Review of The Human Centipede (2009)

The idea was great, interesting, somewhat weird and stomach-churning. But the movie doesn't live up to it. There are some good things aside from this idea, I liked the stylistic nods to Hitchcock and Kubrick, the camera work and lighting are good and while he occasionally resorts to cartoon villainy Dieter Laser has many moments where he is genuinely chilling. Against all this, the story is very predictable and lacking in suspense. Despite the premise, it is actually fairly light on gore and gruesome scenes and this diminished the suspense levels for me. The direction has a lot of style but not a lot of substance, technically the film is assured but the characters are stock and the remainder of the other acting is uninspired. The Human Centipede is a very poorly written movie in my opinion with dully written and delivered dialogue and big, obvious and unforgivable medical errors. Overall, has a good idea but bad dialogue, a lack of suspense and a dull story stop it from being any more effective. 3/10 Bethany Cox