If pornography is deemed to have ‘no artistic merit’ and torture is the causing of ‘physical and mental pain’ then The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is the arguably the finest/worst example of ‘torture-porn’ audiences have yet had to endure.
Initially a light-hearted touch helps to alleviate the symptoms of boredom which might accompany two attractive girls breaking down in the middle of a typically gloomy German forest. Whether the tone of these scenes is intended as a tribute or a pastiche rapidly becomes irrelevant as they are taken in by sinister doctor whose opulent house/surgery is bizarrely located in the middle of a heavily wooded area devoid of any other human habitation.
Unsettling parallels with Josef Mengele’s wartime human experimentation are never far from mind as Dr Heiter explains his intention to create a chain of human beings attached mouth-to-anus. Despite being tagged as ‘100% medically accurate’ it’s clear to anyone that auto-feeding the back parts of the centipede with the excrement of the front parts is unlikely to foster life for long. If the concept wasn’t so utterly absurd it might be possible to believe that the film had something to say about the sickening Nazi regime which Mengele participated in, but instead we see Dieter Lasser deliver his hammy performance with obvious relish and little regard for the obscene precedent set by his compatriot.
If the film was designed to be knowingly arch or ironic then it certainly fails to deliver. Once the characters are fused together the plot degenerates still further until it completely loses its way. Having failed to seriously explore Heiter’s motivation for creating his masterpiece (the death of his three-dog centipede is hinted at without being explored) and having ended the film in predictable and lazy fashion the viewer is left with little more than a couple of striking images and a particularly bad taste in the mouth.
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