Director: Tom Six
Writer: Tom Six
Producer: Tom Six/Ilona Six
Starring: Dieter Laser/Ashley C. Williams/Ashlynn Yennie/Akihiro Kitamura
Year: 2009
Country: Netherlands
BBFC Certification: 18
Duration: 91 minutes

After hearing so much about The Human Centipede: First Sequence, I decided to watch it and see what the fuss is all about. I’ve heard that it’s quite disturbing and it’s one of the most scariest and most sickening movies ever to have been made and I have to say, I’ve seen worse. There’s no denying that The Human Centipede: First Sequence’s idea is a tad sickening, what with the crazy doctor and the experiments he does but other than that, but it doesn’t show on screen. It’s the classic cliché horror story of two women who have trouble when their car breaks down and so knocks on a stranger’s door to make a phone call and they’re drugged and knocked out. They wake up only to find this stranger is a crazy surgeon who dreams of creating creatures, he’s used three Rottweilers and wants to move a step up by using humans. The plot is short and very stretched, even for a movie lasting just over the ninety-minute mark. As soon as you get past thirty minutes, it becomes rather tedious and quite slow from then on. There’s not much to this movie except for the reputation it has of being a sick and twisted movie and, as I have said above, there’s worse movies out there than this. The Human Centipede: First Sequence grabbed your attention at first with the first scene of the doctor kidnapping a truck driver but as soon as the two women enter the doctor’s house, that was when your attention slowly started to fade and from then on, the movie started to get a little boring and even repetitive at times.

The acting is below mediocre. Dieter Laser was average as the crazed Doctor Heiter and there were a couple of good moments from him but his performance wasn’t enough to save this movie from being boring. Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie and Akihiro Kitamura, who played the three captives, were quite bad and they weren’t convincing, especially before they went to the house. The writing was terrible for the characters considering you didn’t care what happened to them. The two American girls were bad at acting and unconvincing of their characters. The quality of acting in this movie is something I would expect in a no-budget movie. The direction was okay but the writing was bad considering there’s almost twenty minutes of unnecessary scenes  in the movie that you could easily cut out and you wouldn’t miss anything. Director and writer Tom Six did create something that has quite a scary and some original thought, I’ll give him that, but alas, it was the thought itself that was the only thing scary. Unfortunately, The Human Centipede: First Sequence is quite a disappointment and is not scary at all as yet again, following the trend of horror movies of today, it’s in the gross-out department rather than the scare department. So, it’s gross which means plenty of blood, guts and gore, right? Wrong! There’s hardly any of that either. I’ve also heard that it’s quite gory and very violent but it’s not exactly that either. The violence, maybe, but it’s hardly gory . The main problem with The Human Centipede: First Sequence is that it’s ridiculous. Okay, the plot does sound like it was going to be completely bonkers from the beginning but it gets even more so later on in the movie and not in a good way. The idea isn’t really very original except for the obvious but if you take that away, all it really is is a scientist who wants to create creatures and there’s movies like that everywhere.

There’s honestly nothing scary about The Human Centipede: First Sequence, it’s just a gross-you-out movie that is quite disgusting. It doesn’t make you jump and you won’t lose any sleep over it but it will most likely gross you out, which is quite sad because you could see the potential of this being one of the scariest movies of today. True that the idea of a mad doctor creating creatures from humans by sewing them together in a vile way is quite a scary thought but the movie itself is not scary and is more disturbing with a couple of violent scenes. I think The Human Centipede: First Sequence would have been a major improvement if it was a short film, making it ninety minutes long stretched the story and plot and you could see where they made some scenes longer than they should have been because of that. I would recommend this to anybody who likes gross-out horror movies but if you’re looking for something that will have you scared, this isn’t the one for you. It’s neither good nor bad but it’s something that I couldn’t watch again. This isn’t because it’s disgusting but because I wouldn’t call it one of those movies you could watch again in time, mainly because it’s too long and some of the scenes drag as well as the obvious. I thought this was enough but Tom Six has now revealed there is a sequel in the works which will be ready for 2011 and is supposed to be more disgusting than this. I didn’t really think this needs a sequel, I see it being pointless but I’ll wait until I’ve seen it. I would recommend you watch something else other than this but if you’re curious about it, rent it.

Buy The Human Centipede [First Sequence] [DVD] at Amazon

About The Author

My name is Darren Camponi and I run a website called Darren Camponi which can be seen here: http://innersanctumreviews.wordpress.com/

2 Responses

  1. David Brook

    I’m not all that interested in seeing this and reviews like this don’t help! I think the idea sounds disgusting and disturbing, but it seems to be all there is to it and I don’t see how that concept can be stretched out into a feature film (let alone two sequels!).

    Plus I can’t think of a reason why I’d want to sit and watch people connected arse-to-mouth to be honest.

    Reply
  2. Emily Johnson

    I met one of the makeup ladies who had just finished working on the sequel to this! it sounds like a gross film!

    Reply

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