The Human Centipede 2

I love extreme horror. It takes you places you wouldn't dare go in real life. The directors are fearless, and the images are grotesque. I love this genre, which is the exact reason I loathed The Human Centipede the first time I watched it. It was billed as "the sickest film ever made" and it was most definitely not. While I do respect it more now, it just was such a let down at the time. I'm fine with bloodless horror movies, but if it's advertised as a sick disgusting film, I kind of expect just that. At any rate, when the sequel came out, I was rightfully hesitant to see it. I read that it was more gross and explicit than the first one, but that didn't mean much to me. But being the horror fiend that I am, I rented it on demand, and I was completely blown away.

Everything good about the first film was magnified, and everything bad about it was addressed and promptly fixed. This time around, the film actually lives up to the hype, and succeeds in giving us a truly nasty flick.

The story revolves around Martin, a mute, disgustingly overweight guy who becomes obsessed with the first film (yes, they took a meta approach with this one). He loves The Human Centipede so much that he wants to make a creature of his own. He proceeds to capture people from the parking garage where he works, and takes them to a warehouse. He then grabs all of his household appliances (hammer, stapler, duct tape, etc) and attempts to make his own centipede. He succeeds. Oh, and it's a whopping twelve people long this time!

The film was shot in color but changed to black & white in post production because director Tom Six thought it looked scarier. I personally loved this choice as it leaves a lot to the imagination and makes the film look very raw and gritty. Also, like a lot of black & white movies these days, there is a splash of color near the end of the film (hint: it's brown).

The gore is amazing. It's very gruesome, especially when compared to the first film. This time around, we're treated with head bashing, teeth being extracted with a hammer, the caving in of faces, and messy, dirty, home-style surgery. I was very pleasantly surprised at his how deliciously gory this one was. The centipede, when finally assembled, was very cool and worth the long wait. There are also some sequences that launch it into extreme horror territory; one is a grotesque scene involving sandpaper, and another involves a baby. But, as I said, all of these things just prove that the ads were accurate this time around.

After watching this, I was so satisfied and it actually made me respect the first film more. What I hope Tom Six was thinking was, "look what I did with the first film, now look what I can do with the second." He made a somewhat disturbing film, and then he blind-sided everyone with its sequel. It's an awesome, grimy little horror flick, that will live in infamy as one of the sickest films ever made (for real this time).