REVIEW: The Human Centipede (The First Sequence)

Unfortunately your regular reviewer is too busy doing a hypothetical something else to write this review in the manner to which you've become accustomed. Frankly the notion of the reviewer being busy is something we found very much hilarious, but hey judge not lest ye etc.. The ensuing review is made-up of his notes found at the scene.

8:23 PM: Its the summertime, and the living is easy here in screen one. People seem in good spirits about their decision to spend their Friday night watching the Human Centipede, The first sequence in brackets. It seems to be mostly hipsters, although the goths seem solidly represented. The inevitable nervous irony has already set in. Many jokes about stitching things up.

8:26 PM: The screen is pretty much full, which isn't surprising as this is the only showing of the week. Solid financial strategy Cornerhouse Manchester, this wasn't going to be a cult hit or anything. Its not like its title makes the truthful promise of disgust or anything. Come on.

8:28 PM: Fish are jumping and The Cotton is high. That's right.

8:29 PM: We're a single measurement away from the start of the advertisements (WHOA SHIT) and the atmosphere had devolved from a confident sense of badassery to nervous laughter and near silence. That's right bitches, make like Cyndi Lauper and show you're true colors. Y'all are shitting it. I, on the other hand am a rock of the densest proportions.

8:30 PM: Alright I lied one minute ago. I want to go home and watch Finding Nemo.

8:33 PM: Why is Jack Daniels called No. 7 ? Will anyone ever know?

8:35 PM: I think I'm the only person in this audience who came alone. This either makes me the alpha dog of proceedings or the creepiest guy in the room. I perform both roles so well its hard to differentiate.

8:38 PM: Honest predictions, I don't think this will be a good film by any stretch of the imagination, but it might shit me up, and isn't that all it came here to do?

8:40 PM: End of Advertisements (WHOA SHIT) Could hear a pin drop.

8:42 PM: Trailer for the Girl Who Played With Fire. I love how they don't show any dialogue so everyone thinks its in English. You're being conned fools. By the swedes.

8:43 PM: I like that insight. I'm awesome.

8:45 PM: Lights go down, time to dance. I think this is the most tense cinema screen I've ever been in. Regret fouls the air with its stink.

8:47 PM: I think my glow in the dark pen is getting in everyone's hostile little face. Fuck all of you.

8:48 PM: Okies. Static shot of a motorway. Looks cheap, as do the credits. Hey the Human Centipede is not here to be pretty.

8:50 PM: The villain in his car is a little too on the nose isn't he? This dude looks like Lance Henrikson, and that's some lazy psycho casting. Audience erupts into laughter as bad guy mourns over picture of The canine centipede. I don't know if this is because of nerves or because it looks ridiculous. Plus the dude's name is Tom Six. Comical names are a bad sign.

8:51 PM: Some fat guy just made a Tom Sex joke. He has been rightly shamed by awkward silence.

8:53 PM: Alright this opening seqeuence is pretty shitty. Dime a dozen stalk and abduct and it looks like sixth form digi-cam balls.

8:55 PM: Is this movie going to be shit? He asked dispersively.

8:58 PM: OK, our heroines. And they're awful. Terrific.

9:00 PM: This is getting embarrassing. Their car just broke down in the woods.

9:02 PM: Now they're getting out the car. To look for help guys, surely this can't be..

9:04 PM: And now their walking through the woods.

9:04 PM: For fuck's sake.

Douchebag Intermission: Look, we live in a post-modern age of horror movies. This kind of stupidity of character and writing just won't do, I don't care how good this movie gets when it gets to the centipeding, this is sub-par. This would be sub-par for the Sci-Fi Channel. This would be sub-par for a movie made 30 years ago on the Sci-Fi channel. Jamie Kennedy would have a field day with this shit.

9:07 PM: Loving this valley girl banter as written by a Dutch dude in his forties though.

9:09 PM: " Oh look! There's a House! We're Saved."

9:12 PM: I think the realization that this film is in fact going to suck a hideous amount of ass ( pun intended, bitch) has relieved the air somewhat. The bad laughs are coming thick and fast.

9:14 PM: Don't drink the water, Jenny.

9:16 PM: Don't drink the water, Lindsey.

9:16 PM: Oh well. This German scientist freak guy is ridiculous by the way. The only way this film had any chance of being good was not to make that character into a ridiculous mad scientist pseudo-parody.

9:19 PM: Dr. Heiter as played by Dieter Laser is in fact a ridiculous mad scientist parody. This kind of stuff is teetering dangerously toward 1 or 2 out of ten kind of territory.

9:25 PM: I would have said that the scene which Hieter shows them a slide show of just exactly how they are going to be attached semi-worked if it weren't for the god-awful reacting from our girls and the third. A japanese man in his twenties.

9:26 PM: No please. No. No. Please no. No. No. Please no. No. No. Please No. Sing it loud.

9:28 PM: "The Japanese man can summon great strength in times of trouble." Said by the Japanese dude. This movie is fast approaching the so bad its good kind of territory.

9:33 PM: Lindsey escaped, and so ensued the worst slasher chase sequence since first season Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

9:36 PM: Its operating time. The thing is playing way too much straight. Our Dr. Hitler takes a moment to admire his mouth-slicing, anus-removing work. Seems Proud?

9:38 PM: Money shot. Its the centipede. And it looks. Hilarious. All the gore is covered with bandages so it looks like they're all just kissing each other's ass for no reason. Man that was sure an idea that looked better on paper. Now the rest of this movie is going to be a comedy whether it wants to or not.

9:40 PM: " Hello, my sweet Centipede."

9:44 PM: The Human Centipede is canonballing at such a rate that its vastly approaching The Room bad. Tommy Wiseau bad.

9:46 PM: LOL, Hitler holds up a mirror to himself and laughs maniacally. Trust me there is no irony here.

9:47 PM: Apologist feminism alert! The guy is covered up but the two girls are topless. This would be fine, if the dude in-front of me didn't keep saying 'Nipple' and/or 'sideboob' every time we see, well, nipple or sideboob. We're all mature adults here guys. Lets try and act like it huh.

9:48 PM: Apologetic feminism makes me feel a bigger person. A true child of the modern age.

9:49 PM: Sideboob.

9:51 PM: Oh. My. God. The centipede is now in the back garden, and Dr Hitler is pretending its a dog. Seriously movie?

9:52 PM: " I am not a dog." Nailed it Japanese man.

9:54 PM: In case y'all were curious. Japanese man is first, Lindsey is middle and Jenny brings up the rear.

9:57 PM: Fuck Yeah. Its the notorious they each have to eat each other's shit sequentially scene. Save this movie with your grossness!

9:58 PM: Well that was a washout (Pun always intended) You didn't even see anything. Isn't this supposed to be a horror movie.

10:02 PM: We're pretending we're a dog again. Just Doesn't know what to do with itself? Lame sado-masochist fantasy? I'm certainly not scared. Not really all that disgusted either to be honest.

Douchebag Intermission: Kids, sado-masochism is no joke, and even though these are my notes that I'm making organically in the moment and everything, I feel I have to stop this process in order to acknowledge that I believe that this particular issue is something that deserves the proper respect and intelligence that only...

10:05 PM: ....I'm falling in love with this thing, it just pulled its own version of a Donnie Darko montage, the worst most badly timed fade-outs the world ever did see. Plus the centipede looks so ridiculous it can't really have a poignant moment.

10:06 PM: Nipple.

10:07 PM: It turns out that twice recycled shit isn't quite the source of life one would have thought, and poor Jenny at the back is beginning to rot. That is a pretty cool visual movie, I'll give it that.

10: 09 PM: The Cops. Tell me they've arrived to end this movie.

10:11 PM: While Hitler deals with the fuzz, the centipede tries to escape up some stairs. Maybe it can escape looking ridiculous.

10:11 PM: WOOOOOOH. Nailed it Baxter.

10:15 PM: Lindsey lead the Big C into the room she nearly escaped out of before, but the glass pane has been filled in. That's gotta sting.

10:17 PM: Smash that glass pane, fuck yeah Japanese man.

10:19 PM: Hitler caught up with them, and what is surely the best moment of the film, Japanese man delivers a fairly coherent speech about being punished for his mis-deeds. Akihiro Katamura officially gets the best thing in The Human Centipede award. Is that really an award.

10:20: He just slit his throat. That sure fucks up the centipede. Hitler runs off to kill the cops, while Lindsey holds Jenny's hand. But what's that, Jenny just died from eating too much shit disease. Oh snap.

10:21 PM: Quite the catch-22 being the middle part of an otherwise dead centipede. Bitch be fucked.

10:25 PM: Worst action sequence ever ends in Hitler killing both cops, but the last one shoots him in the head before he dies. Crowd cheers. Dieter Laser you are one terrible actor.

10:28 PM: Cut back to Lindsey, alone in tears. I owe It's A Wonderful Afterlife an apology.

10:29 PM: Sideboob.

Rating: 1/10