The tremendously disgusting things gushing like from a volcano out of Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) are not what ruin the movie. The fun of gross-out cinema is to be grossed out. And having our boundaries pushed is important if for no other reason than to check ourselves. Human Centipede 3 (which I will refer to as HC: 3 going forward) tries to give us the good time John Waters lobbied for during his twenty-plus years of movie making and general way of life. That it fails miserably in doing so is because of a complete lack of control, disregarding the taste of distaste.
A prison warden, Bill Boss (Dieter Laser, the doctor from the original Human Centipede), is stuck in a moral quandary. How will he properly torture a prison full of killers and crazies? The answer, of course, is by making a human centipede out of them, but that comes much later. He gets the idea from his accountant (Laurence Harvey, “star” of Human Centipede 2), who keeps pushing on him the first two movies, in their shiny DVD cases. Trying to do things his own way, Boss goes through a litany of grotesque acts of violence, basking in his megalomania, until he comes to the conclusion we’re waiting for—to make the biggest human centipede ever constructed. The centipede appears all too late and nearly in passing. It’s construction is smushed towards the end in a dissatisfying bit, like a bearded lady with only stubble. The bulk of the action curiously revolves around the Boss character.
The bulk of the film allows Dieter Laser—the decaying man’s Klaus Kinskie—to scream and yell, on and on, about how much he hates his prisoners and the rest of humanity. He’s a horrible racist, an iron bellied drunk, a furious sexist, and just a very unpleasant person. Laser goes a little overboard with the asylum theatrics, but he’s having so much fun, it’s hard not to admire his zest for the role. His posture and patience are stronger in the first Human Centipede. Here he has lost all control of himself, and it ain’t pretty. His thick, growling accent makes most of what he says unintelligible and basically gibberish. He’s spastically angry, like a bullied boy with a catalogue of curse words. It’s barely feels like a performance, and that can be the best definition of performing. If he doesn’t get a nomination for this, all will be right in the world, but little Dieter won’t get to walk the red carpet, a ball of fury left to curse the Academy like he does everyone and everything in HC: 3.
The details are nauseating even to the most seasoned sailor. One prisoner gets his colostomy bag ripped out and is shot point blank in the oozing hole. Another willfully eats his own feces, killed despite his unique palette. A particularly feisty inmate has his testicles cut off and torn free, and then they are cooked and served for lunch (on a silver platter, thank you very much). A stab in the back leads to a hygienically improper “doing” of the open wound. And all of this is great, I suppose, in some morbid, hellish way, a one-of-a-kind type of ultra violence and extreme provocation only the most twisted minds will enjoy and only the wettest of brains will be able to sit its entirety.
Tom Six, the director and writer of the entire trilogy, is a nasty man. He is no doubt a mutated descendent of John Waters and his Dreamlanders. Even Waters himself is a fan of the franchise, though I’m not sure how he would digest HC: 3. This one simply goes a step too far. Boss, through his raging rants, hemorrhaging racial slurs, saying the nastiest, obviously baiting type of talk, is a desperate ploy, . He’s horribly, cheaply sexist. He abuses his secretary (Bree Olson) like a dog mauls its naughtiest chew toy. It has the dirty feeling of pornography, devoid of good humor, exploitation at any cost.The flying squirts and spray of various bodily fluids are innocent gags, even bad language does little but smack the senses. But once the racist and misogynistic stuff gets mixed with it, it becomes a prolonged, lazy provocation. Six’s tight control over the proceedings brings HC: 3 even deeper into the sewer, unable to clean off. A particularly, wildly offensive running gag having to do with female genital mutilation is probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen or heard, case closed, let’s all go home and poke our eyes out.
I’m happy to say that HC: 3 is the worst film I’ve ever seen. I hadn’t before had a film in contention for the honor. But HC: 3 is boring, slow, lazy, offensive, and smug about it. That Eric Roberts, Tiny “Zeus” Lister, the aforementioned Bree Olson and bad guy extraordinaire Robert Lasardo are in it should tell you just how desperate this movie is to be liked, like Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets. Let’s try not to be as weak willed as Helen Hunt.
I Happily Give Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) 0 out of 10
