(2011) ***1/2Oh. My. Shit.
Seriously, the only thing this movie is missing is director Tom Six walking onscreen at the end to say, "The Aristocrats!"
The final half hour of this movie is gloriously, and unapologetically caked in filth and precious bodily fluids. I gagged while watching it — I actually wondered for a second there whether I was going to throw up, not from nausea, but just as a reflex response to what I was watching. In thirty years of moviegoing, no other movie has ever produced that reaction in me. Not even Dead Alive.
I saw it in the theater, accompanied by Johnny Sweatpants and Crystal Math, and I can't imagine how I'd have sat through an uninterrupted screening without the company. I needed reminders throughout the evening that I wasn't crazy for (1) buying a ticket for the screening in the first place (2) using the ticket to enter the theater and sit down (3) staying through the whole sitting. There were about 20 people in the theater with us and I found it reassuring that everyone was cringing violently with each new awful twist. It gave me hope that we'd all be able to resume normal life the next morning.
The Human Centipede 2 exists in meta-reality — the original film is a movie within this reality. The villain, Martin Lomax (Laurence R. Harvey in his only screen appearance — dude doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page, prompting me to wonder whether he's actually psychotic and Tom Six cast him to add realism, much the same way that FW Murnau casts a real vampire in the role of Count Orlok in Shadow of the Vampire) has an insane fixation with the original film. He fantasizes about constructing his own human centipede out of twelve victims, salaciously licking his chubby fingers at the very thought.
It's hard to say whether he "acts" on this fantasy because the film concludes with a "was it all a dream?" ending, which ultimately feels pointless and unsatisfying. Are we supposed to be comforted by the notion that it didn't actually "happen"? Big deal: we still had to sit there and watch it "happen". Damage done. If it's meant as an artistic stroke, to leave the audience guessing on the way out of the theater, I still ask what's the point? We're already leaving the theater with...other feelings, not the least of which is dread at the thought that someone is eventually going to come along and out-do this movie.
The film is light on dialogue, and what dialogue there is is every bit as crushing as the carnage. At the dinner table, Martin's mom declares, "I've decided to kill us both." She's miserable because her husband is in jail for sexually abusing Martin, and mom makes no secret about which of the two she'd prefer to have around. Martin's soft brain is fertile ground for degenerate behaviour, and every line uttered in the Lomax household is dark seed for Martin's wrong desires.
Even in its most quiet moments, The Human Centipede 2 is squirm-inducing. In its least quiet moments, the movie is a symphony of horribleness. You'll spot seconds in advance the exact way Tom Six is about to make you lose your dinner, but it won't stop you from losing your dinner when you see it. This will happen over and over again, more and more rapidly during the finale. It's not funny like Dead Alive but if you see it with a large enough group of people (as in a theater) the synchronized gross-out is communal enough that it makes watching the movie a sort of special and fun experience. I can't imagine anyone would want to watch it solo for any other reason than to prove a point.
