It’s fairly rare that a film can come along and generate a lot of attention just based on the premise. The Human Centipede was one such film. It claimed to be “100% Medically Accurate,” was viewed at Fantastic Fest, and took the world by storm by asking the question “What would it be like to sew a bunch of people ass to mouth?” At the time, I was hard on the claim that the flick was medically accurate, despite writer/director Tom Six‘s insistence. I’ve since changed my mind: sure, it’s entirely possible to sew a bunch of people together like that as long as you expect them to choke on feces and die relatively quickly. There is no shared digestion, but hey, he never said it was 100% a good idea! Unfortunately, that flick wasn’t 100% good. For me, I found it to be 52% good, which, as it turns out, is at least 30% better than the follow-up. Hey hey hey hey, listen to me. Spoilers ahead.

You probably won’t find too many people willing to argue that the first two Human Centipede movies are any good. The first one felt like an idea that could have made for a chilling short stretched for time, and the second ramped up the gore factor to keep from being so boring, but still didn’t tell any sort of worthwhile story. And yet, despite their obvious badness, everyone still watched them, and everyone talked about them afterward. When a project like this is so clearly desperate for attention it seems that it’s pretty hard to not take a peek for yourself and see what all the noise is about, and consequently there’s still enough gas in the Human Centipede tank for the planned trilogy to be completed. The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) is set to begin filming this May and June in the southern United States.

Have you ever wished that someone else had an idea instead of the person that had it? Has there ever been a time where you’ve recognized real genius trapped in a mind unable to execute it to its full glory? If there were ever a moment like that in the movie world, it was Human Centipede, and with Human Centipede 2, writer/director Tom Six has proven that his inspired idea of a horror villain who sews his victims ass to mouth should have popped into the head of a writer/director who knew thing one about writing or directing. As if there were doubts, Mr. Six is in love with the movie he made. This love is so powerful that he felt the need to share it in this sequel which features a squatted lump of a man watching Six’s previous film many, many, many times during what has to be called “the story” despite it never earning a title as lofty as that. And it’s not just scenes from the first movie that get replayed in self-stroke mode – it’s the credits too. That’s right, friends. It’s no exaggeration to say that the credits for Human Centipede roll at least four times during Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence). If you can, just try to imagine filmmaking more riveting than watching a guy watch movie credits. In the movie, a psychologically disturbed Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) is obsessed with the first Human Centipede film so much that he has designs to

Besides the bad acting, the eye-rollingly terrible story, the logic gaps, and pointlessness, the biggest problem with Human Centipede was that it just wasn’t all that gross. With a premise like that, you’d better deliver the goods, and director Tom Six instead covered the goods in adult diapers and pantomime poop-eating. Fortunately, its sequel has been flatly rejected by the British Board of Film Classification – citing “images of sexual violence, forced defecation, and mutilation.” A plot synopsis of sorts has come from the decision, and it reveals that Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) will be employing a new horror trend into its bag of tricks. Of course, mild spoilers stand right ahead…

Join us each week as Rob Hunter takes a look at new DVD releases and gives his highly unqualified opinion as to which titles are worth BUYing, which are better off as RENTals, and which should be AVOIDed at all costs. And remember, these listings and category placements are meant as informational conversation starters only. But you can still tell Hunter how wrong he is in the comment section below. This week sees a dearth of DVDs worth Buying (although if you don’t have a copy of The Year Without A Santa Claus by now you should really pick up the latest reissue) and only one Avoid (Christmas In Canaan starring Billy Ray Cyrus). But there is plenty worth Renting this week including a light British indie called Bomber, a Hasidic crime caper called Holy Rollers, and a movie about two girls who have their mouths sewn to someone else’s cornhole. Yay!

The winds of change are blowing here in Austin, Texas. With Fantastic Fest over, a tad-bit of emptiness has washed over the land and left me yearning for more great genre experiences. Which brings me to this week’s selection of Blu-ray releases — one that includes a few unique genre flicks and one lovable turd that reminds me of a documentary that was launched into the stratosphere by the film community here in Austin. Also, there’s this animated movie from the Mouse House that will absolutely blow your mind on Blu-ray. It’s as if the cosmos has looked down upon us in our post-Fantastic Fest haze and said “hey, here are some good movies to satiate your need for the good stuff.” It’s a week full of releases that are delivered right on time, just as the leaves start to change and Halloween begins to peek its head around the corner. Time to spray blood on the walls and fall in love again with a tale as old as time, or some other confused multi-metaphor. It’s another round of This Week in Blu-ray.

You’ve stumbled upon Circle of Jerks, our sporadically published, weekly feature in which we ask the questions that really matter to our writers and readers. It’s a time to take a break from our busy lives and revel in the one thing that we all share: a deep, passionate love of movies. If you have a question you’d like answered by the FSR readers and staff, send us an email at editors@filmschoolrejects.com. [Last] week’s question was great, but I’m wondering about the opposite. What are some brilliant (in your opinion) scenes from terrible no good very bad movies? – Carlos P.

A handful of loyalists helped propel Human Centipede to a small sort of success. It may not be a blockbuster, but when’s the last time an indie horror film from The Netherlands saw any screen time in the US at all? There’s no doubt that it reached the audience it was looking for, and the audience that was looking for it found it somewhere in a dark corner, but the news that the film is getting an October 5th DVD release begs an interesting question.

Despite The Netherlands already handing it to Denmark in the real World Cup, the ninth bout in Round One of the Movie World Cup sees the cult grotesqueness of The Human Centipede go head to head and ass to mouth against the oddity of Antichrist. Both have completely different followings. Who will win? The mad doctor with an ass fetish or the woman masturbating violently in the woods? Will abject horror triumph or will chaos reign?

It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. That’s what they will tell you. And the most frightening thing about the entire situation is that they are right.

The Human Centipede opens in 14 cities this weekend. We have free passes to one of those cities. Is it yours?

Two girls vacationing in Germany are kidnapped by a mad scientist who wants to sew them together ass to mouth to a Japanese guy to create a human centipede connected by a common digestive tract.