The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)

One wonders if “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” was ever intended to be taken seriously; I suppose the same could be said for the first sequence too. You see, this full sequence rendered me confused, in that I was unsure if the rib-tickling moments, of which there are many, were an attempt at dark humour by writer-director Tom Six, or if they were a display of Six’s sheer and utter incompetence as a writer. Thinking about it now, I believe they may have been a mixture of both; Six attempted to create a slightly tongue-in-cheek tone, but was clueless as to how to make this work to the film’s advantage.

“The Human Centipede II” has the same basic, though admittedly imaginative, concept as “The Human Centipede.” This is the concept that some sick, psychotic sicko psycho takes it upon himself to surgically join several kidnapped victims mouth-to-anus, thus creating a human centipede. The difference with this vomit-inducing sequel is that the perpetrator of this twisted surgical experiment is not a surgeon.

The perverted antagonist of this perverted sequel - which is mercifully shot in black-and-white - is called Martin. He is played by Laurence R. Harvey, a British stage actor and performance artist who, and I’m sure he won’t mind me saying this, is a tad odd-looking. With sticky-out ears, a receding hairline, beady little eyes, an ever-sweaty forehead and a belly that probably has its own gravitational orbit, he ain’t exactly Robert Pattinson.

Martin works as a security guard in a parking garage. He lives with his mother, who despises him. He is asthmatic, small in stature and appears to have some form of mental illness. It is revealed, very unsubtly, that Martin was a victim of sexual abuse from his father when he was a boy; this is used as an excuse for his behaviour in the film. Martin has an unhealthy obsession with a certain film; this film, surprise surprise, is “The Human Centipede,” which he watches on a regular basis, sometimes while masturbating with sandpaper wrapped around his penis, sometimes not.

Inspired by the film he loves oh so much, Martin decides he wants his own centipede to play with, and I’m not talking about the kind he keeps inside a glass box in his living room. So, with the aid of a handgun and a crowbar, Martin begins kidnapping those who visit his parking garage and takes all twelve (yes, twelve) of them to an empty warehouse for a little bit of medical experimenting.

I said it once, I’ll say it again: Martin is not a surgeon, nor do I believe he ever will be. While Dr. Heiter from the first film decided to administer anaesthetic while operating on his victims, Martin decides to beat them over the head with his crowbar (which proves to be incredibly ineffective). And when Martin discovers he is incapable of properly slicing up his victims’ buttocks for application onto another victim’s face, he gets out his staple gun and gets to staplin’.

There are three things about “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” that I believe to be genuinely good. The first is Harvey, who gives a strong, chilling performance as our antihero/villain without ever uttering a word. The second is the cinematography by David Meadows; Six also seems to be a decent visual director. And the third… well, I can’t think of a third thing.

It goes without saying that this is a nasty, nasty film, a fact which I believe anyone who goes to see it will be fully aware of. Anyone who thought the first film was tame (which, by comparison, sort of was) will be pleased - scratch that, I’ll say “morbidly satisfied” - by the sheer depravity of the violence in “Human Centipede II.” By that same logic, those who were utterly horrified by the content of the first film will find “Human Centipede II” a traumatic experience and may require the services of a psychologist afterwards.

In this BBFC-cut version (with 32 cuts made), we have the tearing of ligaments, the bashing-in of teeth, the removal of a person’s tongue and a rather interesting use of a funnel. An old lady’s skull is beaten open with a crowbar, a newborn baby’s head is crushed by its mother’s foot and, at one point, explosive diarrhoea splatters across the screen; all I can say is, thank Christ the film isn’t in 3D, or indeed 4D.

I can picture Six sitting at his desk following the success of the first film, furiously jotting down the most sinful, lurid and disgusting things he could possibly think of. I can also picture him then inserting these nauseating thoughts into a screenplay, giving little thought to anything in the script outside of these ideas, other than how to progress the plot towards them.

The funny thing is, this is pretty much what people asked for. I can remember audiences complaining to Six that the first film was too tame for its deeply disturbing premise. They begged for the inevitable sequel to be unforgivably repellent and incessantly stomach-churning, as they expected the first film to be. They asked for it to be more graphic, more gruesome and more vile than the first one; they essentially wanted him to up the ante, as it were. Unfortunately for us, Six listened.

And the result is “The Human Centipede II,” a film stock-full of pathetically laughable dialogue, dodgy acting, a plotline that is surprisingly boring, a climax that is deeply unsatisfying and a hopelessly idiotic script so concerned with being vile and repugnant that that is the only way to describe the film. This film is beyond unpleasant, and I would never be so irresponsible as to recommend it to anyone.

0/10