Following on from the first film’s cult success, the sequel plays with various levels of verisimilitude. The protagonist slowly becomes engrossed by THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, which he watches on his laptop whilst working as a night attendant in an underground car park.

On the other hand, the film’s creators throw any realism out the window by promising to be 100% medically inaccurate.

Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) is a mentally disturbed loner living with his equally disturbed mother (Vivien Bridson) in a bleak and dingy London flat. His mother emotionally abuses him and he’s plagued by memories of his sexually abusive father.

While working the nightshift as a parking attendant in an underground carpark, he indulges in his obsession of The Human Centipede, watching the film constantly and flicking through a lovingly create scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the film, including surgical diagrams.
Lacking the medical knowledge of his hero Dr. Heiter, he vows to create his own centipede, this time with a dozen victims, for his own sordid sexual fantasies.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II is incredibly even more gruesome than its predecessor. Martin, not being a surgeon, does not have any of the proper tools or skills for the operations he wants to perform. So, he uses household objects in an incredibly grotesque DIY fashion, staple guns, a pipe and funnel, a meat cleaver. He uses a hammer to knock out the victims’ teeth. He slices through a girl’s knee and pulls out the ligament with his bare fingers and cuts through it with a kitchen knife. Instead of the tame anaesthetic used by Dr Heiter, he uses a crowbar.

Laurence Harvey is harrowing as Martin. Not once in the entire film does he speak, he only makes vocal noises. He plays Martin with a hint of innocence. He is unaware of the evil of his actions and is torturing people for his sole selfish indulgences.

The film is shot mostly in black and white, (other than the occasional highlight of brown) so plays with the audience’s fear of the unknown. The lights flicker on and off during the more brutal scenes, leaving the audience’s imagination to fill in the gaps with a sickening effect. The unknown is far more frightening than some low-budget shoddy special effects. That being said, the special effects actually used are far from shoddy. Tom Six has a fantastically terrible mind.

Dispersed in all the horror and gore are some incredibly dark humourous moments, but the much needed comic relief, it’s the kind of laughter that makes you feel sick at yourself for even thinking about finding it funny.

Review by Sarah Collins

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II (Full Sequence) will be premiering at Film4 FrightFest’s Halloween all-nighter at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square on Saturday October 29.

Opening in selected cinemas nationwide on November 4.