I have been less shocked by the boundary demolishing extremity of movies like HC2 and A Serbian Film than I have been with the repulsion and outrage they have engendered with critics in general and horror fans in particular. The sort of witch hunt rhetoric levied toward HC2 writer/director Tom Six is to be expected from an ill informed public, but coming from seasoned genre fans and battle hardened film critics borders on inexcusable. It has become an echo chamber of prurient hand wringing and misguided moralizing, all the more frustrating considering that Human Centipede 2 is the most effective and original horror film since perhaps The Exorcist and Dawn of The Dead.I understand how that might come off as some sort of quasi, Armond White style provocation, but think about it for a second. What horror films have made a serious impact over the last 35 years? The slashers were more important for the successful business model they incorporated than for any stylistic or thematic contribution to the genre. The goopy 80's rubber reality stuff was a blast back in the day, but thrives more in nostalgic corners of the brain than in an honest, analytic one. The Thing, Videodrome, From Beyond and Re-Animator could be argued as monumentally important, I suppose (cut me some slack, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here!). Save for Candyman and more mainstream psychological thrillers, the 90's were a wash. As soft a spot as I hold for my beloved Saw series, it is admittedly a dim witted and shoddy franchise regardless of how attuned to the zeitgeist it was. The recent spate of remakes have been intermittently entertaining and drenched in post 9/11 angst, but by virtue of being remakes, are ultimately doomed to a dead end repetition of their forbears most salient points. I'm not saying there haven't been great horror films since the death of disco, hell, I could list you 50 off the top of my head, I'm just saying there haven't been any as structurally and thematically innovative in both presentation and intent.
Having now seen the unrated directors cut of Human Centipede 2 a total of three times on bluray, I feel I must speak up and make an impassioned defense and celebratory heralding. The central conceit of HC2 is that it takes place in a world where the original Human Centipede exists as a film and serves as the main characters horrifying inspiration. I have thought long and hard about this and have been unable to think of a single previous instance where this exact scenario has occurred. It is an ingenious set up, all the more so for its simplicity. It's the sort of thing where I'm sure people have thought of it before, but decided something so narratively brazen wouldn't be tolerated by your average audience. Some people say why, and much like Mickey Knox from Natural Born Killers, Tom Six says why bother. From here on out, spoilers abound, so consider yourself warned.
The thing that elevates Six's work from the dated, watery deconstruction of self referential movies like Scream, is that he uses his films self awareness for something other than winking and nodding. Like Haneke, except with balls and not totally boring, Six holds the mirror up to those who would search out such entertainment and invites us to join him in a 90 minute belly laugh at our shared psychological reflection. The lead character Martin is a mute, rotund, mentally retarded mommas boy, obsessed with his favorite horror movie, keeping a lovingly constructed scrapbook of it under his bed like an illicit nudie mag. Fetishizing and fantasizing about having the power to inflict unspeakable cruelty on all who bully him or make him feel inferior. Sounds an awful lot like a pimply, 14 year old Friday the 13th fan to me. Six takes that gag to gag inducing extremes. This film is the cinematic equivalent of the Aristocrats routine, taking a one note joke so far beyond the realm of acceptability, it eventually winds its way back to being funny again.
Make no mistake, this film will take you into the gaping maw of hell for that punchline. In all my imaginings and all the cinematic approximations of eternal torment and punishment, this is now the standard bearer. The last 40 minutes of Human Centipede 2 are so unremittingly bleak, so punishingly grim, one feels even the very notion of their soul being erased while watching it. Human Centipede 2 makes Salo look like White Christmas. The seemingly endless sequence of Martin removing his victims teeth with a hammer, cutting their tendons and staple gunning their lips around each others rectums is so apocalyptically awful to behold, it simply becomes hilarious. It concludes in his exultant rapture with his completed creation, taking a bow for the imagined cheap seats (really for us, the audience) in his underwear and blood stained lab coat. A moment so adorably psychotic, you can't help but applaud the end result of his vomitous tenacity.
In baffling fashion, after all this, the atrocities keep escalating until you either quit watching out of revulsion or are doubled over guffawing at their sickening invention. His centipede eventually breaks apart in grueling detail, and in a rage, Martin storms from one person to the next, systematically executing each segment. This is where the film becomes so terrifyingly unwholesome, it feels as if it were ready to burst into hellfire and disintegrate, noxious ash spilling out of the bluray tray. Then, it cuts to where we the film began, Martin watching the original Human centipede, clearly having just played out in his head how HE would have done it. The preceding film apparently the sick imaginings of a mind warped by scummy movies and sexual abuse. In the distance, we hear a lone wailing infant. A call back to what we thought were imaginary crimes, or perhaps the internal howl of his scourged inner child? Either way, this film cuts down to the core of why we watch violent entertainment in a deeply unsettling manner, illuminating the darkest recesses of mankind's hidden malevolent heart.
Other than the transgressive, heady aspect of it, the black and white photography is stunning. Somehow finding the beauty in pools of black blood and the poetry in flickering fluorescent lights. Lawrence Harvey turns in a towering performance as Martin. When I first heard of a sequel, I was certain it wouldn't succeed without Dieter Laser returning as Dr. Heiter. Harvey's Martin transcends that iconic performance, making the series his own. Without uttering a single intelligible line of dialog, he dominates the film. He's terrifying, he's grotesque, he's a comic genius, yet also so pitiable it's heart breaking. I put his performance up against any other character study film out there. Not since Joe Spinnell in Maniac or Michael Rooker in Henry have I seen bottomless depravity and boundless cruelty so convincingly essayed.
I feel that people are watching this film with the wrong kind of eyes. This is Tim and Eric by way of David Lynch. A truly post everything kind of a film. End of the line type stuff. Something to watch as the earth tilts off its axis, spilling cities and seas into the void. Pedestrian complaints about pacing and plot do not apply here. People were revolted by Psycho and Peeping Tom once upon a time as well. Give this a few decades and we'll see how the worm turns.
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