Three heads are better than one. At least that’s what the mad Dr. Heiter thinks in the depraved Dutch horror movie “The Human Centipede (First Sequence).”
And so he kidnaps two women and a man and — get ready! — surgically fuses them together, mouth to butt, creating a human centipede. Heiter may be nuts, but he’s not a quack. He’s a surgeon renowned for separating conjoined twins, and he zips around in a silver Mercedes.
The women (Ashlynn Yennie and Ashley C. Williams) are Americans on a leisurely tour of Europe. One rainy night in Germany, on their way to a party, their car breaks down and they seek shelter in Heiter’s chic abode.
You just know something horrible is to befall the women, but who would ever expect that they would be joined with a Japanese gentleman to become the world’s first human centipede?
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. He spends the movie screaming in Japanese, a language the others don’t understand.
Yennie and Williams are probably talented, but they don’t get a chance to show what they can do. I mean, how creative can you be crawling around on all fours, topless no less.
“The Human Centipede,” by skillful Dutch director Tom Six, might be compared to Hollywood schlock like “Hostel.” But it has a style and sense of humor sorely lacking in the American movies.
I’m not saying that Six’s film is for everybody — but it is a must for horror buffs. Oh, yes. Six says he is working on a sequel — with a 12-person human centipede. I can’t wait.