I did not care for the first Human Centipede. It was a generic torture porn with a couple gimmicks in the centipede itself and the claim of being 100% medically accurate. As a jaded horror fan, I spent most of it yawning (cringing only during the surgery scene when teeth were removed as teeth and fingernails are my kyrptonite).
The second film I actually enjoyed quite a bit. It threw medical accuracy out the window, went meta, gave us a mute manbaby psycho protagonist/villain, and was balls-to-the-wall graphic, messed up violent edge (although I rolled my eyes at Feces Brown being the only color being used).
Naturally, with the promise of a gigantic human centipede, the principal actors from the first two films as new characters, and director Tom Six playing himself I was intrigued for the final installment.
Well, I watched it. It was definitely a movie, it had actors, and there was indeed a large human centipede.
Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
Director: Tom Six
Release Date: May 22, 2015
Rated: Unrated
Dieter Laser returns to the franchise he made famous as Bill Boss, racist, sexist, malevolent warden of a prison in the middle of the desert. Laurence R. Harvey, villainous manbaby star of Human Centipede 2, plays his sidekick/prison accountant Dwight Butler. These two men find themselves with a problem on there hands when Governor Hughes (Eric Roberts for some reason) threatens to fire them if they can’t fix their crappy prison. Butler suggests to Boss, “Hey, let’s make the prisoners into a giant Human Centipede like those two movies.” And then they do. That’s the whole plot.
Were you expecting Kubrick?
I don’t have a lot to say about this film, to be honest. It’s graphically violent, really racist, really sexist, and has little redeeming quality to it beyond Dieter Laser’s super over-the-top performance as Bill Boss. It has a premise, and follows it to the end. It was competently made. But it just doesn’t have anything going for it beyond that.
So instead, let me give you a list of all the messed up/notable stuff that happens in chronological order to sate your curiosity and save you the 102 minutes you won’t ever get back.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
- The film starts with the credits of the first two movies, because meta
- Lots of general hardcore racism and talk of rape
- Dieter Laser graphically breaks Tom Lister Jr.’s arm
- Dieter Laser spends most of the movie eating from a jar of dried clitorises he got from Africa (Bree Olson eats one later, not knowing what they are)
- A man is waterboarded by Laser with three buckets of boiling water and then the washcloth is peeled off the man’s boiled face
- We get to see Dieter Laser loudly climax from oral sex (performed off-camera by former adult film star Bree Olson, the film’s sole female character, Laser’s secretary/living sex toy)
- Dieter Laser graphically castrates Robert LaSardo, rubs the blood from the wound all over his face and then later eats the man’s balls for lunch (breaded and everything)
- In a bizarre fantasy sequence, Robert LaSardo shivs a helpless Laser and has sex with the wound
- Tom Six shows up and gives them permission to use his idea and explains about how he consulted a real doctor about the medical accuracy of making a human centipede
- During a screening of the films, Laser tells the prisoners he’s going to make them into a human centipede and they riot, which leads to Bree Olson (again, the single female character) being beaten into a coma by Tom Lister Jr.
- During the surgery segment, Laser inserts his revolver into a man’s stoma and shoots him, shoots a disabled man, and decides to attach a man with chronic diarrhea in front of Robert LaSardo
- Laser has sex with a comatose Bree Olson
- When Tom Six sees Laser’s “special” project (that involves cutting off arms), he vomits on a glass door and exits the film
- After the 500-person centipede is unveiled, we are shown that the only female character in the film, who spends the entire film being used for sex before being beaten into a coma and raped in her comatose state, is sewn into the centipede for reasons(?)
- Laser unveils to Governor Eric Roberts his special project, the Human Caterpillar, made from the limbless torsos of the lifetime and death row inmates
- After Roberts says that Laser and Harvey are insane and will get the chair, Laser shoots the prison doctor, then Roberts comes back and tells them he changed his mind, leaves again, and Laser shoots Harvey so he can take the credit for himself
- The film ends with a naked Laser screaming nonsense through a megaphone from a guard tower overlooking his centipede as patriotic music swells
To say this film is problematic is to put it lightly. It is virulently racist for reasons unknown, treats the single female character as an object to stick male genitalia in (and, again for reasons unknown, throws her into the centipede because why not?), and generally delights in inflicting pain on both its characters and its audience. But you should know what you’re getting into where a film’s central theme involves people being sewn ass-to-mouth.
Like I say in the image above, Human Centipede 3 is indeed 100% the third Human Centipede film. If you like watching racist, cruel men castrate dudes and have sex with women in comas with the titular centipede happening in the background, then boy this film is for YOU! If you liked the first two films, you’ll probably like this one. If you’re only lukewarm on them, you can probably skip this one.
Bottom line: Human Centipede 3 is competently made schlock. Tom Six is an edgy dude with some weird stuff (and quite possibly issues with women) rattling around in his head, but he can make a good-looking movie. Hopefully his next series has more merit.
Happy Memorial Day, everybody.
