Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) Movie Review
Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) Movie Review
Directed by Tom Six, starring Laurence R. Harvey
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I feel almost apologetic for not hating Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (or its predecessor, for that matter). These are the kinds of movies I should loathe, and usually do. They're vile, grotesque, exploitative, not especially well-acted and have a million plot holes. But there is just something about the sickening style and level of suspense writer-director Tom Six has created in both films that's managed to hook me twice now.
Human Centipede 2 is quite a bit different from the first in its characterizations and setting, though the set up is the same (disgusting medical experimentation). Far removed from the stately, remote lavishly colorful home laboratory of the erudite and composed Dr. Heither (Dieter Laser), the next "creator" is slovenly schlub Martin (Laurence R. Harvey, channeling Peter Lorre with a dash of Pruitt Taylor Vince), a black and white parking garage attendant who is so obsessed with Dr. Heither's crime that he wants only to surpass it and will stop at nothing to do so.
The dastardly doings take place in the concrete basement of Martin's hellish hole of a warehouse he uses as a "lab" to conduct the gruesome goings-on with victims culled from Human Centipede 2 casting call (meta alert!). Revolting methods of dispatch and torture include sexual violation with sandpaper, barbed wire, crowbars and the like — but it's so over the top and obviously satirical (fandom at its freakiest), it absolutely cannot be taken to heart. It's all about the shock factor, and shock it does only because of Six's acumen in setting up the chilling cruelties and somehow making the victims' suffering seem real in the midst of unreality.
That's in the beginning, anyway — the film does devolve into an assembly line of so much cinematic upchuck in the, er, end. While Human Centipede 2 isn't as "good" (for lack of a better word) as Human Centipede 1, it's still an impressive effort from a filmmaker who is actually making singularly deranged films and not just following the Hostel herd. (However, if Human Centipede 3 is a found footage movie, I'm done!)
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson