HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE) (2011)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed/Written by Tom Six
Starring Laurence R. Harvey, Vivien Bridson, Bill Hutchens, & Ashlynn Yennie

Say what you will about the HUMAN CENTIPEDE films, but Tom Six did something memorable here, so rev up your ire, folks, let’s cover HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE).

In preparation for seeing the film and writing this review, I read a lot of online reviews. I usually don’t do that in fear that they would influence my own take on Tom Six’s sequel, but in this case, I really wanted to understand why people revile this film so much. Then I saw THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 itself. And having done so, I think a lot of that revulsion is pretty accurate, but in many instances, folks deemed the film shit and moved on, not really going into the reasoning behind it.

That’s not my intention here. I didn’t want to have an off the cuff, impulsive and spontaneous reaction to the film; I really wanted to think about why HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 causes this reaction in so many people and in doing so, understand further how I feel about this film myself.

Here’s the thing. Danny DeVito said it best on one of my favorite “It’s Sunny In Philadelphia” episodes: “Poop is funny.” Well, it is. As adolescent as it may seem, saying the word poop is hilarious to me. Farting too. And I think that’s the same for a lot of people. Sure, it’s an easy funny, but in the end (pun intended) poop is funny.

Now, as funny as the word poop is, poop itself is not very funny. Actually, it’s pretty damn disgusting. Anyone who ever had to change a diaper or clean up after their dog or cat knows that the touch, the sight, and the smell of poop is anything but funny.

So the sound of poop = funny.
But any other sensory interaction with poop = not so much.
To this we all agree, I hope…

For me, horror does its job when it causes unease, be it that chill down one’s spine when someone walks down a dark corridor or the gurgle in one’s stomach when they see some guts splatting to the floor. Does this mean it’s entertaining? No, but I feel a film can be successfully horrifying in that it causes unease without being all that entertaining. Hollywood proves it time and time again.

I think horror works for the masses when it is followed by a laugh or the revelation that the reason one jumps is a false scare or something not so scary at all. We laugh because of our own reaction to the thing on the screen, not so much the thing on the screen itself.

The difference between mainstream horror and films like HUMAN CENTIPEDE, MARTYRS, A SERBIAN FILM, THE BUTCHER is that they don’t allow us to laugh. The stuff that goes on in these films don’t have a witty retort or a false jump scare to cause giggles and because of that, films like these are less likely to appeal to a mass audience.

I guess it boils down to whether you are interested in story as entertainment or for the feeling it gives you. If you like being scared or grossed out, you may be able to stomach one of the films listed above, but if you like laughing away scary things, the films above will offer none of that. I kind of admire those films for their relentless depiction of absolute fear and the far end of grotesque.

I understand that most people watch films to be entertained. I do too but having the dubious distinction of being an online reviewer (that’s sarcasm for those who don’t get it), sometimes you have to watch films because that’s the lot you’ve made for yourself. To compensate, I find it much more interesting to look at whether or not the film causes unease. As I said above, to me, that’s what horror is all about. It’s my interest in what is horrifying, I guess, that makes these films which might be lesser in quality still interesting to experience.

So, after that long intro, I have to ask myself the question: is HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 a good film? Storywise, not so much. Tom Six, instead of giving us some folks to root for, focuses solely on one revolting, mentally unstable man, Martin Lomax (played by Laurence R. Harvey who is the real world equivalent of Danny DiVito in BATMAN RETURNS) to follow through the entire narrative. The much more interesting storyline hinted at in this film is that of Ashlynn Yennie, playing herself, one of the actresses from the previous HUMAN CENTIPEDE film who thinks she is meeting up with Martin for an audition to star in a Tarantino film. The five minutes she is on screen reminiscing about her experiences working on the original film were the highlight of HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 for me and the glimmering spark of potential this film had of redeeming itself. Like THE NEW NIGHTMARE, where Heather Langenkamp played herself dealing with the career hole she dug herself into by playing Nancy in the A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films, Six might have had a better chance for the meta-commentary he was hoping to achieve had he followed Ashlynn rather than Martin.

Is HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 a good film? Character-wise; that’s debatable. Instead of Ashlynn, we follow a much less interesting character, Martin, a man obsessed with the first HUMAN CENTIPEDE film, as he attempts to reenact the medical procedure (sans important things such as proper medical equipment or training) done by Dr. Heiter (played maniacally batty by Dieter Laser–fucking love that name, BTW) in the first film. Had Six chosen to show Martin in a more sympathetic light rather than a blaringly and offensively disgusting light, he may have been an interesting character to follow. But Martin’s “origin” is riddled with clichés (berating mother, abusive father, abusive psychiatrist spouting a most remedial understanding of psychology) and disgusting details such as masturbating with sandpaper, scrap-booking about his favorite film, and wheezing as he feeds his pet centipede. But though the story lacks a likable antagonist to follow, it gives us a pretty memorable character in Martin Lomax. Like Waters did with Devine, like Crispin Hellion Glover does so with the physically challenged subjects of his films, like porn does with the female form, Six fetishizes Harvey’s visage showing him in various states of undress for most of the film. Aesthetically, in terms of the art of the grotesque, Harvey is kind of a fascinating subject to focus on, but that doesn’t make for an entertaining movie. Harvey does seem to understand nuance, though, and is able to convey a range of emotion despite his limited vocabulary and stilted demeanor. He revels in glee at the centipede he’s crudely made and shows frustration when it doesn’t work out according to plan. Though the story around him lacks a lot to root for, Harvey is a bizarrely interesting person to watch. Let’s just say, if you were people watching at a mall or an airport, he’d be the guy you’d lock on to. Is it right? No. But there’s something fascinating about it anyway.

Is HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 a good film? Thematically, it’s all over the place. Six also seems to take a lot of pride in the concept of the human centipede and shows in vivid detail all of the gory details only suggested in the original. Is Martin’s amateur gastrointestinal connection procedure a commentary on the whole “DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!” warning? Maybe. And if so, I definitely think Six got his point across in the close to forty-minute scene of these poor actors connected together ass to mouth, but then again, because Martin’s fate doesn’t seem to turn out all that bad, I can’t say for sure that Six was going for the precautionary tale route.

Six filmed in black and white and many ripped him a new one for pretentiousness for doing so. But with the mention of Tarantino in the film, I think Six might be showing his cards here as, in order to combat the MPAA’s rating standards on blood and gore, Tarantino filmed the bloodiest sequences of KILL BILL Vol. 1 in black and white. Because this film is so permeated with gore of the highest order, Six may have chosen to film in monochrome for the same reason. I’m not sure if it was a successful decision, but it does make for a distinction from the first film—while that film showed a “real world” scenario, this one is seen through the simplistic black and white world viewpoint of its star.

Is HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 a good film? In believability, not a lick. “100% Medically Inaccurate” is a pretty good tagline for this film as its grip on reality is wholly inept. Martin somehow has the ability to know the exact place to hit with the exact force while doing so to knock out a victim each and every time with his crowbar. Things really get farcical when Martin starts attempting his amateur doctoring and somehow it works. *** SPOILER ALERT *** Seeing the world through the eyes of its star may be Six’s excuse for these inaccuracies, but the “it was all a dream” excuse is always a surefire way to piss off an audience. This may also explain the ire a lot have for this film and makes for this entry to be easily forgettable, in hopes that a third film takes a more interesting approach. Then again, Six isn’t Scorsese; while he knows how to make the crowd revile his imagery, he still has a lot of difficulty with narrative and POV. *** END SPOILER ***

How did THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE) make me feel? The film disgusted me, to be completely honest. I’ve seen plenty of disgusting films and this one is absolutely stomach-churning. I honestly was nauseous after this film and don’t plan on watching it ever again. There haven’t been many films I feel this way about, but they exist (the aforementioned A SERBIAN FILM and THE BUTCHER being two that immediately come to mind). But I have to say that Six did cause a reaction in me. I felt disgust for the main character of Martin and, though more so because of sympathy for the actors who had to portray them, I felt bad for the victims. Had the victims been focused on more, I think this would have been a better film. Had the POV been from someone other than Martin, I think it would have been a better film. Had the subject matter been less graphically depicted, I think the bile tossed towards this film would have been less so.

Was I entertained by HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2? Not really. Maybe a bit in a train wreck kind of way. But it did make me feel horrified. In that, I think it is a successful horror film, just not one I really want to see again. If anything, it’s an interesting way to gauge reviewers’ and audiences’ gag reflex. Though THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE) wasn’t necessarily an entertaining film, I feel it did do its job in causing a reaction. It’s just that when poop is concerned, it is best left heard and not seen.

Check out the trailer here!!