THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE)
Written & Directed by Tom Six
Produced by Ilona Six
Released by IFC Films
Netherlands/UK. 90 min. Not Rated
With Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura & Andreas Leupold
 

For some filmmakers, you want to pick their brains to see what they were thinking and how they came to do this and that in their respective films. With Tom Six, the current mad provocateur from Holland, I’m not sure I want to touch him with a 10-foot pole. The first in what is a supposed trilogy, The Human Centipede (First Sequence) concerns Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), who has a penchant for doing something…, uh, bizarre with the victims he kidnaps or drugs, like, for example, the two young American women who stop by his home when their car stalls.

The bizarreness? Only that he makes a centipede by cutting very carefully the kneecap, mouth, face, and anus of his victims and sewing them all together—there’s no comfortable way to say this—ass to mouth. He first tried it with dogs, though they didn’t last long. But after he sequesters the two women (Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie) and a Japanese gentleman who speaks no English (Akihiro Kitamura), he proceeds with his task at hand, creating a three-pronged “centipede” for his own control. “I don’t like humans,” Heiter says at one point. No kidding.

This is, simply put, shock cinema of a high order. It’s filmed with a fine eye by Goof de Koning (who perhaps used a pseudonym with his first name), and the actor playing the part of the brutal, ambitious, and very German doctor is rather brilliant and enjoyable in his demented way (at the least, you can’t take your eyes off of him). But to say that the experiment, when put into motion, is disturbing is an understatement. Six is out to curdle the audience’s blood and to push buttons. Even for those who think they’ve seen it all will be pushed further along into the cringe-position in their seats. Others, frankly, will run from the aisles the moment they see what happens when poor Katsuro has to excrete what he’s been eating.

This also goes without saying some should stay clear of this. Six has made precisely a niche film. For who, exactly, will remain to be seen. Adventurous moviegoers who think Takashi Miike hasn’t gone far enough, this is for you (one could put it on a double bill with his wacko-comedy Visitor Q), and some may watch it and howl with laughter at what’s on display. To be fair, some of the set-up, when the two American tourists get lost in the European back roads, seems to be Six’s amused comment on Hostel and the like. Six does his job almost too well, giving me that ultimately empty feeling like many shock/cult features over the years (Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom). There’s no other horror-comedy quite like it this year, or any other year, and you may wonder where Six can possibly go from here as a provocateur—I’m not sure if that’s a compliment. Jack Gattanella
April 30, 2010