Welcome to the sickest film of the year. A film so mad it was not submitted to the MPAA for a rating in the US, and which upset critic Roger Ebert so much he refused to give it a star. Blimey.
If youre expecting something as profoundly disturbing as The Exorcist, or a gore-fest like The Evil Dead, youre going to be disappointed. Its really the idea of the film which is at the centre of its horror, rather than any explicit gore. Set in the classic house in the woods scenario it centres around a surgeon, Doctor Heiter, who is the worlds leading expert on separating Siamese twins.
He is also, as one look at his face will tell you, completely insane. His private obsession is not separating people but joining them together, connecting their digestive tracts to form a human centipede. He has already tested it out on his beloved dogs, who are now buried at the bottom of his garden time to move on to humans.
In classic horror fashion two young American tourists are driving through the woods when they get a flat tyre during a storm. The nearest house happens to be Doctor Heiter, who drugs them and keeps them in the cellar. After disposing of an unfortunate truck driver no tissue match he then kidnaps a Japanese man, performs his operation and stitches the three victims together. However, when the police come sniffing around, surely the game is up.
Its a classic gore tale using every cliché with a glint in its eye, but ultimately the film goes down a cul-de-sac and has no way out. Clearly Doctor Heiter is insane early on, he declares I dont like humans, but what exactly is the point of his bonkers experiment? What exactly will it achieve? Equally clearly, his victims cant survive for long, so what will happen?