4 out of 5

Director: Tom Six

Hm. Assuming you know the plot. If not – Come up with a strange, perhaps disgusting idea and develop a plot around such an idea. Such was writer / director Tom Sixs admitted construction of Human Centipede, wherein a crazed German doctor has a dream of stitching three people together, mouth-to-anus. Based on that youre either ready to watch the movie or never going to. Here are the pluses: its conceptually disgusting, but not visually over-the-top at all. Im a big fan of splatter and gore, but used contextually. Six gave this movie credibility by treating it respectfully – The camera work is truly amazing, very purposeful, very focused, and the lighting and colors just drew me in from shot one. The dialogue also works, not trying to stretch for any obvious points, but also not leaving it up to just screams and laughs to do the job. So yes, while the inevitable happens and is gross, its watchable due to it not being (ha) shoved in your face. The doctors performance… amazing. Six and Dieter Laser put enough into the character for this to be considered an odd character study. Theres the big American question of …why?… looming over this, and perhaps thats a criticism, but it doesnt carry the pointless feeling of torture porn thanks to the embellishments of this main twisted character. And its nice that theres a conclusion. The minuses: well, despite the claims that this is possible, it doesnt seem as such. Theres much explanation put into the procedure, but still not enough for it to really make sense. This also applies to the progress of the plot itself. But the film sidesteps most of these concerns by leaving many details in the realm of potentially happening off camera. Anyway: I was happily surprised by this. Six is apparently aiming for gross-outs with his next installment, but this was a really focused and mature presentation of something that would be splatter and screams in others hands.