J.C. Maçek III The World's Greatest Critic!!! I was about… four years old the day I snuck around the corner and announced to my bill-paying mom “I’m gonna scare ya!!!” She didn’t look up from her stack of bills after I said that, nor did she when I jumped around the corner and barked out an “AH!!!” Still, I had to ask “Did I scare you?” The easy (and accurate) answer was obviously in the resounding negative, but, as I was four years old, I had to ask the reason. She responded that if I announce that I’m intending to scare someone it won’t work. Yes, I remember this exactly as it happened, almost thirty three years ago. Why? Because I am reminded of this exchange every time I watch a Bad Horror Movie made by some anti-Excedrin douche bag who thinks that just because he’s conned some unwitting benefactor into handing him a few dollars so that he can purchase a digital camera, he must be a “Director”. Each and every lackluster Saw sequel proves this slightly more than the last one did and all of the micro-budgeted motel ashcan imitative horror porn muck buckets who feel they need to fill the desensitized hole that Saw’s repetitive sequels have left prove this even more. Netflix has a fuckload of these available to watch for your monthly dollar and Best Buy sells fourteen of these "movies" in a two-DVD-pack for $14.99 (don’t be suckered). This brings us, neither interestingly, nor happily to the catheter-load of sub-zero briefs-crust known as The Human Centipede (First Sequence), which has one unique idea... and steals all of the rest of its plot from any fifth “Backwoods Horror” slice that the comically one-note director Tom Six was able to shoplift from Best Buy or watch on his uncle’s paid Netflix subscription. That one unique idea, to surgically connect people into a human centipede, sharing one gastric tract, is enough to make people talk about it. Disgusting? Disturbing? Horrifying? The title of the flick promises all of these things and most reviews have pumped up this trifecta to attract the curious and, thus, get enough people watching the film to talk about it a little more. In this way , Human Centipede is little more than the next phase in “Exploitation Flicks”. Its advertising does not exist to fuel it… it exists to fuel its advertising. Aside from the aforementioned singular peculiar idea pressed ham-handedly into the same lunatic vs. Hot Girl plot that has been done more times than can be counted by the caring, the flick has jack shit going for it outside of the vague curiosity category. Here’s where things get annoying (and they don’t stop).The constantly repeated origin of this beacon point in a repetitive flick has to do with a semi-honorable idea of how to deal with child molesters… by sewing their mouths onto the asses of a fat truck driver. Bad taste? Sure… no question about it, man… but I can actually think of worse things to do with child molesters. But Tom Six, that inventive Prince, hasn’t made a film about torturing deserving child molesters… but about kidnapping innocent American women and Japanese Men and doing that very act to them. Let me guess, Tommy… An American Tourist refused to go out with you and you saw her on a date later with a Japanese guy? Oh ho ho, you showed them! The plot? Two American party girls, who actually seem likeable, named Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) are riding around Germany looking for a party when, just like in every fifth film of this kind, they get a flat tire and run foul of a psychopath. This time, said psychopath isn’t wearing a human-skin mask and swinging a chainsaw, but is a retired douchebag doctor, who clearly has never and will never have sex, named Heiter (Dieter Laser). He isn’t nice. He also captures a Japanese Guy named Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) and the title tells you the rest. Anyone who talks about anything else that is special or interesting about this film had either bought into the exploitation-inspired marketing and thinks they HAVE to like this movie to be cool or they’re a fucking LIAR… most likely both. Wait a minute, though… Writer/ director Tom Six and Nepotism Test Case Producer/ Executive Producer Ilona Six set out to be disturbing and managed to be disturbing, right? Ha ha ha! In what universe? Much like four-year-old me, Six and Six boldly state loudly how they’re trying so hard to be disturbing and are thus just about anything but. Whoa! Americans in Europe getting caught, captured, tortured and more with long, drawn out, cheap scenes, packed with fake blood. Where in the WORLD did you get THAT idea? What’s that? Every film of its kind since Hostel? Right, kids.. not even that film was the first to do it. How disturbing… you ripped off films that were already watered down and overdone. COOL! Friend me on Facebook. You can practically see the Sixes, dressed to the nines with their mock-afforded profits snorting through their noses “You’re disturbed, right? Haw, haw, haw, We disturbed you right?” Uh… no. You annoyed the shit out of me with a uniformly lit, mediocre-sound mixed and laughably acted film with such awesome clichéd dialogue as “Why are you doing this?” and “We’re lost!” and “I DID IT!” The rest is a sad, dull version of gross-out humor with an obvious and inept, failed attempt at horror surrounding it. As for the special effects? It’s The Human Centipede! Surely we’re looking at some amazing gore effects, right? Ha ha ha! Oh, yeah… Good show, kids! The whole thing is obscured by bandages. How impressive. It’s about as disturbing as There’s Something About Mary. I’d tell you that the only thing convincing with the makeup is the nauseating mask they make Dieter Laser’s face into… but that was his real face. Then again, if you believe any piece of this medically ludicrous film, sure, you’ll buy just about anything. What’s more.. you deserve what you get. Six and Six are at least honest here. They show the force-feeding of feces onscreen just as they’re force-feeding their audience little more than a massive pile of shit. Loudly proclaim how you’re trying to disturb and then show your hand... EEK! Come on. There is no suspense here, no actual scares, no terror… just body horror that the filmmakers HOPE will be nauseating to the forlorn audience. There is no depth whatsoever to this film and my only hope is that the actresses in this film will benefit from the undeserved hype this sensationally terribly executed movie has inexplicably gained so that they can ride this film to superior efforts. I can promise you, if they find themselves in a community theatre in the crappiest city they’ve ever smelled, they still couldn’t find anything inferior to this film. No, not because it’s nauseating, disturbing or horrific… it’s just bad, poorly shot, embarrassingly directed and lacking in most everything that makes a horror movie worth watching. In short, it’s once, twice, three times a DOG!!! The only thing stupider than the buildup is the collapsing final act that is as tacked-on and convenient as it is unparalleled in its predictability. I would laugh if the whole thing wasn’t so inept and poorly executed that I actually felt bad for cinema in general. If the title The Human Centipede (First Sequence) isn’t enough of a clue, due to the undeserved hype, the ungodly Lucky Sixes are already working on an ill-advised sequel called (drummroll) The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) where they are promising to be more disturbing, as the audience has been desensitized to human centipedes thanks to their movie. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrright. Totally desensitized to three people in a bad joke covered in bandages. I’m chilled. Once again… “I’m gonna scare ya!” But no… no, you didn’t. Fucking inept pieces of PISS. Save yourself the yawn-worthy ordeal of sitting through this slice of shit and watch the South Park spoof “HUMANCENTiPAD”. The original movie is, basically, a longer, less well done, much more boring version of that send-up without any (intentional) humor to prop it up. The only thing worse than having sat, laughingly, through this waste of time is the fact that the South Park take-off is only one of many upcoming followers to this spent roach, just waiting to push the bandage-covered envelope. How sad… the idea of actually following this low-point in what passes for modern horror is almost as sad as being the middle piece in a Human Centipede. See you in the next reel… if you get less gullible all of the sudden. Holy FUCKING shit!!!