‘The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)’ is Completely Worthless

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Rating: 0.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Make no mistake about it horror fans – Tom Six hates you. He thinks you’re worthless, easily manipulated, and pretty dumb. He thinks you’re little more than a gore-hungry animal who doesn’t give a damn about character, plot, or anything more than being horrified. The controversial director showed decent promise with “The Human Centipede (First Sequence),” but his much-maligned sequel “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” destroys all of it. By the end of the film, when the lead character is gleefully making pooping sounds in an effort to get his creation to do the same, I couldn’t help but think that’s exactly what this film’s creator is doing to his audience — spitting on them.

“The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” barely even qualifies as a movie. It’s an idea – a pretty good one at that – upon which absolutely nothing but blood, spit, and sh*t was piled. What’s so unbelievably disappointing about “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” is not that it’s unbelievably disgusting but that it’s so unbelievably dumb. Six wants to turn viewers’ stomachs with his extreme gore but the awful filmmaking is significantly more nauseating than any of his half-assed (no pun intended) gross-out techniques.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
Photo credit: IFC Films

Writer/director Six (and I use both of those terms very loosely) starts promisingly enough in that “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” turns the tables on the viewers who liked the first film. The set-up is that the first film in which we watched a mad scientist stitch together three people anus-to-mouth to form the title creature with one digestive system was purely a work of fiction. The second film is in the real world and features a central character who is obsessed with the first one.

The disturbing-looking Martin (Lawrence R. Harvey) watches “The Human Centipede” every day in his little parking garage attendant booth and even keeps a scrapbook of memorabilia from the production under his bed. Of course, who doesn’t want to recreate the favorite movies from their favorite movies like those kids who made their own version of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? Yes, Martin decides he too wants to create a “Human Centipede” but he’s going for the full 12-person version, not a measly three. Dream big, right?

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
Photo credit: IFC Films

The first half of “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” features little more than sequences in which Martin collects his human bug parts. With extreme close-ups of his silent, mentally-handicapped character (yes, he says not a word through the film, which could be seen as a clever counterpoint to the arguably talky central character in the first movie if one felt inclined to call anything here clever), Six proves he has absolutely no concept of pacing. For nearly an hour, we watch Martin smack people with crowbars and throw them in his rented warehouse. Horror films are often somewhat illogical, but “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence” exists in a world that defies even hardcore genre fan’s suspension of disbelief. Martin knocks a dozen people unconscious, including a pregnant lady, kills a few more, and even leaves a crying child in a car and NO ONE notices. Are there no other employees at the garage? No one notices the blood and screaming baby while Martin is working on his project?

The fact is that everything but the actual act of creating and “enjoying” the centipede matters AT ALL to Tom Six. Scenes of Martin at home with his abusive mother or meeting with his abusive doctor or the one hundred times Six stops to let Martin take a shot of asthma inhaler – it’s all filler. It’s all meant to do nothing more than extend the running time of a film that should be 20 minutes. A good director would use the “pre-centipede” time to build tension, to craft characters, to get audiences on the edge of their seat in anticipation. Six does none of the above and that’s actually the film’s biggest failure — that it’s such a massive waste of time for most of its running time.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
Photo credit: IFC Films

But what about the big moment? Does “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” live up to the gross-out hype? I guess. The final act is filled with way more gore and grotesque than the first film but it’s all so worthless. None of it is likely to provoke actual scares. Are you really concerned there’s a rotund, handicapped parking garage attendant waiting to surgically mutilate you? If so, you have some unique fears. There’s nothing remotely identifiable in “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” because none of it even remotely feels like it’s taking place in the real world. It’s about the twisted desires of a twisted man – Tom Six.

The true shame of it all is that the concept isn’t bad. Not only could Six have turned the tables on his movie world to address people fascinated by his first film but he could almost be making a subtle commentary on people who thought the first movie was over the top – “You thought THAT was bad?!?!?!” Conceptually, that’s kind of clever. Too bad moviemakers need more than a concept to create an actual film.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com