Review by Jason Lees

I love Love LOVE this movie, but for all the wrong reasons. I loaded it into the DVD player expecting to be sickened and put off, but found myself laughing more than cringing, and for once not because I'm a sick bastard.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE is getting hyped as the most shocking film of the last ten years, and its premise is pretty extreme. We follow a sadistic German mad doctor (redundant?) as he goes from being a respected physician who separates conjoined twins to joining random strangers. Seems logical to me. What else would doctor types do in their golden years? Now, we've seen this before, sewing two people together, but never quite like this. Instead of attaching the subjects by their bellies or their limbs, here we're treated to the '100% Medically Accurate' technique of jury rigging up the victims' digestive system into a series. Subject A has his rectum surgically enhanced to connect to Subject B's mouth, and then Subject B gets to have lucky Subject C attached to her own end.

Yup, you guessed it. Not a Disney flick.

The genius to THC is that as bad as all this sounds, the film is actually pretty tame. What comes off on paper as being the most bat shit crazy of premises is handled with so much restraint and taste that it becomes a film about people in shock, not people in a ludicrous situation. Writer/director Tom Six figures that the synopsis alone will do half his work for him. The title configuration of the three victims joined ass to mouth is never clearly seen in an exploited way, but it's apparent to anyone watching what is going on. It doesn't have to be graphic when it's so well set up in the viewers' minds. And I do realize the absurdity of using both the word 'restraint' and the phrase 'ass to mouth' to describe the execution of this film, but it really is the key to its success.

And it is a success, but not as the most extreme movie of the year. What it succeeds at is being the best Mad Doctor in decades. Dieter Laser's Dr. Heiter is the scariest German guy since The Monster Squad and his almost drug induced lost stare is about the creepiest thing I’ve seen. It’s not the film’s more over the top moments that will haunt you, it’s Laser’s subtle choices that sell the flick. Trust me, while you may not have waking nightmares about being sewn to your best friend’s face, after watching "THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE" you will never accept a glass of water from anyone with German accent, especially one wearing a white lab coat.

Oh, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, how I love a world in which you exist on the Wal-Mart shelf right next to Harry Potter.