{"id":3624,"date":"2014-03-23T10:14:26","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T10:14:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-03-23T10:14:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T10:14:26","slug":"two-points-on-the-human-centipede","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/franklycurious.com\/wp\/2014\/03\/23\/two-points-on-the-human-centipede\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Points on The Human Centipede<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Recently, I was told about the film The Human Centipede<\/a><\/i>. I figured it was something campy like “bug man.” But no. It is about an evil scientist who connects three people together, mouth to anus. Hence: human centipede. I have not seen it. I will not see it. I have a problem with scatological material. But I haven’t been able to get the film out of my head. So I figured that I would relate a couple of thoughts.<\/p>\n

First, in the tradition of William Castle, the film’s writer-director Tom Six claimed that the idea was scientifically valid. It isn’t. Other people have mentioned this, focusing on the problem of nutrients in the second and third segments of the “creature.” Another problem is bacteria from the first segment would kill the other two (this actually happens in the film, although you would think that the doctor would have thought about that). But I’ll admit, neither of those problems would happen immediately and I assume the film takes place over a short period of time. The bigger problem is that defecating into someone’s mouth would cause them to vomit. The only place the liquid could go is out the rather constricted nose and so the second segment would surely drown almost immediately.<\/p>\n

There really is no way around this without doing a complete reworking of the esophagus and windpipe. I know: it’s just a film. I have two responses to this. First, if I’m going to complain about the physics of Iron Man 3<\/i><\/a>, I’m definitely going to complain about the biology of The Human Centipede<\/i>. Second, I bring this up as a way of making the horror of the film less intense. The truth is that in a general sense, this kind of human experimentation has gone on before, most notably at Auschwitz.<\/p>\n

This brings me to my second point. The idea of the film<\/a> came from a “joke” that Tom Six made “about punishing a child molester [he] saw on TV by stitching his mouth to the anus of an overweight truck driver.” As the impetus for a film, I find this very troubling. It makes the film into a kind of torture fantasy. It is made all the worse when the head of the centipede admits to the doctor that he deserves his fate because he treated his family poorly or something.<\/p>\n

I understand the desire for vengeance. And I can be as angry at cruelty and injustice as anyone. But if the Angel of Death himself, Josef Mengele<\/a>, were left to my justice I would not torture him. Certainly I think he deserved to be executed—a fate that sadly never befell him. To some extent, it is just a matter of what torture says about us. If a human screams or cries because of me, I feel bad—regardless of how awful he may have behaved. Because I<\/i> am the one doing the harm.<\/p>\n

But it’s more than just that. What is done is done. Our job should be to stop such madness—such cruelty. And vengeance is not about justice. It is not about protecting the innocent. At base, it is about what causes people like Mengele to prey on the weak—the pleasure of violence. It’s obviously complex, but knowing that the society does the same kinds of thing only makes such freelance behavior more likely. When these people are in our custody, they are<\/i> the weak.<\/p>\n

Having said that, the film itself looks really well made. It is an update of the mad scientist genre that we so associate with Vincent Price and John Carradine. I don’t like the basis for the film and I don’t think it speaks well of Tom Six. But with regards to the film itself, the only reason I won’t watch it is that I can’t deal with the scatology of it. My understand is that the film is not explicit—or extremely so. But I’m having a hard enough time just writing this article without running to the bathroom to vomit. But if you are different, you may want to check it out. But if you do, please don’t tell me about it.<\/p>\n