“Six has now made a film deliberately intended to inspire incredulity, nausea and hopefully outrage.” Those are the words of the late, great Roger Ebert responding to director Tom Six’s infamous 2010 body horror movie The Human Centipede (First Sequence), or simply The Human Centipede.
15 years removed, it’s safe to say that yes, what Six accomplished with this particular bit of gross-out cinema was outrage by some, nausea from many others and outright shock from the internet at large. Despite being the kind of movie that typically operates on the fringes only viewed by hardcore genre fans, Six managed to turn The Human Centipede into one of the least likely pop culture phenoms of the 2000s. Much like the VHS classic Faces of Death, this twisted picture earned the “you have to see it to believe it” label.
For those who may not be familiar, or just need a refresher, the film centers on two American girls who make a stopover in Germany during a trek across Europe. Their car breaks down and, seeking help, they wind up in the hands of a deranged surgeon who is seeking to fulfill his sick vision of connecting people, one to the next, via their gastric system, thus creating a human centipede. Dieter Laser portrayed the evil surgeon in question, with Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie and Akihiro Kitamura portraying his victims.
“It all started with this very sick joke I always made to friends, when somebody’s nasty or annoying or a child molester, I said they should stitch his mouth to the asshole of a fat truck driver,” Six explained of where the idea came from in an interview with Paste Magazine in 2009. “That would be a real punishment. Everyone said, oh that’s so crazy, that’s so sick. And that was the basic idea for a horror film.”
“I like the early work of David Cronenberg,” said of his influences in the same interview. “I like the fact they use human bodies, diseases—that can actually happen. I like that kind of horror where there’s a reality element. I would never make a film with a big monster. It’s not really believable.”
It’s not un-funny that Six considered this movie at all tethered to reality, but that was a big part of the promotion tour with the press materials touting it as “medically accurate.” It all just served to stoke the fire, getting this movie on the rader of people who might otherwise never pay attention to hardcore body horror. Oscar-nominated hits like The Substance are exceptions, generally speaking. Body horror isn’t a genre that generally screams “pop culture phenomenon.”
Six was a fringe filmmaker before this wild idea became a reality. The film was produced independently and, following screenings at festivals such as Fantastic Fest and FrightFest in 2009, buzz circulated quickly. And it’s not hard to see why because that’s one heck of a hook. IFC Films came on board to distribute.
The Human Centipede wasn’t a big box office successas it only arrived in limited release on April 20, 2010, making well under $1 million in total. All the same, it performed well enough on VOD, streaming and DVD for Six to make two sequels; The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) and The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence). More importantly, the movie managed to break through and become a larger part of the cultural conversation. To this day, you can say the words “human” and “centipede” in sequence and a shocking amount of folks will understand the reference. The same can’t necessarily be said for A Serbian Film, for example.
Even if a great many people who might use it as a reference haven’t seen the movie in its entirety, Six’s outrageous concept broke through in a meaningful way. So much so that South Park did a full parody episode entitled “HumancentiPad” in 2011 as part of season 15. Even now, it’s staggering to consider that such a transgressive piece of work managed to become so pervasive.
For what it’s worth, Six created a piece of work with serious shock value and, for better or worse, that largely seemed to be the point. When asked in that Paste interview if there was some hidden meaning or message in the film Six responded bluntly saying, “No. Usually, I don’t put messages. No. No, no.” This is merely a movie about sewing three people together, butt to mouth, plain and simple.
For more, check out some writing on The Human Centipede from the Fano archives including…
- Review: THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE)
- Review: THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3 (FINAL SEQUENCE)
- 11 Terrifying Movies That Genre Fanatics Still Haven’t Watched
