-
Wtf 07/04/2011 6:42:00 AM
What the fuck are you talking about ramses?
-
Greg McDonald 09/25/2010 11:45:00 PM
I can't believe that anyone can praise this movie. The shallow quality of the entire film is absurd, and the concept is simply stupid. If I come up with a gross but just flat out stupid can I make a movie too?
-
Gregor 07/14/2010 1:31:00 PM
The more I think of this concept the more I start to realize that the film, consciously or subconsciously, is a revolutionary act, just like Kafka's metamorphosis it is an allegory. An allegory of how we humans have become an experiment of a few sick that call themselves the elite, and just like the two airheads and the playboy Japanese dude are consuming ourselves, destroying us and our habitat in the process, only not realizing it. I can't think of a better metaphor to the corporate slaves that we are. This movie is a wake up call and a warning of what has become of us and what is to become if we continue on this course. In the words of the great George Orwell: "In times of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act" ! Well done Mr. Six!
-
Stealth 06/29/2010 1:55:00 AM
My goodness, you all dont get it, we are all Sh*t eaters, We eat and sh*t, Its the glorious life of our carbon existence. Carbon is the number of the beast, 6 electrons, 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Christians think of heaven cause theres no sex and pooping. We have to kill to eat. Veggies grow from sh*t. We kill other animals for food. Its your cycle of life.
-
Bill Hicks 06/08/2010 11:03:00 PM
Leave it to the Voice and commenters like Pearce to cry "Don't judge lest ye be judged! Na-nanny-boo-boo!!". Talk about self-righteous.
The facts are simple: this garbage is yet another piece of crap in a long line of crap, made possible by the only method used in popular culture today, deconstruction. No time for story, no time for characters, no time for pacing. Make with the gore and gimme more of that!! Over and over now because I'm a fanboy!!!!!
That's the pathetic nature of things today. There's nothing else to it. Anyone who tries to ascribe anything else to this (or other) garbage is a pretnetious, and clueless ass. As proof of my point (fact), the director said he came up with the idea when he said that child molesters should be punished by having their mouths sewn to the asses of big fat truck drivers. Voila!! He decided to put that image on screen. No story needed. Perhaps the Voice would like to re-think it's pretentious write-up now. No, probably not.
-
ramses longstreet 05/16/2010 12:02:00 AM
ramses the theater executive believes that this is some sadistic manuever whereas your idea of a head belonginging to what makes white people the color of milk to persuade people to believe that you know what to do in grafts your a graft and thats what your going to be when the f.b.i. looks at what your resposible in getting the populations younger minds into fantasing about rape and murder you gay bitch.
-
Pearce 05/10/2010 1:41:00 AM
Greg Nissin should get off his high horse before he beans his head on a branch. Human Centipede doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but I think there's plenty of room for gross-out horror comedy as well as Bergman. To talk about any movie, much less a silly one like this, like it's the end of human civlization is comical, and to preach self-righteously that you're the only sane person in the room is just annoying. Not liking something is one thing, Mr. Nissin, but you're talking like you believe that your opinion is the only one that counts and that other opinions should be suppressed.
I have to agree with Todd Mason about Marytrs, by the way. I thought that it tread similar ground to the recent Spanish movie Camino, and I disagree completely with Mike LeP's assessment of the filmmakers' motives. I thought that Martyrs was a powerful and effective movie, and a long way from the "torture porn" aesthetic that LeP ascribes to it.
I also agree with Nina G that the filmmaker's intent is in many ways irrelevent to the content of the movie. All that matters is what ends up on screen, and what you take away from this.
-
Greg Nissin 05/09/2010 7:01:00 AM
Over the years, I’ve noticed that the Voice refuses to judge or condemn art which is unarguably obscene and/or degrading to human worth. Karina Longworth’s review of “The Human Centipede” takes this safe non-judgmental way out ("subversive", "gruesome", "stomach-churning") unless she truly didn’t think there was anything morally wrong with it. The unspeakable plot, by Tom Six, offers the best evidence I’ve seen yet of the fundamental collapse of innate moral center to our society – something the Voice and its writers clearly don't believe in. No matter what your politics are, no matter how sophisticated and intelligent your art criticism, there is no justification, artistic or philosophical, for this film. Not for writing it, or producing it, or publicizing it, and not reviewing it, unless it is to condemn it as destructive to society.
The reason is that the gratuitous, fictional depiction of sadism and obscenity has no positive value for anyone, because it damages the entire integrity of being human.
We are of course free not to buy whatever we find offensive. But that’s irrelevant. The issue goes way beyond freedom of expression; it’s not just a matter of saying “no one should pay a dime” for something repulsive. It concerns our spiritual nature. As William Blake said, we are the human form divine. Films like this constitute a desecration of ourselves. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary - wouldn’t it be courageous – if your venerable paper, rather than maintain the usual moral numbness and intellectual detachment - actually used its VOICE to speak out against worthless, destructive and immoral crap.
I am a political/cultural liberal, but my opinion is so unpopular today among so-called liberal "enlightened" New Yorkers that I expect it will be either ignored or mocked as "religious" or reactionary,which it isn't. At least there's still such a thing as a minority of one.
Greg Nissin
Director of the New York Filmmakers Club
-
Mike LeP 05/06/2010 6:39:00 PM
"Mike LeP...how you could watch MARTYRS and come to those conclusions, I have no idea, but you did completely misunderstand the film." *****
Did I? There wasn't much to understand. A religious cult kidnaps and tortures young women in the hopes that they'll achieve a transcendental state and pass along a vision of the afterlife. We the viewer aren't ever privvy to this vision. What we do get to see is about a half hour of a young woman's degradation and torture.
MARTYRS was to my eyes a gorgeously shot and well-directed torture porn, only with pseudo-religous pretentions. I think MARTYRS is very similar to IRREVERSIBLE, in that both films were essentially base exploitation dressed up as art films. If I'm missing something here please feel free to enlighten me. I think my plot synopsis just about summed it up.
Anyway, MARTYRS was the better film but THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE was for my money much more entertaining. It was so over-the-top disgusting that at some point it became dark comedy. My wife (who also hated MARTYRS) wasn't nearly as amused.
-
Steve 05/06/2010 4:13:00 AM
I have not seen the film, only the trailers. So I can only judge by what I can infer, but it does not look good. As far as being a "game changer", what does it change? Two ingenue/victims are lost in the woods and they are taken by a creep with bad intentions. The difference is that instead of being a feral backwoodsman he is now a doctor.
In the original Rollerball movie it depicted a society that was gruel of violence and death. This movie does not appear to depict that gruel fed society, this movie is the gruel.
-
Todd Mason 05/06/2010 12:48:00 AM
Mike LeP...how you could watch MARTYRS and come to those conclusions, I have no idea, but you did completely misunderstand the film.
Nina G...I can only hope the film is half as good as you suggest, but remain very dubious. A text usually doesn't include nearly as much critique as you suggest without the artists being aware of that...but as Mike LeP's example suggests, one can choose to read almost any damned thing one chooses into a work.
-
Mike LeP 05/05/2010 6:33:00 PM
Todd Mason said:
"... MARTYRS, which last takes many of the elements of the 'torture porn' films and uses them to achieve a work of art"
It was obvious to me the filmmakers came up with the pseudo-religious angle ex post facto to justify what was essentially a standard issue (albeit very well-directed) torture porn film. The screenwriter seemed to realize that showing a half hour of protracted human suffering followed by surgical torture - all of it directed at a conspicuously good looking woman - might come across as misogyny and even bothered to throw in some tossed off line about how the cult had better look with young women. Of course they did - the target audience for Martyrs would rather watch a young woman being reduced to nothing.
I didn't hate Martyrs - it was certainly stylish - but I think this is one case where the emperor really has no clothes.
-
Glenn 05/05/2010 3:03:00 PM
I enjoyed the review, but I had a very difficult time understanding the point and reasoning behind some of the statements in the final paragraph. What is the bullshit conservative ideology of modern horror films? A sudden burst of heroism is what you're talking about, and while I'm liberal myself, I don't think that conservatism is what creates a desire for dramatic - but questionable - situations like those. Also, I found the wording in this sentence inexplicably difficult to understand: "It's become an old film theory chestnut that the horror heroine who says "no" to sex gets to live while her friends die—thus, the Final Girl." I finally realized you were using the word chestnut to meant "trope", but who uses the word chestnut like that? Continue to write well, but don't rely on obscure idioms like those please.
-
Nina G 05/04/2010 7:52:00 PM
To the previous commenter, this film does not compare to Bloodsucking Freaks, on any level. It does not wallow in sadism or misogyny and is for the most part not at all campy, making it all the more devastating to watch. I agree that the main theme is loss of identity and free will, with a lot of interesting minor subcurrents like culture clash, fascism, even animal rights. It doesn't even matter very much whether the filmmaker is aware of all this or doing it intentionally; a text can always include elements its creator wasn't aware of. In any event, thanks for this thoughtful review; I feel like it's the most astute one I've seen.
-
Todd Mason 05/04/2010 8:54:00 AM
Without having seen the film so much as simply the trailer and Tom Six's explication, I'm not encouraged to make any effort to see the whole thing, nor does this not terribly well-informed review encourage me, either. Choosing to judge horror films generally by Final Girl films (whether or not they are horror films or simply weak, cookie-cutter, basically misogynist and pandering suspense films...by which suspense films as a whole shouldn't be judged, either) displays a shocking lack of appreciation for the serious work in the field, ranging from THE HAUNTING to MARTYRS, which last takes many of the elements of the "torture porn" films and uses them to achieve a work of art, as opposed to this, which seems like a wallow in sadism and low camp. Is BLOODSUCKING FREAKS another choice for game-changing subversion of the whole FRIDAY THE 13TH-dominated film cycle of its time? If you must, but don't attempt to drag, say, THE RAPTURE or such work on the edge of the field as ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND down to this level.
-
Morrix 05/02/2010 8:30:00 PM
I'm not a big horror film viewer/watcher but this one has for some odd reason caught my interest. If it has anything going on the idea of flaying the hierarchal method of power is hilarious. What is it anti-intuitive? That something constructed along a linear model isn't necessarily hierarchal but lateral? But when there is linear construction but only unidirectional movement it is the same old hierarchal priestly power structure. Hmm, I've just made my interest in The Human Centipede gain potency.
-
Joshua Green 05/01/2010 12:39:00 AM
Despite the other comments, this was a very thoughtful review. Too often are horror films dismissed as exploitation and never given serious thought. Although this occurs for good reason, as the mainstream approach to horror is to show blood and tits and to never kill off a character we think we can identify to, not all these films conform to these conventions. Human Centipede is one of those exceptions, so shit yeah, way to give credit where credit is do.
-
Alex 04/29/2010 11:21:00 AM
Give me a break. You are reading far too much into this. The writer director himself has said that this was just based on a sick joke. And as a "game changer" what exactly does this change the game into? Where do you go from here? As a horror fan, I hope it's towards more cleverness and artistry, not cheap shocks. The currency of shock has been debased.
-
Robert Hamer 04/28/2010 10:27:00 AM
You have GOT to be kidding me. I could accept some horrorphile fansite like Bloody Disgusting somehow trying to wrench profundity from this premise, but you?!?
