The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) – Review

Okay, this movie has a very poor rating, I’ve never really heard any good comments about it and it’s been royally slated by pretty much every critic out there. But hang on a moment. It is a horror film right? The horror film definition:

Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience’s primal fears

I’m not entirely sure that having your mouth sewn to a bum is a primal fear exactly, but of course it is an undeniably horrid notion. So if you’re looking for a horror movie – with horror being the operative word, why not eh? I’m not going to pretend I didn’t want to watch this, I did want to watch it! But I’m a weird, twisted freak (as my mum likes to say).

As we all know, the original Human Centipede movie (First Sequence – 2009) was highly anticipated as a ‘what the fuck’ film, only to kind of disappoint hardcore horror fans with only meagre amounts of violence / blood /shit / gore shown on screen. After all the anticipation it felt like a bit of a let-down. The main thing I want is to feel grossed out if I watch a movie like this. I want to be shocked. I don’t even want to care for the characters to be honest – I JUST WANT TO SEE SOMEONE’S MOUTH SEWN TO A BUM.

So on with the review – it will contain spoilers but isn’t that why you’re here? The film is entirely shot in black and white, has pretty much no dialogue and is a very sick movie. Director Tom Six promised all the blood and shit that the original movie lacked and he wasn’t joking.

The extremely loose story line (or – an excuse to show loads of gratuitous violence) centres around a weird guy called Martin who is obsessed with the original movie (yeah in this movie the original movie exists as a movie). We don’t know much about him apart from he’s weird and keeps hearing a disembodied voice (voiced by Tom Six) that reminisces about raping him. Nice.

Things like this are actually so ludicrous you kind of have to laugh at the nuttiness. You know, roll your eyes and glance at the person with you – if you’re watching it on your own you may need a mirror…or just laugh, there’s no-one to judge you.

Anyway, obsessed with the Human Centipede movie, Martin decides to kidnap twelve people and make his own pet centipede. Now, I know the German doctor from the original movie was a fucking nutcase, but at least he was a doctor! He had skills and shit. Medical equipment and sterilized instruments – Martin just has a warehouse floor, rusty tools and a staple gun. Yay…

So let the fun begin! The victims are moaning and writhing about on the floor. Lots of scary grinning for Martin. He starts off the festivities by knocking everyone’s teeth out. This actually was horrible to watch, extremely graphic and dare I say, realistic? Maybe not, but I’ve never knocked anyone’s teeth out with a hammer so it’s hard to say, but it made me wince.

Then as you’d imagine it’s all shits and giggles. Stabbings, kickings, force-feeding of laxatives. Loads of blood. A rape whilst Martin has barbed wire wrapped round his penis. Death, screaming, mutilation……lots of poo. It really is a horrible movie.

But as the viewer, I knew it wasn’t real. Which always helps. The only one scene that really shocked me involved a newborn baby that gets squished under the gas pedal of a car which was pretty nasty. But the rest is so depraved, so delightfully ridiculous and gross that really it’s hard to take it seriously. It’s a pretty shit film (no pun intended) and unashamedly just a shocking, gratuitous movie about a horrible man hurting people in a graphic and sadistic way. But what did anyone except? Really?

But hey, if you are too squeamish – or, more likely, too intelligent – then I can highly recommend the South Park parody instead. Funny, cute and a great reminder about reading the small print!