, though this is fully explained when they end up on a dark dirt road with a flat tire. Needing to find a phone, they don’t walk along the road. Instead, they tromp through the woods, which wouldn’t make sense in any scenario. There’s ditzy, and then there’s lazy script writing. Would it have been terrible had they walked along the road and found Heiter’s home? At least this would have instilled some sense of security in them. Instead, the viewer can only wonder at the stupidity of the characters. Does their stupidity justify their fate? No, but it also doesn’t make us want to root for them. In fact, they may be the reason why a number of animals eat their young.
Clearly, a wealth of intelligence can’t be expected from low-budget horror films, and we’re talking really low budget here – about $3million. But, in addition to Dr. Heiter, there are brilliant moments in the film that create suspense built on Heiter’s predicated sadism and the girls’ inevitable fate. And, neither one of these are overshadowed by bloody, gruesome scenes in which the director takes advantage of CGI and Hollywood makeup. Instead, the suspense comes from the cold, blue-tinted laboratories and the echoing slate and marble that seemingly covers the underground gauntlet.
One scene in particular finds Lindsay able to escape from her hospital bed restraints as she works through the house, trying to find a working phone or a way out. Eventually, she finds a haven in the indoor swimming pool. But her momentary solace is provided by Dr. Heiter who does not want to shoot her in the pool, primarily because her head is the only visible part of her body, and this would wreck his plans to attach her. The reflection of the water on the white walls and ceiling shake the scene with undulating shadows, the camera moves slowly and steadily, following Lindsay from one end of the pool to the other and Dr. Heiter’s reciprocal movements.
The strength of Centipede lies in its downright creepiness and Six’s avoidance of gross-out tactics. While the fate of the American girls and the random Japanese tourist is gruesome, it’s only gruesome conceptually. Six doesn’t dive into what could be Saw VIII. The suspense in this film stems from the irrational Dr. Heiter and the lack of explanation. The horror isn’t the how of Centipede so much as the lack of a why.
That said, there is an element to this why that also really impedes this movie: the contradiction between the intelligence of Dr. Heiter and his intention. As a world-renowned surgeon, this would place Heiter’s intelligence – at least regarding medicine and biology – at the top of the scale; however, the contraction of Hepatitis, A, B, or C, plus blood-poisoning resulting from the mass amounts of bacteria in stool, seems to render forced coprophagia a poor idea. Now, perhaps this could be linked to passages in the Bible, most notably in Ezekial and Kings, where God commands a denizen or two to consume their own feces, but, religion is not invoked in Centipede, so there is no plot-driven or logical reason for him to believe this would work.
In another vein, perhaps he attaches the three humans together to watch them suffer, but he seems genuinely shattered when his 3-hund perishes, and doubly euphoric when the three-linked human crawls in unison and behaves like another pet, so “torture” doesn’t seem to be his modus operandi.
The why is a great way to creep out an audience, but if certain parts of the why clash with the character-created truth, then the film becomes creepily cartoonish.
DYL MAG Score: 4 (Note: It’s still better than Shutter Island)
