I Lost a Bet and Got Sewn to The Human Centipede Trilogy: A Marathon Review of Glorious, Gnarly Horror

What it is, dear reader. Today’s post will be less Shakespeare and more shitshow. I lost a bet—don’t ask, it involved tequila and a first edition of Naked Lunch—and my punishment? Watching and reviewing all three Human Centipede movies in one butt-clenching sitting. Yeah, all three. I thought I was tough, having survived the first film back in the day, which left me rattled despite my usual “meh” to horror. But this? This was a descent into a septic tank of cinematic insanity. Grab a barf bag, because I’m diving into this trilogy like a doomed centipede segment, and I’m dragging you with me, mainly so you don’t have to do it alone.

By now, you know me, dear reader, as the guy that laughs at Saw traps and shrugs at Hostel, but I got blindsided by The Human Centipede (First Sequence) years ago. Tom Six’s 2009 freakshow—where a mad doctor stitches three people ass-to-mouth to form a grotesque “centipede”—wasn’t just gross; it was pretty deeply unsettling. The clinical vibe, the silence, the way Dieter Laser’s Dr. Heiter stared like he was auditioning for Satan’s optometrist? It stuck with me, and not in a fun “let’s rewatch” way. So when my buddy bet me I couldn’t handle a trilogy marathon, I scoffed. I’m the dude who read American Psycho while eating tacos. How bad could it be? Spoiler: I’m now spiritually unemployed.

The Marathon: 5 Hours, 3 Films, 1 Existential Crisis
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
Runtime: 92 minutes. Feels like: A lifetime in a German dungeon.
Well, here we go.  Rewatching First Sequence was like revisiting a nightmare you swore you’d burned. Two American tourists (Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie) and a Japanese dude (Akihiro Kitamura) get lured to Dr. Heiter’s sleek, unsettlingly sterile house. Next thing you know, they’re drugged, strapped, and sewn into a human caterpillar for “science.” The concept alone is enough to gag a maggot, but it’s the execution that’s diabolical. Six doesn’t linger on gore; he makes you feel the violation through long, quiet shots of Heiter’s glee and the victims’ muffled sobs. Laser’s performance is unhinged—his bug-eyed intensity and broken English (“I vill feed you!”) make Hannibal Lecter look like a vegan life coach. In this sea of unsettling images, perhaps the most disturbing is the fact that Dr. Heiter wears Crocs™ whilst performing surgery.
The infamous “feeding scene”? I gagged harder than I did at my aunt’s vegan meatloaf. It’s not the visuals (though, ew); it’s the psychological weight. These people are completely aware, trapped in a living hell. The first time I saw it, I was disturbed by how it crawled under my skin. This time, knowing what’s coming, I’m just mad at myself for not betting double-or-nothing. Literary merit? Hell yeah—think Kafka’s Metamorphosis but with worse plumbing. It’s a twisted allegory for control, dehumanization, and, I suppose, German efficiency.
I’m hesitant to review or even rate this film, as Roger Ebert’s review and rating was about as perfect as such a thing could be.  And I quote: “I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don’t shine.”  This review was published on May 4, 2010, in the Chicago Sun-Times. He was basically saying that the film’s extreme and depraved content defies conventional evaluation, and he was quite right.  I’m not about to defy that rationale. But there are a couple of things I want to touch on since we’re here.
First, Deiter Laser makes this film what it is.  Dieter plays the role of Dr. Josef Heiter, a deranged German surgeon who is cold, calculating, and sadistic.  Laser’s performance made Dr. Heiter one of the most memorable villains in horror film history.  No small feat.
Second, what disturbed me when I first watched this movie and what disturbs me still most about it are 1) the mind that could think this up.  Who’s the person who could have made whatever kind of movie with whatever kind of message he wanted, and he chose to do this.  I’m not sure that I’d want to go drinking with Tom Six, based only on this movie.  And 2) what must it have been like on the set?  These are young actors, probably easily the biggest gig in their nascent careers, of course they took the role, even after having read the script.  But imagine having to show up on set for weeks, putting your north pucker on someone’s south pucker.  These poor kids…and their poor families…they’ve been supporting these kids acting dreams for years, and hot damn they already got their first role in a horror feature.  Was there a premiere for this thing?  Can you imagine going to the premier with your daughter to see her in her what will you’re certain will be the first of many starring roles in a major motion picture.  And there she is, your little princess, on a screen bigger than God, being surgically forced to eat shit.  What did these families say to Tom Six at the after-party?  Did they shake his hand?  Was Tom Six assaulted by multiple sets of parents?  Nothing would surprise me.
Also, the spiral staircase in the escape scene was brilliant.
I will say that knowing what I was getting into beforehand made the experience significantly less traumatic than my initial viewing.  The same cannot, however, be said about the next two films that I’m about to sit through.  Might as well get on with it.  Press Play.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)
Runtime: 91 minutes. Feels like: Being buried alive in a porta-potty.
The pre-credit info blurb  just let me know that this film was banned in England, a fact about which writer/director Tom Six is extremely proud.  Good for him.  I’d be proud, too.  Maybe this Tom Six guy is cooler than I thought.
Damn…this one opens right where the last one left off, which I would have really rather left it alone, in the past.  I had hoped we had moved on.  But here we are.
Oh, this is meta as hell…the movie doesn’t take up the plot where we left it in the last movie…we are watching the end credits roll with some bug-eyed fat man.  It quickly becomes obvious that Part II is about a guy who watched Part I and gets inspired to one-upmanship.  This is meta as hell.  And it gets even more self-referential: the actress Ashlynn Yennie, who plays Jenny, the only surviving part of the Human Centipede in the first film, shows up in this film playing herself.  This could be the most meta thing I’ve seen since grad school.
Apparently, after the release of the first film, Tom Six heard “that was messed up” and went, “Hold my scalpel.” Full Sequence cranks the dial to 11, swapping the first film’s restraint for a black-and-white bloodbath. This time, we follow Martin (Laurence R. Harvey), a sweaty, asthmatic creep obsessed with the first movie. He’s not a doctor—just a parking lot attendant who decides to DIY a 12-person centipede in a grimy warehouse. Yeah, 12. With hammers, duct tape, and zero medical skills.
If First Sequence was a scalpel, this is a sledgehammer. The gore is splatterpunk and cartoonish—think stapled flesh and teeth-knocked-out DIY surgery—but the vibe is suffocating. Martin’s silent, bug-like obsession (Harvey doesn’t speak, just wheezes) makes Heiter look cuddly. The meta angle—Martin’s inspired by the “fictional” Human Centipede—is clever but drowned in filth. There’s a scene with a newborn baby that made me yeet my popcorn and question my life choices.
Literary parallel? This is American Psycho meets 120 Days of Sodom, a study in obsession and depravity. But where the first film had a twisted elegance, this is just… mean. The scatology is no longer basically implied like the first movie…this time it’s right there, in repugnant black and white.  I’m not disturbed; I’m exhausted. My badass cred is crumbling like Martin’s duct-tape stitches.
Rating: 5/10 rusty staples. Points for audacity, but I need a shower and a priest.

The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) (2015)
Runtime: 102 minutes. Feels like: A prison riot in my soul.
It’s about midnight, I’m a husk of a man, but Final Sequence is here to finish me. Here are the essentials: Set in a desert prison, this flick follows Bill Boss (Dieter Laser, back and yelling), a psychotic warden, and his accountant Dwight (Laurence R. Harvey, also back) who decide to solve prison riots by—you guessed it—making a 500-person centipede. Tom Six is clearly trolling, and I’m his victim.
And Holy monkey, the metaness keeps doubling down on itself.  Part III starts with the ending of II, and then the end credits roll (basically the same beginning as II, but updated).  And we see someone else is watching II and Getting Ideas.  But who is watching?  Why, it’s our old friend from I, Deiter Laser, the insane psycho surgeon from I.  But he got quite killed in the end of I…bullet through the head.  So now Dieter is back…as someone else?  Holy shit.  But wait…Dieter is being shown the film by…why, it’s our old friend we just left in H.C.II, Laurence R Harvey, the dude who played Martin.  But he too got quite killed in the end of II…bullet through the head.  So now Laurence too is back…as someone else?  Holy shit, indeed.  I sense a bit of a pattern, here, dear reader.  This is either laziness or brilliance.  We shall see.
Okay…so Dieter is ostensibly back as an entirely new character, as a prison warden named Bill Boss.  But he’s the same guy!  At first I thought these roles might have been given to these two actors to showcase the breadth of their respective abilities.  Nope!  Dieter is the exact same guy from I, just without the lab coat.  His voice and distinct German accent are exactly the same.  His strange and disturbing mannerisms and psychotic reactions are exactly the same. His antisocial contempt for everyone around him and indeed all human beings is the same. Exactly no attempt has been made by him or anyone else to change a thing about Dieter’s character other than his clothes.  Is he the surgeon reincarnated?  And if he just watched the first two movies, wouldn’t he be shocked by his total, identical resemblance to the Dr. Heiter in I?  Or is Dr. Heiter just the latest incarnation of some sort of evil juggernaut who keeps coming back, no matter how you killed him in the previous movie, a la Jason Vorhees or Michael Meyers?  Wouldn’t he recognize his assistant/prison accountant as Martin when he watched II?  Also, there is simply no getting around the fact that dressed in a cowboy hat, bolo tie, bald head, and light colored sunglasses, Dieter looks disturbingly like James Carville.
Another brilliant meta moment: Dieter says, “Over my dead body,” a clear reference to the death of his character in I.
He snacks on a jar of clitori from Africa, and he has the prison kitchen prepare an inmate’s balls for his lunch.  He then rather orgiastically wipes the blood from that castration all over his face
Then he gets a hummer from porn star Bree Olson, to completion, as we watch his already disturbing face contort.  The scene subsequently devolves.
None of the correctional officers in the prison where Deiter is the warden seem to notice/care that the warden is clearly, egregiously, totally insane.
It turns out the reason Dwight the accountant (who was Martin in II) was showing the I and II movies to Deiter was to offer a solution to control the riotous prisoners.
Then the metaness just explodes as Dieter refers to the first two movies as  “That B-movie shit.”  When he learns that they will be bringing the writer and director of the movie, Tom Six, himself, into the movie to advise them on how to make a human centipede, Dieter says of Mr. Six: The man is still in his potty stage.  A poop-infatuated toddler…a stupid filmmaker [with] a poooooop fetish.”
Once the decision is made to make the prisoners into a giant, 500-person human centipede to control them and to keep themselves from getting fired by the governor, Dwight, the prison accountant, drops a great quote: “We don’t gotta deal with their shit anymore, they just gotta deal with each other’s.”
The most meta moment is when Tom Six himself shows up, and his charaacters direide Mr. Six as a “man…still in his potty stage.  A poop-infatuated toddler…a stupid filmmaker [with] a poooooop fetish.”
They reference the cultural impact of The Human Centipede movies, mentioning the South Park episode The Human Cent-iPad.
Running with the self-referential meta-dom, Deiter: “Wake up!  We are not in a movie, playing some idiots!”  Oh, but you are.  Aren’t you?
Things hit peak meta-weirdness when Tom Six tells his characters that they may use this human centipede idea, but he’s sick of the “rubber and latex” bullshit from his movie sets, so he wants to see a real operation in person.  Even though it’s obviously going to be more rubber and latex bullshit from his movie set…or is it?
The prisoners are to be shown the first two films back-to-back on movie night.
“This trash occupies a world in which the stars don’t shine”  Which, of course, is a meta-as-fuck call-back to Roger Ebert’s legendary review of the first film.  While watching the films, one inmate calls for it to be banned.  Priceless.  I have new respect for Tom Six.
During the procedure, Bill Boss offers to show Tom Six “some human centipede improvement.”  Which is “copyrighted by Bill Boss.”  So the characters are now giving the writer director advice on the movie, while maintaining the copyright?
Then Tom Six throws up in disgust.
Then the governor changes his mind about firing the warden, turns the town car around, and goes back to the prison to tell Deiter he’s brilliant and that this is the way of the future of incarceration.  Dwight claims credit for the idea, and Deiter shoots him.
The film is set in color, with a budget that emphasizes fake blood and shock tactics. Laser hams it up, screaming about “castration rehabilitation” while his accountant Dwight (played by Laurence R. Harvey) mumbles alongside him . The tone of the film is bonkers, like a Troma flick on bath salts, and the centipede itself is less horrifying than the first film’s trio, more like a grotesque parade float . The final scene, where Boss revels in his “creation,” is almost funny, but the overall vibe of the film is more numbing than disturbing.
The literary angle? It’s Lord of the Flies with a fetish for bureaucracy. The prison-as-microcosm thing could’ve been sharp, but it’s buried under juvenile shock tactics. I’m not disturbed anymore—just numb, like I’ve been lobotomized by a YouTube prank channel. The final scene, where Boss revels in his “creation,” is almost funny, but I’m too broken to laugh.
Rating: 3/10 prison slop trays.  It’s a middle finger to taste, but I respect the hustle.

The Aftermath: I’m Not Okay
Five hours after I started this nonsense, I’m sprawled on my couch, questioning every decision that led me here. The trilogy is a descent from disturbing art to gross-out stunt. First Sequence is a legit horror gem—tight, creepy, and oddly poetic. Full Sequence is a middle finger to subtlety, and Final Sequence is a fever dream that forgot why it exists. Together, they’re a testament to Tom Six’s obsession with pushing boundaries, even if he trips over them.
As a literary blogger, I’ll grudgingly admire the trilogy’s guts. It’s a twisted fable about power, bodies, and the human condition—Dante’s Inferno with really shitty hygiene. But as a guy who thought he was unshakable? I’m shook. The first film still haunts me, the second made me hate mirrors, and the third… well, I’m just glad it’s over.
Final Marathon Rating: 5/10 cursed stitches. Respect for the vision, but I’m burning sage and never betting again.
Do me a favor, dear reader…if you see me betting over tequila again, slap me with a copy of War and Peace.

N.P.: “Phantom of the Opera” – Jonathan Young, Annapantsu