It looks and sounds ridiculous - and to be honest it is. This entire movie revolves around the work of the classic mad scientist who sets himself to the task of kidnapping three people and turning them into a "human centipede" - by attaching the mouth of the one behind onto the anus of the one in front. Yeah. It looks and sounds ridiculous. And in all honesty, it is ridiculous. Through the entire 90 minutes I couldn't figure out just exactly what the point of the experiment was. Why was Dr. Heiter doing this? What was Dr. Heiter hoping to accomplish by doing this? I suppose the only accomplishment would be to prove to himself that he could, in fact, do it - but once he's done it, so what? He can't show off his work! Instead, he'll just be stuck with this hideous three person thing crawling around his house. Sure, he's a mad scientist. He's crazy. He's insane. But he seems well enough in touch with reality that you wouldn't think he'd take on such an apparently complicated experiment with no return possible once he's finished. It's ridiculous.
That all leads me to admit with a certain degree of embarrassment that I actually liked this. Ridiculous it may be - but it is definitely one of the creepiest (in a totally "gross" sort of way) movies I've ever come across. There are parts of it that I had to turn my head away from, and the actors who were portraying the three who were experimented on seemed to capture the fear and horror of their characters absolutely perfectly. In the same way, Dieter Laser (who played Dr. Heiter) was also perfectly creepy and cold-blooded, and made sure that Heiter came across as totally fixated on and obsessed with his work to the exclusion of any of the obvious objections that could have been made to it. The ending of the movie leaves you absolutely squeamish, wondering what in the world is going to happen to the poor girl in the middle of the "centipede" who ends up as the only one left alive in the house. Is there any hope for her to escape this insanity, or does she just stay there and wait to starve or to die of thirst, since there's no way she can drink any liquids or eat any food, even if she could get to a source of either.
It's ridiculous, and it's completely without any explanation as to why this experiment is even being conducted or what's going to be accomplished by it. And yet - surprisingly enough - it works quite well, if you're in the mood for an absolute creep-fest.
That all leads me to admit with a certain degree of embarrassment that I actually liked this. Ridiculous it may be - but it is definitely one of the creepiest (in a totally "gross" sort of way) movies I've ever come across. There are parts of it that I had to turn my head away from, and the actors who were portraying the three who were experimented on seemed to capture the fear and horror of their characters absolutely perfectly. In the same way, Dieter Laser (who played Dr. Heiter) was also perfectly creepy and cold-blooded, and made sure that Heiter came across as totally fixated on and obsessed with his work to the exclusion of any of the obvious objections that could have been made to it. The ending of the movie leaves you absolutely squeamish, wondering what in the world is going to happen to the poor girl in the middle of the "centipede" who ends up as the only one left alive in the house. Is there any hope for her to escape this insanity, or does she just stay there and wait to starve or to die of thirst, since there's no way she can drink any liquids or eat any food, even if she could get to a source of either.
It's ridiculous, and it's completely without any explanation as to why this experiment is even being conducted or what's going to be accomplished by it. And yet - surprisingly enough - it works quite well, if you're in the mood for an absolute creep-fest.