The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence Review

Posted by Joseph Lee on 10.16.2011

100% cinematically incompetent.



Starring:

*Laurence R. Harvey as Martin Lomax
*Ashlynn Yennie as "Herself"
*Vivien Bridson as Mrs. Lomax
*Bill Hutchens as Dr. Sebring

Story: Inspired by the fictional Dr. Heiter, disturbed loner Martin dreams of creating a 12-person centipede and sets out to realize his sick fantasy.

Trivia: This film was banned in the U.K before 32 cuts (2 minutes and 37 seconds) were removed.

There's always been some argument among horror fans as to whether or not a movie is "torture porn". Could the Saw films be seen as this? What about Hostel? I'm in the camp that says that no, these are just more gory versions of slasher films. Saw has an actual story throughout the series. Basically, I've always felt it was a derogatory term for movies like the Saw films that most would insult for its violence but likely never actually watched something that's truly violent.

After watching it, I've determined that "torture porn" would be the best way to describe Tom Six's latest film, The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence. The victims are naked, they are tortured, and the antagonist gets sexual arousal from it. Of course if anyone in the real world feels the same as said antagonist, I recommend they stop reading this review and get institutionalized immediately. I fail to see what kind of pleasure, if any, could be derived from Human Centipede 2, and I've admitted elsewhere that I'm a fan of well-made gory horror.

But where do you draw the line? There is a somewhat disturbing game of One-upmanship in the horror genre. I wouldn't be able to say exactly when that started, but it's getting worse after the release of the original Human Centipede. The ironic thing is that Human Centipede itself was fairly tame in spite of its premise and was mostly underwhelming for that reason. It promised a shocking horror film, and outside of seeing the actual "human centipede" it wasn't any different from the rest. But Human Centipede led to A Serbian Film, which now leads to Human Centipede 2.

Human Centipede 2 takes place in the "real world", where a mentally challenged man is obsessed with the original film. So obsessed, in fact, that he begins attacking people in the parking garage where he works in order to build a longer human centipede segment of around twelve people. Of course he lacks the proper medical equipment and surgical no-how, but that's okay because he's really turned on by the idea. How turned on? A scene involves him pleasuring himself with sandpaper. He even gets an actress from the film (Ashlynn Yennie) to come along and be the front this time!

There are two ways I've seen this movie reviewed. As a straight horror film and as a dark (very dark) comedy. So I will attempt to tell you why The Human Centipede 2 works as neither. As horror, it isn't scary. There's nothing that invokes fear or the desire to sleep with the light on. Compare this to the first one, which actually had some genuine suspense. Not scares, mind you, but there was some attempt to make something of a story. It had a plot, however basic and bizarre it was.

As a dark comedy, it fails because it's simply not funny. You want to watch a funny dark comedy that also includes gore? Try the films of Frank Henenlotter. I'd rather watch all three Basket Case films on an continuous loop than sit through this movie again. That's how you take a ridiculous premise, add a lot of blood and still make it funny. This movie is the exact opposite. Maybe by making things a bit more goofy it is trying to lighten whatever tension some viewers must be experiencing. But it's more than likely to make the audience turn against it even quicker.

There are some very few positives to this Full Sequence The visual effects on the gore are really well done. As far as I can tell, they're practical too, which is a plus in the CG-dominated world of today. When a film leaves you questioning how effects were pulled off, then that's always a good thing. At the very least, I'm interested in catching some behind-the-scenes footage to see how they did some of the shots that they did.

Finally, the other positive would be the casting of the villain. The last film had an absolutely manic performance from Dieter Laser that made a boring film more entertaining than it had any right to be. This movie features some smart casting too, choosing unknown Laurence R. Harvey to be Martin Lomax. This is his first film and I'm half-convinced that Tom Six actually found him in some asylum or halfway house. He embodies his character so completely that he'll likely be typecast in these kinds of roles the rest of his career.

But the efforts are wasted on this. For the record, the gore itself didn't bother me. Truth be told, I've probably seen worse and so have many splatter fans. What bothers me is that it's just not a good movie. I'd only call it a movie in the sense that it is a "moving picture". It's not a film. It's a long lost Faces of Death tape. The movie follows a sick man who attacks people and builds his centipede. Once he is done, the movie more or less ends. It's just a series of grotesque images meant to shock and disgust. I'm not sure an attempt was even made to entertain here. Isn't that the purpose of cinema, to entertain?

The 411: The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence listens to whatever fans the original had and gives them more gore, more shocks and more disgusting images. The problem is that the gore is more gross than shocking, the scares are absent and there is no suspense or entertainment to be found at all. It has replaced those with one gross-out moment after another. The worst thing to be offended by from this movie is the fact that it's just lazy filmmaking.

Final Score:  2.0   [ Very Bad ]