The Human Centipede- Page 11

[tazber]

Posted: 4/8/12 at 6:38pm

I'm gonna give you a warning you probably don't need: it is extremely graphic. It really does make part 1 look quaint.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/8/12 at 10:50pm

Thomas Kinkade (tm) quaint?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 12:35am

I decided against it. Instead I saw netflix had CRUISING (which I'd strangely never seen) so I started that.

[JbaraFan1]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 5:06pm

Part 2 was just added to Netflix instant. I have time before NEWSIES tonight. I hate myself that I'm thinking of starting to watch it. - Jordan

Oh me. I saw the first one a couple, maybe three times, initially daring myself to watch it, then gleefully subjecting loved ones to it to see their reaction. Told myself I was "human-centipeded-out" -- but if Netflix is also making 2 so darned accessible, I don't know if I'll be able to control myself for long.

Yeah, sooner or later, I'll probably watch the damned thing.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 7:01pm

The worst part about the sequel is that you find out the director actually knows how to shoot a film and chooses to make crap like this instead. Literally. Crap. The climax is filled with it. It has no redeeming qualities. It's seventy minutes of people being knocked out with a crowbar and wiggling around on a warehouse floor naked. Then it actually gets to the title of the movie. It's insufferable. That's coming from someone who watches terrible horror movies for fun.

[tazber]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 7:52pm

That was exactly his point, trentsketch. I agree it was absolutely horrendous and hard to stomach.

Six says it was a response to all the criticism he had leveled at him in the wake of part 1.

Critics said part 1 was irredeemably gross and there was a lot of complaints about how it could incite impressionable people to do sick things.

So basically, this is his eff you. He made a movie about a person who is so obsessed with his movie (part 1) that he actually tries to make a centipede. And of course Six went way over the top with the nasty bits. I mean some of it was so gratuitous that it crossed over into (very) black comedy.

His point seems to be: It's just a movie. And if people can't separate his grand guignol fantasies from reality then at least he'll give them a reason to be outraged.

Having said all that, I confess that I fast forwarded through at least one lengthy scene. But I was laughing at the audaciousness all the while.

I'm curious to hear Jordan's and JbaraFan1's take.
Unwatchable trash or darkly humorous meta-comment on would be censors.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 4/9/12 at 11:37pm

tazber, it may have been his point, but he didn't succeed. It's utterly boring. It's shocking the first time something happens, then grows dull the next twelve times it happens. The fan obsessed with the original concept had potential to be a big kiss off and a solid horror picture. This did neither.

If the technical qualities were rougher, the spite the critics approach would have worked. Imagine if the obsessive fan was filming everything himself. It happens a little with the surveillance aspect at the parking garage, but that's a very underdeveloped concept. The scrapbook gets into it, but even that's brushed aside all too quickly.

Instead of going nuclear on the barrage of negative reviews, he only met the criticism about his technical skills and dug in on the substance/content issue without anything new to say. Movies are just movies. You shouldn't imitate them. And? What low budget director hasn't done that in the underground horror scene in the past thirty years?

[JbaraFan1]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 4:53am

tazber said:
I'm curious to hear Jordan's and JbaraFan1's take.
Unwatchable trash or darkly humorous meta-comment on would be censor.

Also see trentwatch's comments immediately following taz's.

taz, my take's below, for what it's worth. I think I'd say it's both unwatchable trash (although obviously not unwatchable) ..... trash, yeah, that, in a way .....
darkly humorous meta- what you said, yeah, I can see that too.

And I think I get your points too, trentwatch (just as I get Roger Ebert's -- my favorite film critic by far -- don't always agree with, but always respect), and you may be right. I don't know. What you said about the obsessive fan .... survellience camera.....scrapbook made me think of something else that I've wondered about since seeing the movie. See my "spoilers" section below -- decided to combine those together near end of post.

Okay so I watched it on Netflix (via Roku player) last night. Between that and the Closeup Celebs site thread, I don't know how much more horror I can take this week. On with my (what I'm sure will be) ramblings about HC2. I always say I'm no critic, so this will just be my personal observations.

Of the first two HC films, if I had to choose, I like the first better. The first one I've watched at least twice, maybe three times. HC2 -- I think once is enough. But who knows, maybe months down the line I'll decide what the hey, see it again. I think in some ways I liked (maybe not the right word) Dr. Heiter (sp?) as the villain in the first film more than I did Martin as the villain in 2. Martin creeped me out more I think. I found him more disturbing. The Doctor in 1 seemed to me to be more
like a classic horror villain. He creeped me out too, but I enjoyed being creeped out by him, y'know?

While I just said that (for now anyway) once seeing HC2 is enough for me... I did go back and rewatch one particular scene near the end after reading online comments about it. I guess I'm slow on the take sometimes and didn't realize what people on imdb -- for one -- were saying happened in the scene happened. I didn't realize it went that far. For me it's actually hard to tell for 100% sure what happened there. If what people say was in that scene was in that scene, then in one sense it's really sick and disturbing, but in another sense (as with pretty much most of the movie), it's so cartoonishly done that it's more likea very sick joke, and with all the other stuff that goes on in the movie, it almost becomes sort of like, oh, okay, so he's thrown that in too. I don't really know how to put it, but it's just now dawned on me that maybe Six's point with it -- if there is a point -- is to show that after sitting through the rest of the film to that point, it's kind of like the viewer is somewhat
desensitized to that scene by the time it comes along. I don't know. Typing as I think. (Being vague on purpose about "that scene" due to spoilers and all, y'know. But I'm sure those here who have seen the movie know what I'm talking about.) More on this later in the spoilers section.

Of course that's not the only cartoonish (if you take that view of it) scene in the movie by far. Some are so ridiculous that I just assume Tom Six must have meant them to be funny in a very dark, perverted, way.

I do philosophize a little bit over how things we view or read or expose ourselves to affect us on various levels. I may logically understand that it's not real, but is there some basic part of me that just takes in whatever is fed it, without judging or distinguishing what's real from what's not? Take, for instance, when I film makes me cry (which HC2 for damned sure did not) -- for me, it's usually very tender moments, moments of extreme kindness shown, that get to me and make me cry. Or when a beloved pet -- especially a dog -- dies in a movie. With some, even knowing it's just a movie, I'm still not only going to cry the first time, but the fifth or twelfth time I see it. If I'm so moved (manipulated maybe even) emotionally by those kinds of scenes, then again, I wonder if I'm being affected by these HC movies in some way, on some level past an initial, "oh! gross!! lol" sort of reaction. If that makes sense.

My joke review would be that HC2 is a really sh*tty movie, which it is, it's total crap, but still I think it may have its moments in spite of that. Like I said, I don't think of myself as even an amateur critic at all, but I find myself thinking about various aspects of HC2 -- for one:
Whether or not Martin is just completely depraved and beyond redemption, or if the audience is supposed to feel some sympathy for him. I found myself feeling a bit sorry for him at times, usually through the way he was treated by other people. It's not spoilerish if I don't get too specific, right? A lot of what I saw in the character was -- and this is more or less confirmed in an interview I watched online -- that he's not so much evil really as he is seeking approval from somewhere, in a sort of
childlike, though very dark way (perhaps comedically so). In a way Martin is like a small child who decides what they want and sets out to get it by any means they can even if they don't really know what they're doing. On one hand he seemed to be quite mentally challenged, whether he was supposed to have been born that way, or whether he got that way at the hands of abuse, I'm not sure. (If that was explained in the movie, I missed it.) But then on the other hand, he certainly seemed capable of premeditating his actions, of plotting things all out, even if they inevitably didn't go according to his plans. But again, even with that, when Martin has to go from "plan A" to devising a "plan B" it's hard (for me at least) to figure if it's coming from a (messed up) childlike mind in an adult's body, or from a depraved adult mind in a childlike (in a way) body.

Martin and questions of his mental and moral faculties or shortfalls thereof aside, there didn't seem to be any characters -- not adults anyway -- with any truly redeeming qualities, not that I can think of. Maybe the guy we hear on Martin's voice mail, but hard to judge him since he's never actually on screen. Everyone else though -- besides Martin and that guy - is either a total a$$hole or completely self-absorbed or both. With a few in particular, I sort of wanted them to get what was coming to them, but the fate they received, I would hope I would not wish on my worst enemy. With Martin, without giving too much away, while I may have yin-yanged between hating him and feeling sympathy for him, I thought his fate was pretty darned poetic -- in a Tom-Six-sick kind of way.


OKAY, SPOILERS SECTION AHEAD:
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SPOILER(?)
.. seemed like, Martin did not understand that HC1 was "just a movie" but then on the other hand, he did understand that the gal from the first one was an actress. I think he even had photos of her and maybe the other actors from the movie in his scrapbook, as themselves, not to mention him tricking her with the Tarantino audition ploy. That was a mite confusing to me, not sure if it was on purpose or not, him seemingly going both ways with knowing/not knowing. Did he really believe what the Doctor character in HC1 was trying to do was really "medically accurate" and actually possible? Or did he fully understand that it was entirely fiction but still, thanks to his outrageous obsession, want to attempt to (more than) replicate it himself? Not to mention, which came first, the pet centipede or the obsession with HC1? Did he have the interest in centipedes first, or did he get the pet after seeing the film? I guess it doesn't really matter either way to the plot, just something I
wondered about.
END (that) SPOILER -- another one coming right up:

Now, for questions about the ending....
2ND SPOILER ALERT*******
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So, about the interpretation of the ending. When I watched it -- and I hadn't read any comments about the ending prior to -- my husband (who was pretty much subjected to seeing it by virtue of being in the room working on the computer at the time) and I both were going, what the heck was up with that? at the end when
Martin is shown back at his job, watching the end of HC1 on his lap top. Is that flashing back? Or was the rest of the movie his dream or fantasy or whatever along that line? I guess it could be either one, and maybe it's left up to the viewer. I lean a bit more toward it being in his head, or maybe a dream, which would explain a lot of the cartoonishness.
The newborn's skull being crushed(??) under the gas pedal by its mother as she was out of her mind with trying to escape, and again, maybe I'm too much one to need things spelled out, but I wasn't sure if she stepped on the infant or on the placenta, or even if the baby was born alive or dead -- with the mother screaming and the background music and sounds, couldn't tell for sure if we ever hear the baby crying or not -- I know earlier Martin heard the whoosh-whoosh heartbeat through the mom's belly, but maybe the baby died just before or during its birth?? .... One reason I lean toward the baby itself not being crushed is, the older child -- but still a pretty young kid -- is not harmed in the film, well not directly, and Martin even seems to be almost protective of that kid, at least as much as he is capable of being, so why let that kid go unharmed -- aside from what's done to the mom of course -- and then turn around and have a newborn die so graphically? Unless the former was
to make the latter that much more unexpected and shocking. I don't know. I do think that in a way (and I'm far from the first person to mention this) Martin is very childlike and probably identifies with children more than he does with adults and is somewhat protective of kids. Maybe that's his one good quality. If the newborn is crushed by the mom's foot going down on the gas pedal, then maybe that's meant to be ironic, that the mom was trying to escape (from this mad man) with her nborn/then born child, trying to save both herself and her child, only to (??) kill it accidentally in the process, whereas Martin might actually have been protective of the infant and might have made sure one way or the other that the baby would be okay. I don't know, I could be wrong, but just got the feeling that he wouldn't intentionally or directly harm a child. Anyway, another very cartoon-ish scene: Martin's murder of his mother -- her being propped up at the table with her face and skull gone, just basically a frame and hole where those once were -- that in particular struck me as a very wtf cartoonish moment, more than it was a real shocker moment. I think if that's compared to the reveal of taxidermied mama in Psycho, then the scene in Psycho wins for a number of reasons. And then there's just the
whole ridiculousness with the human-centipede-building itself, the funnel force-feeding, the laxative injections and result - yuck!, and the thing with the centipede (as in centipede centipede) and the funnel. (This movie puts the fun back in funnels I guess. lol)
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END SPOILERS

And END of my long, rambling thoughts about this movie. Just typed it out as I thought it out! Hope some of it was worth reading! Apologies for any typos, disjointedness, and for the length. I need to get a little shuteye! :)

- Barb

[JbaraFan1]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 4:54am

(whoa! duplicate post.) Updated On: 4/11/12 at 04:54 AM

[tazber]

Posted: 4/11/12 at 6:56am

Thanks for the post Jbara! I had a lot of the same reactions/thoughts that you experienced.

The scene with the infant was a bit unclear in terms of whether what happened was intentional or not. Whether that was poor direction or meant to be unclear I don't know. My take was exactly as you said:

"it's so cartoonishly done that it's more like a very sick joke, and with all the other stuff that goes on in the movie, it almost becomes sort of like, oh, okay, so he's thrown that in too."

Which sort of sums up the whole movie. I mean if you're jaw isn't hanging open by the time the "barb wire" scene occurs then you need to seek help.

So yea, I found it to be more comedic than disturbing.

I also totally get trentsketch's point of view. It's pretty juvenile to make a movie just to shock, and anyone can do it. The fact is that Six has some talent as a director that comes through. So it does seem like a bit of a waste. But hey, this is what Six wants to do and he seems committed to it.

A few random thoughts:

The actor who plays Martin is known in Europe as a beloved children's show star. Sort of like Mister Rogers. Won't his fans be shocked if they see this!

And no one has mentioned this but he actually gave a heck of a performance. I mean, talk about going for it with abandon.

Part 3, which will be the final installment, has had some problems. Six was going to bring everyone back but the actor who plays Dieter quit after disagreeing about the script. Lawsuits are pending. In the meantime Udo Kier will be playing Dieter.

[ChildrenwillListen]

Posted: 4/14/12 at 12:23pm

I've only watched the trailer and it scared the crap out of me

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 6/3/13 at 6:18pm

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/9/13 at 3:31pm

Just watched it today after reading this thread. First off, what a beautifully shot film! The cinematography was wonderful! Thought it was a great abstract expressionistic film. Over the top? Yes! I felt the exact same way watching this film as I did Eraser Head at the Waverly in the 70's!