Unfortunately, that's exactly what the makers and proprietors of this shlock want. The second the most widely known and respected critic in the entire world gave Human Centipede the review of unmitigated shock and disgust they were angling for, he gave it legitimacy. Which is one thing I have over Ebert: no one respects my opinion, much less knows or even cares who the fuck I am.
And honestly, I still can't believe I'm even doing this genre critique/review for two reasons: first, I don't want this movie to earn a cent because my review caused someone to go to the theater to see what I'm all butthurt about, astronomical though those odds must be. And second, I seriously can't believe it. I just can't. After being exposed to this movie last night, I woke up this morning with a strange sense of denial about the whole thing. Like, I can't actually believe this movie even really exists. I mean, I know it does. I'm looking at it right now. It's clear as day. I see the title, I see the screen, and yet it just feels like it can't really actually be a thing. A thing that millions upon millions of dollars were spent to make. This must be how people feel when they realize they've won the lottery. The rape lottery.
So step aside, Ebes; let an amateur handle this.
I didn't always hate the torture porn genre. In fact, there was a point where I defended it. There was a point where I thought labeling it "torture porn" missed the point. After all, if you want to make an omelet, you've got to brutally rend a few eggs. Of course, at the time I was also defending better movies.
To wit, I will defend Saw--the movie, not the franchise--to the death, even if it means being eaten alive by a horde of angry scarabs unless I can bite my own fingers off in 60 seconds, that I may never again type another harsh word about Kevin Greutert.
Saw, and its spiritual predecessor Se7en, actually had something to say. Saw's three principal characters were deeply flawed but fundamentally likable people in horrendous circumstances. Adam and Lawrence find themselves trapped in Jigsaw's human experiment, while detective Tapp can generously be called "obsessed" with bringing Jigsaw to justice. Adam and Lawrence both harbor a dark past of secrets and lies, condemned to play the game for "not valuing life." It's a punishment and an offer of a cure--a second chance at life--all they have to do is survive Jigsaw's game.
That's it. That's all there is. No secret pasts, no outlandish justifications or sob stories, no flashbacks to "the time before I became a villain." Just two guys chained in a room and only one key to salvation. And a ticking clock.
From the moment we are introduced to these characters, we become judges, arbiters of a twisted morality. We can cheer for one or both of these men to overcome their foibles and co-operate and win the game and their freedom, or we can cheer for them to be crushed. It's Jigsaw's warped sense of objectivist morality and survival instinct or redemption.
And as for the blood--there's plenty, to be sure. But honestly, go back and watch Saw or even Saw II again. There's actually not that much. A lot of scenes are gut-wrenchingly difficult to watch because of the anticipation of something being done, not in the act itself. Adam and Lawrence are given the opportunity to free themselves of their shackles by cutting through their own feet. It's a gruesome decision that stirs in the background of every decision and escape plan, and the tension ramps to a head at the critical moment of the live-or-die decision. Horror is a guillotine poised to strike; torture porn is watching the execution and then the severed head being bashed with croquet mallets for 90 minutes.
More than the threat of inevitability is the aftermath. The murderers of horror movie legend all had more than one masterpiece, each of them linking the story to an inevitable climax. I can think of few better examples than Leland Orser, who was in Se7en for all of a minute-and-a-half, and I still rate his screen-time as more shocking and memorable than virtually any other scene in the movie.
If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about
A strong script and good actors convey way more than all the red dye and corn syrup the effects department could whip up. When viewing gore on the silver screen, it's easy to create a barrier between what you're watching and what really exists. We know special effects when we see them. But good actors conjure emotions, impulses, twitches, memories, mannerisms--the stuff of humanity--and bring that composite to life. The above scene from the police station interview room comes from a dark place in the mind of someone who has been forced to do a thing too rotten to comprehend. Had we seen it ourselves, we'd be grossed out and maybe avoid red meat at the dinner table for a couple weeks, but this brief scene shows us more than we wanted to know. It's something that will never, ever go away.
Oh, wait, isn't that exactly what John Doe wanted? Wow, it's almost like there's a compelling story here.
Compare Saw and Saw II to Hostel and you see why it's so necessary for a decent torture porn movie to have an ethos. Saw was an intriguing premise because the characters were likable enough to want to see them succeed, but flawed enough that you don't want them to weasel out of it too easy. Hostel, by contrast, is a story of a couple of stereotypical douchebags going to Europe, getting tricked, and then becoming unwilling victims of a snuff fantasy camp.
It's a display of agony and human suffering for its own sake. It is objectively bad to pay $25,000 to torture and kill a person, so I understand the conflict. But since the poor saps on the receiving end of it are just kind of dicks, I don't really want them to succeed so much as I don't think they should be tortured to death. The entire "entertainment" value of the movie is just supposed to be watching some dudes getting tortured while sitting in the audience and pretending that these are the bullies that shoved your head in the toilet during passing period in middle school.
But even still, a good movie can be made around that premise. Untraceable is a perfect example of a movie that, in spite of the soul-shattering brutality, actually has the presence of mind to keep it relevant. The basic premise of Untraceable is that a hacker has been kidnapping people and making them the unwilling stars of his online snuff show. The more hits his website gets, the quicker the star's messy demise, making the viewers accessories to the murder he's broadcasting live. It's a stunning display of self-awareness for a supposedly "base" genre. Untraceable turns the mirror to both itself and the audience. We demand to be shocked in spite of ourselves. We eat this shit up, sick as it makes us.
And speaking of eating shit, that brings me perfectly back to Human Centipede. I earned that segue. YOU HEAR THAT INTERNET I EARNED IT
So if you've made it this far you must be wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, it's your standard "car breaks down in the middle of the European countryside oh gosh it's rainy dearest me shouldn't we find some cover why yes I think that creepy looking isolated mansion in the middle of the woods will do just nicely oh who is this nice gentleman my word is he a German mad scientist who is going to surgically attach us all ass to mouth and and experiment on us why yes I think he mffff hmmmfff fmmm mrrrrrff mmmmph" story.
Yeah, I think that pretty much nails down the gist of it. It's the kind of movie that, after watching, you can't really chuckle at how savage the Roman empire was compared to the 21st century, what with their Colosseum and all.
It's the kind of movie that leaves you shaking your head and wondering why and how. Why anyone would make this and how we, as a species, could have ever evolved so far as to call this entertainment.
Although it certainly does make a powerful metaphor for the Saw series. See?
Incidentally, more work went into this image than any of the last four Saw movies
There aren't any protagonists in the movie. There are victims and a mad scientist. The characters are paper-thin, not so much people as they are screams and tears with bodies attached. By the time they've been been captured and surgically mutilated in the movie, what more is there? Nothing remains except to watch this abomination writhe and suffer. In Saw, no one survived the game without paying a cost, but the cost was never so great as to outweigh survival.
In Untraceable, there is no hope of salvation for any of the victims. We aren't there to root for anyone. We're spectators and the movie wants to make damn well sure we know that. But Human Centipede? We have no reason to root for the victims because we don't care who they are. They're so mutilated that there's nothing left but to die. It's like watching a coma patient on life support while your asshole kid neighbor kicks at the plug in the wall socket.
To put it another way, at some point you've just got to total the car.
It's human misery as spectacle with absolutely no redeeming value. The only answer to this this movie provides us with is to the question "when is it okay to go ass-to-mouth?"
"Well?"
That's not to say more terrible movies haven't been made (after all, Korean filmmaker Jin Won Kim made The Butcher, a 75-minute torture and death-rape extravaganza, which I think edges this one out in terms of hateful, exploitative films with absolutely no redeeming value--but I'm just a big softie for death-rape). I'm saying that this brand of torture porn is a waste. A waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of effort. It has nothing to offer, especially in a 21st century world where you can have your daily dose of human misery for free on the Internet, without having to rely on the finicky schedules of cunning hacker-kidnappers.
I understand if people can't get through the day without watching total strangers breathe their last in a strange place thousands of miles away from home. That's what Wikileaks is for. What I'm saying is that there's no reason, purpose, or value in paying studios to manufacture it and market it as entertainment.
If after all of that, you still feel like you must see this movie--whether it be for the hype, the gross-out factor, or being able to beat off with your own tears while imagining the faces of the three girls who shot you down for the prom being surgically grafted to each others asses--please don't pay money for it.
This is the 21st century after all.
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