Some Thoughts on "The Human Centipede"

(This contains some spoilers. If you’re going to watch the movie, you might want to skip this.)

A mad scientist abducts three people – one man and two women. He removes some of their teeth and stitches them together, grafting ass to mouth, in a chain. He also cuts the ligaments in their knees so they can’t stand up. The result is what he calls “The Human Centipede”. He shows us a drawing, depicting the gastric system going through all three people. This, it would seem, is his goal. He wants food to be eaten by person #1 digested and shat into person #2, who digests it and then shits it into person #3, who then digests it and shits it out.

The movie is surprisingly clean, arty, and simple – even while it’s disgusting and weird. There’s surprisingly little gore. It’s more the concept that’s horrifying.

There are a lot of familiar horror movie tropes here, but they’re well executed, and quick, getting us to the gross stuff. Two tourist girls driving through Germany have their car break down. They go up to a house, looking for help. Inside is a mad scientist who wants to do terrible things to them. Wait a minute -- is this The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

I get the feeling all of this standard horror movie schlock is meant to serve as an “envelope” for the disgusting concept in the middle. It’s all so familiar. So shouldn’t the human centipede ass-to-mouth madness feel familiar? No. Of course, it doesn’t feel familiar. It’s disgusting, and new, and insane. Which is why the movie is so controversial and getting so much attention.

The film delivers exactly what it promises, which surprised me. At the same time, it feels like there’s more here than is being shown. The big question, which is never really answered, is WHY? Why does a scientist, mad or otherwise, want to do this? Why make a human centipede?

There are hints. The mad doctor used to take Siamese twins apart; now he wants to put people together.

One of his victims yells out, are you getting a sexual thrill from this?

Looking at the doctor, he isn’t. Not really. We see a real pervert, early in the film. He’s fat. He waggles his tongue. He’s obvious and gross. He wants to fuck the two hot girls.

By comparison, our crazy doctor isn’t like that at all. He’s clean, fastidious, weird, isolated, and German. This isn’t about sex. This is about something else. There’s something weird in his head that he wants to bring to life. He’s an artist. He has a vision. And it would appear it has something to do with poop.

One of the doctor’s first victims is a trucker going off into the woods to take a dump. We see the doctor stalk the guy, and shoot him, even as the trucker is squatting to take a crap. This feels, oddly, like the director establishing a theme. And that theme is crap.

When the man who is segment one has to take a crap, he begs segment two for forgiveness. She realizes with horror that someone is about to shit in her mouth and she has no choice but to eat it.

“Feed her!” the doctor bellows in triumph to segment 1.

“Swallow!” he demands of segment 2.

Why is this exciting or important to the mad doctor? It doesn’t seem sexual. It seems more primitive than sex. It’s something psychotic and childish and Freudian. Yes, he wants to beat the centipede into submission, but only to fulfill his vision, his purpose.

But why poop? Why play with poop?

Everyone has an embarrassing family story about toilet training. One such story I heard is of a kid who wouldn’t poop on the toilet. He would only poop in his diaper. The kid refused to be potty trained. The frustrated parents asked a doctor for advice. The doctor explained that the kid thinks the poop is a piece of himself and doesn’t want to give it up. He doesn’t want it taken away, That’s why he will only poop in his diaper -- he gets to keep his crap.

The doctor’s solution: let the kid run around naked. That way, when he poops, it will just fall out of him and hit the ground. Thus the kid learns poop isn’t a part of him – it’s just waste.

In The Human Centipede, something similar is going on. Shit is food. Shit is power. Shit is magic. Shit needs to be held on to for as long as possible. The mad doctor wants to make a highway for shit to travel, so it stays inside for a long, long time.

As adult human beings, we have been taught that poop is disgusting and vile. We definitely shouldn’t play with it. Toilet humour is the lowest form of comedy there is. Using poop for horror is beyond offensive. It’s taboo. It’s psychologically forbidden. This is why "The Human Centipede" is getting such amazingly disgusted reactions from critics and audience members. The film is carefully treading into our most primitive memories.

Before the three people are stitched together, one of the women tries to escape. She is the hero o the story, sort of. The mad doctor is pleased by her feistiness. He tells her that her courage has proved to him that she gets the place of honour. She gets to be the middle segment.

What? Wait. Why is the middle the place of honour? Shouldn't that be the first segment, who doesn't have to eat crap?

What possible logic is at work here? Why is the middle position best? Is it because all her needs are met, without having to do any work? She is fed by the person in front of her. (Fed poop, mind you.) Her ass is automatically cleaned by the person behind her. Is this some sort of idyllic position for our mad doctor?

Some of you are reading this and thinking I’m the crazy one. Why ask why? The guy is nuts, he wants to stitch mouths to asses. He’s a pervert. That’s the end of it. This film is stupid and gross. Don’t dwell on it. Ew, ew, ew.

I think that’s entirely wrong. The weird thing about this film is that some primitive, Freudian part of us sees “poop magic” as normal. That’s why the film is so compelling. It takes the standard horror movie formula, and puts this demented shit-filled, Freudian centipede in the centre. It dares us to find it sick and weird, even as the movie is a fairly pedestrian horror film.

The ending is fascinating to me. It takes that middle segment place of honour and makes it truly disturbing and horrible. Segment 1 kills himself. Segment 3 dies of some kind of infection. That leaves the woman in the middle. She’s grafted to two corpses. No one will feed her. No one will clean up after her. She’s alone in the house. Everyone else in the story -- the doctor, two policemen -- is dead. The camera wanders away, panning up to the roof of the house, leaving her in that situation. The end.

The film left me with a lot to think about. There’s a lot going on. For example, the doctor is compared to God. Is he trying to create something perfect? At one point he gets excited at the idea of making a longer centipede, adding new segments. How far could he take this? Does he want to create some sort of society where everyone is linked together? Is this about bondage and beating, or about everyone “knowing their place”?

If you can get past the grossness, this is definitely a film worth seeing.

See Roger Ebert’s review.