How to Watch The Human Centipede

Warning! Spoilers and dubious subject matter abound in this article!

Happily The Human Centipede needs no introduction because within the film itself is a short presentation to summarise the whole idea:

Now you know. And aren't you glad?

Prevalent but rarely discussed themes of The Human Centipede include friendship, closeness and sharing so it’s best viewed with those dearest to you. What many people don’t realise is that this film is very pro-community because it simply should not be watched alone. This is not necessarily because it’s too disturbing for a lone viewer to handle, it’s more superficially gross than disturbing, but because when viewed alone The Human Centipede is in danger of becoming pornography. Not ‘pornography’ as an alarmist synonym for 'obscene’, you understand, but literal pornography or ‘wank fodder’ as I believe it is known in certain medical circles. It doesn’t really matter if it presses your buttons or not but sitting by yourself in a dark, empty room wearing a dressing gown and watching three people sewn together at the orgasmic delight of a power-mad surgeon is social suicide. But only if you tell people, which you won’t, because you don’t want anyone to know how perverted and broken you are. You’ll know, though.

This is who you are on the inside.

Despite assumptions of the many vocal moral warriors who have not seen this film and never will, the elements of fetishism are not immediately evident. They’re not exactly subtle either but they are drowned in a wave of horror conventions and clichés. It’s a massive, red wave with bits of gristle in it. The victims are like ditzy parodies of the hapless backpackers in Wolf Creek. There’s even a scene where the evil surgeon is unconscious and at the mercy of his three victims, one of whom is holding a scalpel. They don’t guarantee their safety by killing him, of course, because they’re in a gosh darn horror movie and there’s a good twenty minutes left before the credits start to roll. The question of why horror films continue to do this is almost as clichéd as the motif itself but that doesn't excuse that it’s always a product of awful writing. It also means that, even if you find yourself liking the characters and hoping they’ll escape with at least one of their limbs attached, your respect for them drops instantly to zero. 

On the whole though, it doesn't seem that director Tom Six wants us to like the American female victims very much. The Dangerously Naïve Bimbo Dial is cranked up to such huge, bouncing nasal proportions in this film that it is embarrassing to watch.

Not pictured: characterisation

Among the surprisingly interesting special features on the DVD are a couple of interviews with this apparently sane and amicable director, and he says that the most important thing to him as a filmmaker is creating something original. “Original” is a really tricky word and, while the average film buff would be hard pressed to find another film where the characters are forcibly subdued and connected via the gastric system, it really does not apply to The Human Centipede. Six came up with a new albeit repulsive concept and then got lazy. His film is your average conventional horror flick but with a slightly more shocking premise. It’s difficult to know whether to be relieved or disappointed by this. Had the characters been well developed and believable, had Six really tried to horrify and upset people instead of succumbing to the contemporary idea that the horror genre is nothing more than a tasteless joke, The Human Centipede could have been nothing short of traumatic. As it stands it’s the film equivalent of watching your friends get drunk and fire Dead Baby Jokes back and forth. It’s possible Six wanted to mock the dumb slasher genres but that’s not nearly a novel idea when film-goers have a bounty of parodies to choose from.

Only when your voice is hoarse from screaming “RUN!” at the television screen will you notice attempts to titillate the viewer. The power play between the surgeon and the grotesque procession of victims he tries to train as a dog, the intense pleasure the surgeon takes in this and even the shiny knee-high boots he wears all reek of fetishism, don’t they?

"Oh, these? I found them on sale in Twilight Fashions."

That’s when the film will start to get under your skin. This is assuming, by the way, that you have grown used to the scatological premise at the core of the film and mentally categorised it as 'horror’ or even 'comedy’. After all, it’s not the concept alone that gives the film that pornographic edge but the various depictions of the victim’s humiliation and the BDSM paraphernalia that accompany the whole nauseating mess. The centipede even sleeps in a wire cage for heaven’s sake.

So, yeah, don’t watch it alone. It will make you feel all wrong, and a group viewing is too great an opportunity to miss. It’s with friends that the clichés stop grating and become fun. It’s a blood drenched counting game. How many predictable plot twists can YOU spot?

After the vaguely nauseous silence as the credits roll is broken with the hesitant question, “are we still friends?” great debates will ensue. Talking about The Human Centipede is inevitably much more fun than watching it. The best types of people by far to invite to your Human Centipede party are biologists and feminists. Voices are raised, crockery is thrown and the subject of the argument changes sporadically from human anatomy to ethics to the overall quality of the film.

There will always be that psychopathic prick who insists that, because the victims were American, squeaky, and naïve enough to try and find assistance in Germany they deserved to be sewn together, and it was for the good of mankind that their mouths were eventually obstructed. There will always be that delicate flower who keeps asking ‘Why would anyone make a film like that?’ long after everyone else has lost interest in the subject. Endearing are the optimists who, with strained cheerfulness, talk about the film’s acceptable qualities like lighting and costume.

I thought the camera work was actually pretty innovative.

Amazingly there will always be someone else who expected it to be good and seems completely astonished at the film’s abysmal quality. Fascinating too are the creatures who keep shaking their heads and muttering “unrealistic”. You learn a lot about your friends through sharing a spectacle like this so bond over its awfulness, pass around the twiglets, crack open the chocolate ice-cream, and have fun.