Unlike its obvious influence, the 1999 Japanese shocker "Audition," The Human Centipede has no real-world echoes. It's an only-in-the-movies sick goof.
80
Village Voice
Village Voice
Centipede plays on the notion that the only thing more frightening than death is a state bridging life and death, in which, though one's body is no longer his own to control, the mind remains conscious.
Dieter Laser is grand as the doc, a character Christopher Walken would be comfortable doing, and Akihiro Kitamura provides laughs as the first part of the centipede.
More of a stunt than a script, The Human Centipede (First Sequence) should get a modest amount of I-dare-you ticket sales, but it's about as mass market as a dogfight.
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The only way to react is by bringing a barf bag or a strong sense of gallows humor.
20
Variety
Variety
Only real payoff is seeing the monstrosity assembled, and though that will surely earn the Dutch writer-director a cult reputation on the genre circuit, "going there" does not a movie make.
20
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Excruciatingly stupid movie.
12
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Six has now made a film deliberately intended to inspire incredulity, nausea and hopefully outrage. It's being booked as a midnight movie, and is it ever. Boozy fanboys will treat it like a thrill ride.