The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
2009 · Directed by Tom Six
Original language: English
- horror
The story
During a stopover in Germany in the middle of a carefree road trip through Europe, two American girls find themselves alone at night when their car breaks down in the woods. Searching for help at a nearby villa, they are wooed into the clutches of a deranged retired surgeon, who has a very disturbed vision.
What it’s like
Flat, clinical light in a sterile German villa, with cold fluorescents, pale tile and a lot of static framing that holds on the wrongness of a room. The digital image is smooth and unforgiving, and the sound is mostly restrained: long stretches of quiet, hospital-clean sounds, then a sudden, wet and unbearably close intimacy when the horror lands. The mood is airless dread turning into revulsion, a bleak, cruel, deeply unpleasant tone with almost no warmth or relief. Intensity is high and explicit: graphic bodily mutilation, sustained sadistic cruelty, kidnapping and captivity, and coprophagic content shown or strongly implied, all played for disgust rather than suspense. Violence is frequent and brutal throughout. Pacing is slow and deliberate, building through humiliating, claustrophobic scenes to its grotesque centrepiece. This is for viewers who want extreme body horror and transgressive provocation, not anyone looking for something gentle, comforting, or easy to sit with.
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