The Human Centipede (2009)

Tom Six had a vision. He had an audacious idea. Unfortunately that idea would gestate into The Human Centipede, a cinematic stillbirth we are all worse off for.

From conception, the idea was malformed. The film's gimmick succeeds in being grotesque but little else. There is no appeal to the central attraction; it is awkward in every way and its image essentially reaches the level of aping niche pornography.

As the brain of the fetus developed, so too did the ill devised story on display. The stakes are clear: the characters seek to escape, one way or another. But the film minimizes the focus of escape as it is too fixated on feeding the characters a steady diet of suffering, among other things. Narratively, this offers almost nothing.

The dramatic limbs of our story took shape and were feeble. Performances are poor across the board, doing little to sell the absurdity of the scenario. The opening of the film showcases this perfectly, as the female actresses provide pitiful pantomime when their car has broken down in the rain. The physical performance delivered by the trio depicting the centipede required commitment, but this commitment resulted in no quality performance; just a gross one. The actors seem more as though they are a part of a donkey show than a film.

As a face takes shape, so too does the visual identity of the film. Color is used without much thought and when combined with the lighting, the film takes on a boring sterility. Not a single image of the film is memorable on the basis of artistic merit.

The child that nobody wanted, The Human Centipede arrives more as a poisonous tumor than anything human. A stillbirth is not enough. This movie warrants radical removal of the creative womb that bore it.