I think you’d be hard pressed to find a person who’s in the middle on The Human Centipede franchise. Either you’re in, or you’re out. Watching a psychotic doctor sew people together from mouth to behind isn’t for everyone, yet director Tom Six’s bizarre horror series certainly has its core audience. Hollywood mainstream? Maybe not yet—but we’re not far off either.
Last night, the second installment of the film played at Austin’s Fantastic Fest to mixed reactions. Drew at HitFix said, “It’s vile, it’s graphic, and it’s utterly boring after a while.” Twitch applauds the craft: “HC2 is a reflexive exercise for Tom Six. The film uses its antecedent in a novel way that makes for a clever premise brought to nauseating life by a director who understands his audience.” Cole Abaius at Film School Rejects thinks its a joke: “It’s a genre film to be certain, but it feels like it was made from a Freshman at NYU Film School who thinks he’s the first person to make a horror movie. It’s the height of pretension and indulgence…”
If anything, Human Centipede 2 is a dividing film—and we need those movies, as a litmus test for our own tastes. The violence may not work for you, but for others, it’s exactly the kind of film they’ve been waiting for all their life. Different strokes for different folks.
I’m guessing HC2 might be a little too much for me, based solely on the fact that the new poster is already giving me the willies. Then again, maybe I need to watch it just to know.
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