Review: The Human Centipede 2: The Full Sequence

Note from Mike: I can't think of a film I wanted to see less than Tom Six's Human Centipede 2: The Full Sequence. It's not that I'm squeamish, or don't love gore as much as the next guy, it's just that I couldn't see the point. As reviews of the film leaked I figured I'd take a pass. Lucky for our site, my good friend Kendrah volunteered to write a review for us. She's an amazing artist and friend, and I implore you to check out her site (lined below) and leave us losts of feedback so I can wrangle her into writing for us more often.

Review by: Kendrahwithanh 

I never really considered myself a fan of gore-oriented horror, but I do like to push boundaries and see just how much disturbing imagery my little brain can take. The answer? - Apparently quite a lot.

I thought when I saw the truly depraved work of Srdjian Spasojevic in “A Serbian Film” that was the lowest people could stoop, the worst that I could possibly see in a movie. I did not think anyone would be able to top that for quite some time and certainly not in a sequel to an over-the-top ridiculous “horror” film whose star actor bears the name “Dieter Laser.”

“Human Centipede II – Full Sequence” proved me oh so wrong.

Dutch filmmaker Tom Six’s first installment of “Human Centipede” was so laughably disturbing that it spawned an endless waterfall of internet memes and gained a notoriety that few could have predicted. For those who saw it, we were split into two camps – those completely nauseated by it and those tickled to death at the hilarity. In the second installment, he took the mood of the film to an entirely different level and pushes this divide even further apart. Most people I told about this movie could hardly believe I had watched the first one, let alone went back for seconds.

In the world of HC2, the first movie is just that – a movie. It opens with the last few horrifying moments of the first film, and pans out to show our main character, Martin Lomax (Laurence R. Harvey) watching it on a laptop inside a tollbooth at his parking garage job. “Human Centipede” is Martin’s only escape from his disturbing home life – a father in prison, a mother who hates him and a psychiatrist who makes regular house visits in and sexually assaults him. He keeps a centipede as a pet, has a scrap book dedicated to the film and its actors, and in one cringe-inducing scene, masturbates to the film with sandpaper. When Martin’s mother finds the scrapbook and destroys it, he goes mad, kills her and decides to recreate the experiment of the Human Centipede but to the next level – creating a “true” centipede out of not 3 but 12 people. He also impersonates a casting agent and successfully recruits one of the actors from the original movie - Ashlynn Yennie who played link “C.”.

The film takes an intensely dark turn when Martin goes on a kidnapping spree and assembles his homage. He grabs up anyone who presents him the opportunity, including his downstairs neighbors and the most disturbing link – an extremely pregnant woman whose presence fills the audience with a palpable dread of horror to come. Lacking any medical expertise, he severs their tendons in the tradition of the first film and knocks out their teeth with hammers –graphically probing their mouths with his fingers to fish out the teeth. He brutally cuts their buttocks apart and uses a staple gun to attach them to each other – a long scene that I am drastically downplaying the grossness of. During this, two of his centipede links die, including the pregnant woman. As if the images we just experienced were not enough, Martin then injects a powerful laxative into several of his victims and show in explicit detail what the first film only implied. These scenes are so exaggeratedly done one can only laugh at how ghastly it all is.

And then what the audience is waiting for since her arrival on the scene – the pregnant woman regains consciousness and attempts an escape. In an unsettling chase scene, she gets into a car and goes into labor in the front seat. I won’t even go into detail about what happens during this moment, but it puts “A Serbian Film’s” baby-oriented scene to shame.

As if to say a final “fuck you” to the audience’s ability to stomach such depictions, the film ends the same way it began – with Martin watching the original film at work, leaving us to believe it was all in his imagination.

I went to this movie with a good friend who fortunately shares the same sick humor that I do. In a small theater, about 10 other people were also brave enough to go see this movie in public. Between holding back our nausea, we were all laughing hysterically at the sheer ridiculousness of what was before us.

Martin doesn’t utter more than 2 words during the entire film, which leads you to be disturbed by what he is doing but somehow not hold him too accountable for it. I think this was the only way to keep the level of humor from the first movie while still being as gruesome as possible, and very well done. A movie with such brutal carnage needs the contrast in order to be even remotely bearable.

I don’t think Tom Six has much of a future in movies. He had the good fortune of getting an idea not many people would choose to execute and found several people stupid enough to fund it. The Human Centipede sequences will take their place in Horror Movie History, but I don’t think many people will be begging for more. Much like a visit to a Thai brothel, it was fun while it lasted but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone and I wouldn’t want to do it again.

Kendrahwithanh spends most of her days making art which can be found at kendrahwithanh.tumblr.com, and watching horror movies. She is currently working on a full-length boogeyman graphic novel.