Fans of the grotesque rejoice! The Human Centipede is finally coming to Canada and will have a limited run at the Toronto Underground Cinema between August 28 and September 3 (full schedule below).
Described as “Frankenstein meets The Fly“, The Human Centipede has been grossing out audiences at film festivals and screenings around the world for over a year. In Roger Ebert’s review he had this to say about it: “No horror film I’ve seen inflicts more terrible things on its victims than The Human Centipede. You would have to be very brave to choose this ordeal over simply being murdered. Maybe you’d need to also be insane.” As sick as it is it does have quite a cult following, however, and even won Best Horror Feature at Fantastic Fest 2009 and Best Picture at Screamfest 2009.
The official description of The Human Centipede from the press release:
During a stopover in Germany while enjoying 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, they find an isolated villa whose mysterious owner, Dr. Heiter, takes them in for the night. The next day they awake to find themselves in the basement, trapped in a terrifying makeshift hospital with another one of the doctor’s abductees. Dr. Heiter explains to the three of them that he is a retired surgeon who had specialized in separating Siamese twins. His three “patients”, however, are not about to be separated, but will be joined together in a horrific operation. He plans to be the first to connect people, one to the next, via their gastric system, and in doing so bring to life his sick lifetime fantasy: ‘the human centipede’.
Sound twisted enough for you? I for one am damn excited to finally get to see it. Whether I’ll be so excited after seeing it depends on how gruesome it really is. After reading the following note from director Tom Six I admit I’m a bit more concerned as to what the movie actually entails.
For my first international horror film I wanted to create a film that was really horrible and horrific. For me the best horror films are the films that could actually happen in real life. So it could happen to the audience watching the film.
The idea of the human centipede started very simply from a sick joke I would tell friends. When we saw somebody evil on television, e.g. a child molester or someone, I would say that they should stitch his mouth to the ass of a fat truck driver, as that would be the right punishment for him. Everybody thought that was very horrible. This became the basic idea for the human centipede.
Wanting it to be very realistic, I designed the human centipede construction together with a real life surgeon. So the human centipede is 100% medically accurate. One of my own nightmares would be being experimented on by Nazi doctors. So the idea came quickly to have a German doctor (played by the brilliant Dieter Laser) perform the operation. In Europe we grow up with lots of US horror films about pretty, naive American girls being chased by madman with axes. So the story had to start with two naive American girls (Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie).
A lot of horror films are about the fear of death, but in my film, it is much more the intense and long human suffering, both mental and physical, that fuels the drama. Everybody can imagine being part of the human centipede, and that is what makes watching the movie such a horribly crazy experience. I am now writing the sequel The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), with a 12 person human centipede, and that movie will go full force in graphic details, making part 1 look like My Little Pony.
Showtimes for The Human Centipede at the Toronto Underground Cinema:
Saturday, August 28 – 7 p.m. & 12:15 a.m.
Sunday, August 29 – 7 p.m.
Monday, August 30 – 9:30 p.m.
Tuesday, August 31 – 9:30 p.m.
Wednesday, September 1 – 7 p.m.
Thursday, September 2 – 9:30 p.m.
Friday, September 3 – 9:30 p.m.
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