Who's there?
Centipede.
Centipede who?
Santa peed on my Christmas tree!
Okay, so the Roxie is notorious for their Christmas celebrations. I missed the Amy Sedaris event just because tickets were a bit much. And I missed the DIE HARD/DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER double bill because I went to see Don Hertzfeldt. But of course I wasn't going to miss their double bill of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 1 and 2. Not that it isn't totally worth missing, it's just I'm bit of a glutton for punishment.
So I've seen the HUMAN CENTIPEDE 1 (FIRST SEQUENCE) before, and I can charitably say I was unimpressed (but it was better than SHREK FOREVER AFTER. I forgot I saw them on the same evening). It's not just that it's a distasteful, disgusting premise, it's that it doesn't even attempt to offer an insight into the dark corners of the human experience. The fact that the movie was made says more about humanity than anything actually in the movie. And on a second viewing, I'll stand by that statement even more. The only thing I got from a second viewing is noticing how much glass gets broken. Yeah, a few people get tortured, but glass really has it rough.
Okay, now for HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE). I begrudgingly liked it more than the first, but it still suffers from having no connection to the human experience. It's definitely funnier, and more visceral than the first. And it goes meta right away. This time the villain is Martin, a pudgy retarded security guard obsessed with the first movie and dreams of expanding on the fictional Dr. Heiter's project. Once again, casting is perfect as Laurence R. Harvey is perfect in the role. Of course, he's no doctor so while the first movie was sterile and clinical, in this one he performing the operation with hammers, pliers, steak knives, and staple guns. And yes, it's a 12 person centipede (at least, that's what IMDb says, I could've sworn I only counted 10, but then I was pretty drunk). And the result is gory, messy, and hilarious. And I'm not the only one who thought that. The small audience of sickos in the audience also laughed at it.
Beyond that, the meta-humor gets tedious fast. Use it as a set up and then stop mentioning the original. And if I'm being charitable and search for any statement about the human condition in the film, I suppose it's that fans of such films are sick, disturbed villains. Fair...uninteresting, but fair.
I still like my idea for the planned third film: a kinky fetish club that gets off on "centipeding" kidnaps a doctor and force him to operate on them.
Total Running Time: 180 minutes
My Total Minutes: 259,452
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