One of the films currently playing at FrightFest over in the UK is a movie called Human Centipede: First Sequence. The plot, essentially, is this: A respected Siamese Twin surgeon has developed his future vision of the world. He wants to remove all humans’ kneecaps and then graft the humans together, mouth-to-anus, to form a human centipede. He kidnaps two American women and a Japanese man and begins the tissue matches, teeth removal, and buttock moulding to create his triplet creature, aka, the First Sequence.

Year: 2009
Directors: Tom Six
Writers: Tom Six
IMDB: link
Trailer: N/A
Gallery: link
Review by: Ben Austwick
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

The Human Centipede – when you read the title you're know you're in for something strange and disgusting, especially on learning that the centipede in question is a chain of humans sewn together mouth to anus in a surgical procedure. The idea is original and nasty enough to be horror in its own right - which is lucky as The Human Centipede never does much more than expand on its premise, one which is sick and twisted enough to carry the film, helped along by some great performances.

Things start pretty badly as two American tourists, Lindsey and Jenny (played by Ashley Williams and Ashlynn Yennie respectively), find themselves stranded in a remote part of Germany where, unsurprisingly, there is no mobile phone signal. They walk to the house of the creepy and uptight Dr Heiter (played with wry hamminess by Dieter Laser), a retired leader in the field of cojoined twin surgery who now wants to try a twisted, reverse version of his speciality and is on the hunt for victims. This disappointingly by-wrote set up, echoed later in the film in a pointless hide-and-chase scene that distracts from rather than adds to the real horror at The Human Centipede's core, and the averagely handled police intervention that brings the film to a head, point to a lack of ideas beyond the central subject matter.

The sometimes plodding nature of the film is rescued by a constant string of jokes, mainly through the comedy of Dieter Laser's performance and that of Akihiro Kitamura, Dr Heiter's third unfortunate victim, who makes up the “head” of the human centipede. Both play off each other brilliantly, Dr Heiter preening and even kissing himself in a mirror while Kitamura screams with anger at the "crazy German" tormenting him. Kitamura's over-the-top acting provides some real laughs, but is underpinned by warmth for his character as he suffers through a gamut of emotions, his initial rage giving way to the dehumanisation of being turned into a weird parody of an insect.

The body horror takes second seat to comedy throughout, but behind the laughs this is a dark film that while never exploring the human-technology interface of obvious influence David Cronenberg dwells extensively on the degradation, humiliation and pain of Dr Dieter's victims. The inevitable consequence of sewing people mouth-to-anus to form one long, complete digestive tract is realised in a sequence that invokes disgust and sympathy more than laughter. The trauma of the surgery is ever present and the sheer despair of their predicament is excruciating. While The Human Centipede only has its own title to work with, it explores the concept thoroughly with both humour and horror, and that is really quite enough.