What shocked us the first time out and made us feel physically ill the second is, by now, just old hat. The problem here, though, is the same as it always is whenever “more of what we did last time - only bigger!” becomes a filmmaker’s modus operandi - a grander spectacle is only that, a grander spectacle, and no matter how large the centipede grows (in this case 500 unlucky souls are plucked for the “honor”), the law of diminishing returns still applies. Add to this the fact that our auteur of the grotesque even puts in an appearance as a fictionalized version of, you guessed it, himself, and that the plot centers around our two principal sick fucks emulating the “medical experimentation” of parts one and two as a means of controlling their unruly inmates (after more “subdued” methods like castration and Chinese water torture fail to do the trick), and you can see for yourself how far the whole self-referential meme/shtick has been carried in Six’s ouroboros loop. Harvey, who’s on hand as Boss’ equally-unhinged henchman/sidekick, Dwight Butler. The “meta” themes that charged their way into Six’s narrative with a vengeance in The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) are once more at the fore in this latest effort, with the requisite ante-upping that Six has fast made his stock in trade : not only is the star of the first film, Dieter Laser, present and accounted for here in an entirely new role as sadistic Texas (I’m assuming) prison warden Bill Boss, but so is the star of the second installment, the perpetually creepy Laurence R. Or, at least, they probably needn’t worry.
Unlike Sotos, however, Six’s (hopefully) singular peccadilloes are so far removed from the realm of the possible that his friends and neighbors needn’t worry about what he’s getting up to in his spare time. In much the same way that Peter Sotos has done in the world of literature, Six has become adept at mining the depths of his own personal obsessions to such an extent that it’s almost impossible for anyone else to “enjoy” his subject matter, even if one finds it both morbidly alluring and even more morbidly compelling. One thing that’s become abundantly clear as this trilogy has progressed, however, is that these flicks have increasingly become an act of celluloid masturbation on Six’s part and that he’s pretty much just daring you to stick with them as he slowly whittles his so-called “target audience” down to one person - himself. The question as to whether or not that makes me a brave explorer of the farthest reaches of the cinematic jungle or merely a glutton for punishment in one that I leave for you, dear reader, to decide.
#HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3 BILL BOSS MEMES SERIES#
For our final pre-Halloween foray into the Netflix instant streaming horror queue (your hint that I’m going to be too busy over the next couple days to do any more reviews prior to the holiday itself, but who knows - I’ve indulged in a “Halloween hangover” series in Novembers past and may just do so again, we’ll see), I couldn’t resist putting my gag reflex (not to mention my conscience) to the test one more time by checking out the long-delayed third (and last) installment of writer/director Tom Six’s notorious-for-good-reason Human Centipede series, this one entitled, as you’d no doubt expect, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence).
0 kommentar(er)
