Say what you like about the Human Centipede franchise, but it’s been a godsend to the home-entertainment market. Unsuited to the civilised viewing experience of the cinema, previous entries in the trilogy made their biggest mark on DVD, where part one was steadily unearthed by darkly curious genre fans, while the follow-up debuted to an onslaught of re-digested thinkpieces on the nature of sadism, the limits of free speech, and the dubious medical credibility of stitching together hapless sadsacks mouth-to-anus.
In the case of the second instalment, home video also provided the only way to see the film in its entirety (albeit on imported DVD or region-tweaked Netflix) after British censors insisted on two-and-a-half minutes of mandatory cuts. That decision, largely symbolic in the age of the internet, successfully prompted a flurry of interest in a low-budget horror sequel that might otherwise have gone unnoticed by all but the most hardcore of coprophagics.
Arriving on DVD this week, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) clearly aims to replicate the feat by filling its bloated running time with censor-baiting scenes of castration, “kidney rape” and dried clitoris consumption.
Tone counts for a lot, though, and where the first two entries in the saga wore their aberrance with a grim sincerity, this new offering aims squarely for camp appeal. With franchise stars Dieter Laser and Laurence R Harvey recast as employees of a Texas prison, Final Sequence veers wildly between impish comedy (director Tom Six appears as himself) and extreme satire (the central plot sees 500 inmates stitched together in an attempt to appease a Republican governor) without truly committing to either. Damningly for a franchise once known for its indelibility, the result is largely forgettable, and fans seem to have inferred as much: when the film crawled into US cinemas two months ago, it grossed one tenth of its predecessor’s takings.
Also out this week
Home Emphatically cuddly girl-meets-alien adventure.
The Face Of An Angel Oblique examination of the Amanda Knox trial.
Mommy Rough-and-tumble family drama from pint-sized auteur Xavier Dolan.
