You won't have to have seen The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009) to know what it's about. No doubt your friends have made you watch it for a dare at that one sleepover or you were too curious after it was hyped up and made the decision to see what it was all about. If you haven't seen it, well the premise is simply a man that wants (and succeeds in) stitching three people, erm...ass-to-mouth.
This late noughties horror flick became an instant sensation, a modern-day video nasty, sickening people all over the world and earning itself some tidy bans in a few countries. Tom Six (the director) had openly declared to society that he was the new face of b-movie torture porn, despite it being disliked by so many people, audiences and critics alike: mainly it was hated for its audacious and disturbing source material but it also didn't help that the performances were lacklustre and the script could be called mediocre at best.
So it's interesting that its successor, The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence (2011) was surprisingly good in comparison. I'm sure most would disagree with me on that and happily plonk it onto the same burning heap that the original film (and third instalment) sit atop like an un-welcomed bad-taste horror prodigy.
However, this sequel has some merit, namely its use of meta-storytelling. The entire premise of THC2 is that a sadomasochistic, introverted man named Martin (played by Laurence R. Harvey) is obsessed with the first Centipede movie and fantasises about creating his own real-life monstrosity with 12 people, as opposed to the original three. THC2 derives its horror not only from the visceral and gratuitous violence we see on-screen but from the genuinely terrifying concept that its grounded in our reality.
If we look at this film at surface level, it's pretty simplistic: the entire thing is shot in black and white (a seemingly artistic choice but nevertheless a necessity for Tom Six after he couldn't get it through censorship gates) and it does do what it says on the tin...it gives us a human centipede. But if you take a more analytical approach to it, you'll notice that THC2 is not only able to be self-referential but it also pays homage to other aspects of horror, making it more than just a two-dimensional snuff-like flick about some people stuck together with staples.
The main bulk of the film feels like a midnight feature of underground cinema, something so depraved and explicit that it could only be watched by dedicated movie-goers or curious patrons looking to get a kick out of being freaked out; the use of black and white alone makes me reminiscent of the b-movies they'd show in the 60s.
There's a particular scene in THC2 that makes me think of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960): in the final act, our "protagonist" (if you can really call him that) finally snaps and smashes his emotionally abusive mother's head in with a crowbar, after which he proceeds to sit her at the kitchen table and stare at the bloody remains of her face like a man without a care in the world. It's unnerving, similar to the way in which Norman Bates kept his mother's corpse around and spoke to it like she was still alive: such absurd niceties are what truly evoke a good reaction from the audience (at least in my opinion).
The characters in the sequel definitely supersede that of the first film. Martin's incompetent yet believably malicious character is a complete 180 of Dr. Heiter from THC1, in that Martin is at least a character you can almost sympathise with as a victim of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, whereas Heiter is just a psychopath abusing his skills as a physician. Supporting character Dr. Sebring (played by Bill Hutchens) is a walking, Freudian parody, depicted as an authoritative yet perverse opposition to Martin. And of course there's Ashlynn Yennie, an actress from THC1 who reprises her role as an exaggerated, meta-version of herself, further strengthening the link between the first and second film.
Is this a perfect horror film, though? No, and I'm not here to contest that it is because THC2 is very self-indulgent, the narrative is littered with tired, stereotypical tropes and arguably strays further out of the torture porn category and more into a fetishization of scat/bodily fluid/snuff kinks (I wonder if Tom Six is aware that gross doesn't necessarily equate to horror).
However, the final act of the film is what fans remember: it's simply a test of endurance on behalf of the viewer as to how much you're willing to witness. If the act of teeth being smashed out with a hammer wasn't enough for you, THC2 gradually unpacks all of the twisted ideas in its arsenal: from ripping out a tongue with pliers, to explicit sexual assault, to stomping on the skull of a new-born baby, THC2 does it all and spares no mercy in showing it. It is an embodiment of the torture porn genre but not in the generally campy, over-the-top way: it's decisive torture, implemented by an amateur in crude fashion. It's horrifying because, unlike Dr. Heiter with his medical expertise, any of us could be capable of doing what Martin does (if you're twisted enough).
The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence is a decent horror film (despite its obscenities and ludicrous script) because it not only utilises the shock factor of the first-film but creates something entirely new in the process: bigger, bloodier and weirder than before.
- K
No comments:
Post a Comment