The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (2011)

As one of the few who liked the first film, would I like this one? Oh God no! This...abomination is just a piece of crap! Why? Well let’s find out!

We follow Martin, a...mentally challenged individual, who slowly descends into his obsession with his favourite film, ‘The Human Centipede (First Sequence)’. However, he doesn’t want to do a three person centipede, oh no, he wants to do a full twelve person centipede.

Let’s start off with the good aspects, what little there is. Firstly, the actor portraying Martin, Laurence R. Harvey. For his first film ever he actually did an alright job playing a fat, disgusting and depraved individual, he truly brought the character to life. He manages to portray many aspects to the character, even though he doesn’t talk. The character though just isn’t a good villain, mainly because Dr. Heiter in the first film set the bar too high.

Secondly, there aren’t any opening credits or title card. It starts off with the end of the first film, before it turns out Martin is watching a DVD. Now, I actually liked this, I liked how Tom Six has done it, how, as he puts it, it follows on from the previous film. Though this does raise a question, about how the film (The Human Centipede) within the film (The Human Centipede 2) got the tag line ‘100% Medically Accurate’, yet the film set in ‘real life’ got the ‘100% Medically Inaccurate’ tagline. Especially since it seemed more accurate than the original. Except the staples, and the oral laxatives being injected.

Those are the only good things.

The plot isn’t the problem, it’s the same as the first film, only with twelve people. It’s just the execution; it did a ‘Naughty Bear’! It got so consumed by its own hype, it thought anything it did was going to automatically be awesome. It isn’t, it truly isn’t.

The first thing we notice is that the film is shot in black and white. This is because Six ‘realised’ that it was scarier in black and white. Yeaaaaah no it isn’t. It could’ve been in colour and it wouldn’t have made much difference. But even if black and white did make a film scarier, the bottom line is this film isn’t scary.

Six thought that people would want more “blood and shit”, and that’s exactly what we got. Literally, Martin at one point injects every person in his centipede with laxatives, and some of the ‘victims’ (I say victims but I’ll get back on to that later) shit on the camera, which is effectively Six’s way of throwing it into the faces of the audience.

The gore was so high, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) initially refused to give it a rating. And I agree with why they did it, I don’t want to see a guy pleasure himself with sandpaper (Seriously, sandpaper?! What the Hell?!), I don’t want to see a guy rape the woman on the end of the centipede with barbed wire, I don’t want to see a woman senselessly crush her newborn’s skull! The fact that the film is also set in Britain just serves as a huge coincidence; it was filmed in 2010 and was banned (in the UK) in 2011.

I have to say, Six essentially threw a tantrum over this refusal, criticising the BBFC for giving spoilers, saying that a horror film should be horrific, saying that the film isn’t real, that it’s “art”, that people should make up their own minds on what to watch. Well, guess what Mr. Six, there is a difference between ‘art’ and ‘what the fu*k is wrong with you?’ guess where your film ends up? Yes, I agree that people should make the choice on what to watch, but there are cases in which you have to draw the line.

And yes, a horror film should be horrific, not filled with all out gore! Less is more! That’s what made the first film appealing to me, the fact it focused more on the psychological aspects rather than the blood. The fact that you hardly see any blood or shit but knew what was going on made you think about it, which was really effective. The sequel was just sickening for the sheer Hell of it.

The thing is, Six focused so much on the gore and crap, he blatantly didn’t bother with writing a decent script. Again, this is shown from the above points I made, but also from the characters.

My God, these are the worst characters I have ever seen. We literally can’t sympathise with anyone. Obviously we have Martin our antagonist who is going to make people suffer and cause them immense pain; we’re not going to like him. We have his mother (Vivien Bridson) who constantly insults him, threatens to kill him and blames him for his father going to prison (since the father sexually abused him as a kid); we’re not going to like her. We have his psychiatrist Dr. Sebring (Bill Hutchins) who has sexual encounters with hookers in car parks and wants to have sex with Martin(!); we’re not going to like him. We also have army guy living in the flat above Martin, who seems to think that he’s entitled to play crappy music as loud as he wants; we’re not going to like him, etc, etc.

And they’re stupid as well, with one person in particular; Ashlynn Yennie. Yes, they somehow got one of the main two actresses back for the sequel. And this fictionalised version of herself makes you want to punch her in real life. First, I can understand you going to the UK, since you thought Quentin Tarantino is asking you for an audition, but how cheap do you think he is, that he sends a guy like Martin to pick you up in a cramped van?

Actually, no, sorry, she’s not the most infuriating person in this film, that person is...pregnant lady. Yeah, I don’t remember any of the character’s names, the ones I do remember I got off Wikipedia. Anyway, not only did she crush her newborn’s skull (in the uncut/non-UK version), when she could’ve just moved it (She was safe in a locked car, she had time), but at one point, I kid you not, we see that she has HER HANDS FREE! Seriously! Her feet may have been duct taped, but her hands weren’t! She could’ve (when Martin isn’t there, obviously) freed her feet, gone over to the others, freed them and, oh I don’t know, out-fu*king-number Martin! You can end the film! But does she? Hell no! You can argue that she’s scared for her as-of-yet-born baby, but I’m pretty sure I saw someone else with their hands free as well! Either way, it’s a gigantic plot hole in the film.

I say I’m pretty sure, because I don’t want to watch it again. Yeah, I absolutely refuse to watch it on my own again, I felt dirty the first time I watched this piece of garbage. If I watch it again it will be with someone else, and only because their suffering will entertain me.

So, yeah. I didn’t like it. Overstatement of the year. If you want to watch a film where there is virtually no dialogue for a large portion of the film, go watch Wall-E.