Gentle readers, let me ask you: “You down with O.P.P.?”

Before you respond, allow me to clarify: I am not quoting the ever-so-catchy Naughty by Nature song from 1991. No, I want to know if you’re down with other people’s poop. Because, if you’re not, Director Tom Six’s The Human Centipede may not be for you.

And if you are…dear God, why?

Anyway.

American tourists Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) and Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) are enjoying a vacation in Germany until they get lost in the woods (literally) and seek refuge in the home of Dr. Josef Heiter (Dieter Laser). Dr. Heiter is a world-renowned expert at separating conjoined twins.  However, at some point between his retirement and the beginning of the film, he went irretrievably insane and now is more interested in creating conjoined twins. Thus, it was Dr. Heiter’s good fortune that two potential portions for his pet project fell into his lap.

There is no getting around the premise of the film.  As Dr. Heiter explains to the girls and soon-to-be lead portion, Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura), in specific detail-he will surgically mutilate and then attach each of them mouth to anus to form one disgusting creature. Why? Because he’s crazy!

What’s worse is that he actually performs the surgery. That’s right, The Human Centipede is not a film that jokes around, or merely hints at what could be. No, the title of the film is The Human Centipede and, by gum, Tom Six gives you a human centipede! But then the story continues for another 45 minutes! Over the course of which the audience learns that, while being part of a human centipede is one of the most disgusting ideas put on film, it is not the worst thing that could happen to you.

One difficulty in watching the picture, other than keeping your last meal down, is that it’s difficult for the audience to sympathize with these girls. One does sympathize, of course, because no one should go through even half the things that happen here. However, Six could have tried to make these girls a bit more competent in horror movie survival. Think back to every horror film you’ve watched. Combine all the of the mistakes characters make, and you’ve got these two girls. Getting out of the car on a deserted road on a rainy night, wandering in the woods with a flashlight, going back in the house instead of running for help, hiding in a corner, not checking what’s in your drink, and-worst of all-not running in the opposite direction when a scary/Germani/Mengele/Christopher Walken opens the door.

Dieter Laser is the real find here. Having the burden of about 60% of the dialogue all by himself (it’s hard to talk with a mouthful of…yeah) and competing with one of the more striking visuals in recent horror movie history, Laser commands the audience’s attention at all times. He’s creepily fascinating and cannot wait to see him in future films.

The Human Centipede is an impressive picture. Aside from some minor pacing issues in the second half and the overall brutally disgusting subject matter. It delivers exactly what it says it will, and is far more interesting that I ever thought it would be. That said, I can’t think of a person I’d recommend it to, and would require a signed and notarized consent and waiver before I show it to anyone.

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The Setup

Horror movies derive a great deal of their tension from our darkest fears of everyday places and things. In this case, those very things are the fauna of Mother Nature herself. That’s right. Our pets, our animal bretheren, and those cute fuzzy creatures that always populate the background of the latest Disney animated “classic.” These films seek to prove to you just how…terrifying a fluffball of fuzzy furry fury can truly be.

Squirrels are adorably harmless creatures that populate our back yards and woodlands. But what about rabid squirrels? Dear god! That’s scary!!! But wait, what if they were wait-for-it. . . Radioactive Rabid Vampire Squirrels? That’s our movie! R.R.V.S: Curse of the Blood Acorn

Every era has a flagship “Killer Animals” movie, in which animals are corrupted by whatever the culture was afraid of at the time. Radiation, disease, communism, technology, fast food, etc. turn animals into some sort of rabid killer…or otherwise piss them off so much that they decided-collectively or on their own-that they’ve had enough.

The Formula

Take the cutest animal you can think of. Now expose it to a nuclear, biological or chemical agent that makes it more blood thirsty than a drunk hockey fan snorting a fistful of speedballs and ground up PCP. Stand back and watch the fun. Additionally, every Killer Animal movie will have one of the following scenes:

• “Awww. .  . how cute. .” Some idiot will attempt to pet, snuggle or capture the now amazingly dangerous animal and loose a limb, possibly their life.
• “Dear God, They’re everywhere!!” It will turn out that either one animal is so fast it’s everywhere at once, or it spreads it’s ichor through the local animal population turning them all against the humans.
• There will be an “Expert” Someone who has dealt with this of thing before, back in the 50’s, but it was covered up by the government.
• KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!: At some point one of the formerly domesticated monsters will be set ablaze.

The Menu

In addition to our typical selection of chips, beer, liquor, and snacks-there will be:

The Booze: Wild Turkey, Warm Woolly Sheep

Because in the face of such terrifying and horrible movies, we need a warm glass of milk to calm down our nerves (mixed with booze, of course).

The Food: The Flesh of Deadly Animals! Or, you know, Peeps

That’s right: BEEF JERKEY to prove who’s at the top of the food chain, and marshmallow animal effigies for ritual burnings.

The Movies

Night of the Lepus (1972): A regular feature of Sunday afternoons in the 80’s, this movie proves that with good sound production, you can almost make rabbits scary. Almost. The beasties terrorize a barely populated western town for an entire evening.

Black Sheep (2006): Chris Farley is back from the grave and looking to eat EVERYONE! No. Wait. Even scarier! This movie is about killer sheep rampaging through the gorgeous landscape of New Zealand. It has everything: flesh-eating zombie sheep, flying Terry Tate sheep and…wait for it: WERESHEEP. Already a cult classic everywhere else in the world, we’re going to give this movie its due.

Suggested Alternatives

Orca (1977) : A strange fever dream of a movie, whose lesson is this: DO NOT KILL BABY WHALES, or their parents will hunt you to ends of the earth.

Tentacles (1977): Wow, ’77 was a year for movies about dangerous marine life, eh? An “all-star cast” (read: Henry Fonda) are terrorized by a giant octopus. The IMDB error page says it all: “Factual errors: Octopuses don’t roar.”

Slugs (1988): Cavalcade Staff Writer John Higgins was seven when he first saw this movie. It was funny even then.

This article was co-authored with John Higgins.