Meditations on 'The Human Centipede'

Films about mad scientists with an affinity for bizarre experimentation are nothing new. What is new, however, is having your archetypal mad scientist attempt to attach three people anus-to-mouth so they can share a single digestive tract. Given the originality of that premise as well as humanity's universal repulsion of excrement, any sort of marketing was going to allow this film to gain notoriety (and let's not forget the scene when the front end of the centipede takes a poo). Despite the undeniable grossness of The Human Centipede there are two things about the film I found to be endearing.

The Human Centipede is a schlocky horror film. Sure, you may not immediately associate it with something riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but think about it sans the centipede.  How did our heroines get into their predicament? It was a dark and stormy night and they needed to find a party. On their way they take a few wrong turns and end up on a deserted road in the middle of a forest. Then their car gets a flat tire and need to call for help. Uh-oh! Wouldn't you know it, they see a light in the distance, conclude there must be a phone in there, and become acquainted with this guy:

The  picture should provide a clue as to what happens next. 

That is pretty standard stuff. Replace the human centipede with, say, a head in a pan and you have one of the worst horror movies ever made. However, by taking horror movie cliches to the most disgusting extreme the film becomes an inspired bit if genius; black humor on a meta level, if you will.

The next thing on my short list of endearing traits this film possessed was its tagline: 100% medically accurate. I'm no doctor, but upon watching the film, sure, what happened was more or less 100% medically accurate. Whether or not the tagline is true is irrelevant; what matters is that the reaction it generated was genuine. I first heard about Human Centipede in an e-mail from a friend. My friend excitedly mentioned that doctors verified the accuracy of the premise. A few months later I was talking to a B-horror movie aficionado and she more or less proclaimed "and they say it's 100% medically accurate!" This, I think, taps into the spirit of the film. What is the spirit of the film? You can find it in the fake trailer for Mant in the 1993 film Matinée:

What stuck me about Human Centipede and Mant is how both films shared the same promotional tactic, in this case "What you about to see could really happen!" That Human Centipede shares this element of kitsch is missed because, well, it's hard to focus on something other than three people surgically attached anus-to-mouth. Still, I think it's worth mentioning that Human Centipede is not really different for a film such as Mant.

When you removed the human centipede from The Human Centipede you have a B-level body horror film from the 50s with a cheap (but effective) marketing ploy. I find it comforting that a classic horror film plot structure is still being used, amusing that it was taken to its most grotesque extreme, and charming that people are still intrigued by something ridiculous because it just might be true.