The Human Centipede 2 and a Halloween Marathon Update

Before I get into the movie review, I want to clarify something. In my post yesterday about the problems with horror movies today I mentioned I thought an over-reliance of gore is the biggest problem most horror films have today. To clarify, I'm not one of those people that turns their nose up at a movie at the mere mention of gore and disgusting, graphic scenes; I think that, if done right, those factors can not just have a place in a movie but can elevate it. I stress the words if done right. This works for some movies. The first Hostel, for example. If you ask me, the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake is another example. So is the original Saw.

And then there's The Human Centipede 2. Spoilers ahead, by the way. Major ones.

Now this would probably be good.

Wait, that's not right.

This, on the other hand...

Once upon a time, I participated in a movie blog with one of my best friends, and for that blog I reviewed the first Human Centipede. If you don't feel like reading it, well, it was not a favorable review. I'm sure you're familiar with the premise: a doctor sews three people together into a human centipede... despite the fact that three people together only have twelve limbs and not one hundred. Medically accurate, my ass. I guess that's why it was subtitled "First Sequence." Anyway, pretty much everyone in the movie dies, so how can their be a sequel, you ask? Well, THC2 revolves around Martin, a man who saw the original film and became obsessed with it, and now wants to create his own human centipede, this time with twelve people. Sure, that's still only forty-eight limbs, not one hundred. Must be why they sub-titled this one "Full Sequence." Wait, that doesn't make sense. Must be my fault for thinking. I should stop that.

So THC2 goes meta-textual and black-and-white, almost going for an art-house effect. Martin, by the way, is asthmatic, ugly, fat, bug-eyed, retarded, and not shy about his body, either. You know what? I'm not doing him justice. A picture says a thousand words, after all...

Be glad I didn't enlarge this one...

So, dear Martin was abused by his father as a child. Rather than insinuate this, though, the film decides to throw this bit of knowledge at us in a very classy way: while Martin lays in bed, in the background we hear a child crying and a voice saying, "Stop them tears, you're just making Daddy's willy harder."

Right there with you, Joey.

Throughout the first hour we see Martin, a parking attendant, sneak up on people in the parking lot, brain them with a crowbar, and take them back to a warehouse he's renting where he strips them naked, knocks their teeth out, severs the tendons of their knees, cuts open their asses, and eventually staples mouths to anuses all of which is done without the benefit of anesthesia or actual medical tools. We also see him kill his own mother because she tore his scrapbook dedicated to the first movie and leave a pregnant woman for dead in his warehouse because, since she was pregnant, he couldn't use her in the centipede. He also manages to lure one of the stars of the original movie, the girl who played the centipede's ass, to meet him under false pretenses, and kidnaps her to make her part of his centipede. But he makes her the head this time, so at least he has a sense of fairness, right? He also pleasures himself. With sandpaper.

Yeah, you read that right.

Through it all, Martin never speaks. Not one word of dialogue throughout the entire movie. Still holding out hope for that art-house effect, huh? They probably should have realized that went out the window once he fed the centipede laxative to facilitate the process of them shitting in each others mouth. And on the camera. Or maybe it went out the window when he fucks the centipede doggy-style.

I'm pretty sure typing that sentence just killed my writing career.

Fast-forwarding to the end, while he sodomizes the centipede, the pregnant woman reveals she's alive and runs out naked, into his car, where she gives birth and the baby plops into the footwell. She backs the car up into Martin, wounding him, and then jams on the gas... crushing her baby's skull with her foot.

Is the art-house dream dead yet?

While that completely abhorrent monstrosity of a scene occurs outside, the guy in the middle of the centipede rips his face away from the ass in front of him, creating two mini-centipedes... until Martin comes in and shoots all the parts of one mini-centipedes, and stabs to death all the parts of the other except the head, the actress from the original. She uppercuts him in the nards, and while he's on the floor she takes the funnel he used to feed them, shoves it up his ass, and then grabs his pet centipede and drops it in. Martin's insides are now being eaten by the thing he loved the most.

Artsy irony, right? He manages to scramble up and stab the actress as well, leaving all parts of his creation dead. Just as we settle in to enjoy watching Martin hopefully get eaten to death from the inside, the one thing that I could have actually enjoyed in this movie... the scene changes to the same scene the movie started with. The entire thing was a fantasy in his head. There is no defending any of this. Worst. Movie. Ever. Everybody associated with creating this should be killed. I feel like less of a human being just having watched it. Please don't watch this, people. I watched it so you don't have to. Don't make my sacrifice be in vain.

In an unrelated note because I can't leave you with that in your brain, last week I mentioned I was looking for ideas for a Halloween Marathon. Here's an update on how that's going:

Definites
Trick'r'Treat
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Garfield's Halloween Adventure
Ginger Snaps
Night of the Demons (Original)
How I Met Your Mother: The Slutty Pumpkin
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween
Supernatural: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

That's around nine hours of programs, which, depending on if I do this Sunday or Monday, might be all I have time for. Some alternates/additions might be the Scrubs episode My Big Brother and/or the Night of the Demons remake, for comparison. I'm still open to ideas though, so if you have any, let's hear 'em!