MovieChat Forums > The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) Discussion > Aims to be realistic, but it's less beli...

Aims to be realistic, but it's less believable than the first!

posted 13 years ago by VanillaCocaCola
11 replies | jump to latest

I think a huge problem movies have is a lack of believability, especially if the movie aims to be realistic.

Centipede II tries to be more realistic than the first because the first movie itself was part of the plot of the second film.
Some guy is obsessed with the first movie and he decides to imitate it.

That's believable, but it's pretty much the only believable part of the movie.

It's easy to buy into the idea that some crazy guy mangles people up for his own pleasure, but in the case of Centipede II it's not so easy to buy into the world that crazy person is in. Anybody who's seen the movie knows what I'm talking about.

This prevents the audience from falling into a suspension of disbelief, an affect that all good movies give.
And that is why Centipede I is a better movie, not that either are generally very good. I mean I don't know too many people that would enjoy watching them.

I would even argue that A Serbian Film is more believable than Centipede II, not that either are very realistic.

[–] Jigsaw_Expert 13 years ago

Aims to be realistic

wut

[–] hexrei 13 years ago

In the sense that is supposed to be a meta-film, set in our world where the first film was just a film, and not real events. At least I think that's what he meant, and I agree that it was actually less realistic than the first film. In fact it went beyond unrealistic, it was frankly surrealistic.

[–] anaconda89 13 years ago

The Human Centipede -"100% Medically Accurate"

The Human Centipede 2-"100% Medically Inaccurate"

I just don't see how you came to the conclusion you did, the central theme of the advertising for this film was how ridiculous and over the top it is, as opposed to the advertising for the 1st one stressed how believable it was

I will say that I believe it was that change in direction which made the 2nd one inferior to the first one.

[–] carlphillips408 13 years ago

So what?Somebody came up with a good idea & decided to use it in two films.
The idea is original in a sense.
Mix this idea with re-animator,hostel,hellraiser & throw in a little evil dead humour & BANG!You got a sure fire winner.
Lets elaborate:
Setting:College,further education.A fine opportunity for loads of busty young girls.Everybody loves busty young girls running up & down the corridors,waving their arms about.
Bad guys:They listen to heavy metal,dress in black,practice black magic.They outcasts from society.It is so true & everybody hates them.
Plot:Whist this motley crew are messing about in the old college library (teasing the sexy,big busted girls & distracting the students from their studies,one of them stumbles across a book...the necronomicon book of the dead that speaks of an ingredience that is capable of bringing back dead tissue & organs to life.
So they set about gathering material for their studies (hostel style),cutting them up,stitching them back together in any particular order,injecting the fluid into the corpses (re-animator style) & hey presto!A college full of weird undead things running after big,busty girls.
Wow!
But unbeknown to the unruly bunch,the college was originally built on a church that practiced black magic & the spirits have been woken to possess the corpses.They all go to the lower layers of the building (which has remained undiscovered for...oh about five centuries) to perform a ritural to awake the big daddy mother monster(in hellraiser fashion).
Good eh?
Cheque please.

[–] DrTrannySurprise 13 years ago

If anything, it's closer to an extended, overtly self-aware parody of the first film's "100% Medically Accurate" gimmick, and even the first film is very much tongue-in-cheek. I don't think anything in either film is going for any kind of remote idea of realism, and especially not this one (which seems to be aiming for some kind of disjointed "Eraserhead" homage).

[–] Oddark123 13 years ago

Realistic, is a funny word to use when talking about films

If this was real would the people act like they do in films, more often not

With this film, would the victims have just laid there and not tried to escape? Would no one have come looking?

The first did seem more realistic in that aspect at least and with enough assumptions made the centipede construct seem somewhat more convincing. But not really something i'd take a s real story

But this isn't anything new because honestly it's hardly ever present in movies which is ironic when people who act more like normal people are considered bad actors because they don't get into it. Most acting isn't realistic.

When a big a-lister puts on a performance, it's usually quite dramatic and unrealistic. Is anyone really going to put that much thought into those real life situations, probably not.

But when the un-trained slasher victim gets cut up people rage, but yet everyday people do dumb things in a mundane situation. If we know this is true then when faced with some kind of over-the-top threat like a monster or a killer, how do you expect them to act? They end up being more realistic in some cases.

Sure some people would be real life Doctor Loomis and Clarice Starling type, but the general person isn't.

Even in so-called biography and true story films, the acting is usually dramatized. The world of things such as literature, film, theater and video games really aren't meant to be realistic. Sure sometimes things seem to be and you ask yourself would i do this in real life, but at least 9/10 times, someone's gonna watch a film and say "i'd never do that in real life in that situation"

[–] sammikat-903-551819 13 years ago

This movie NEVER aims to be realistic. The whole point is that it is a fantasy.

It is like Tom Six is saying that the only people who could find THC: 1st Sequence erotic are mentally ill, physically defective, incontinent survivors of sexual abuse by a same-sex parent living with the opposite sex parent who blames the victim for the abuser's incarceration.

Once you start to ask logical questions, like, wouldn't people notice if that many people who parked in the same garage went missing? or Would it really always be raining that hard only at that one warehouse where he keeps the parts of his centipede? Or Wouldn't all those people have been dead from getting whacked on the head with a crowbar by now? Then you have to concede that the film is meant to be a dream, a fantasy. The use of incidental sound here is AMAZING. Like the 1st time we see Martin in bed, we hear a child crying and an adult voice say "Keep crying, that just makes Daddy's willy even harder" and the child keeps crying. This tells us that he is dreaming (within the dream) about being abused as a child. Later on when the Doctor confirms this, as does the mother, when she says she misses her husband & blames Martin for putting him in jail. But Martin is so beaten down that even in his fantasies, he has to suffer (the centipede up the bum)despite his "triumph."

Of course, stapling people together wouldn't actually work. People would suffocate. Or bleed to death. But for the viewer (voyeur) it really doesn't matter. We can complain that it wasn't realistic enough, but as I say, the whole thing is a fantasy. That's why the film ends where it begins, the whole movie has taken place inside Martin's head.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] modest-alchemist 13 years ago

this movie is just a really good example of bad story telling. a lot of people try to defend it by saying, "it's all in his head, or a dream" but as soon as you make it a dream, that is a clear sign that you have written yourself into a corner.

what doesn't work for it is that they have tried to make it more realistic by setting it in the real world. they do this by blatantly pointing out that the first movie was indeed a movie. However, this is just a weak tool to do this job. It's like writing a sex scene by saying, "and then they kissed, and made love" it lacks reason or details. Details are what makes things realistic. This film lacks them.

Secondly, and this puts the nail in the coffin for me, they use flashback and dream sequences. the hallucinations of memories of the main character that he has about his daddy abusing him, the baby crying, the out of focus, or non chronological sequences.... these just add to putting off the audience. These things are not familiar to people in day to day life. you don't spend your day inside someone else's head.

the movie tries to both make it realistic, and make it a dream. it should have just taken one direction and went with it instead of trying to do both.

in my opinion, it would have been better to try to keep it real while maybe exploring the main character's craziness through meetings with his doctor. They could have discussed the things he saw in his head (flashbacks/dreams) instead of actually showing them to us. it would have made it more consistent for the audience, and therefore would have more easily allowed us to suspend disbelief.

furthermore, this film centered around the bad guy. the first centered around the victims. We are not able to connect with anyone in this film. no one to root for.

[–] namaGemo 12 years ago

While we don't have any real connection with the victims sure to a lack of character development, I find it very ready in films like this where some unknown person captures and disfigures people. Basically, since it happens in real life, I only need to connect with the idea that I could be walking to my car, get jumped, and have some nut cutting me up. The German cannibal and Jeffrey Dahmer come to mind.

While films like SAW don't have the same effect because the devices and plot point are too ridiculous to believe. The idea of someone taking up were jigsaw left off because they now have seen the light is just dumb. The fact that they can stage all these murder devices and capturing people and it all fits together like some intricate weave is just beyond to many perfect coincidences to male it all happen.

[–] Arvin-G-Borkar 9 years ago

First film was a psychological thriller.

2nd film was a remake for fans. Fans wanted to see more gore and a slasher flick and that is exactly what Tom Six directed.

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