The Human Centipede II Director: Tom Six Cast: Laurence R. Harvey, Ashlynn Yennie, Maddi Black Review by Brian M. Sammons One of my all-time favorite goofball slashers of the 1980s is called Pieces. It had a poster featuring a cut up woman, a chainsaw, and the tag line, "It's exactly what you think it is." That bit of tag line brilliance could have easily been applied to The Human Centipede Ii (Full Sequence). Even if you never saw the first shocktastic slice of cinema, you probably know exactly what it is and by extension, what the sequel will have to offer. The original movie was one of those films that quickly entered the public lexicon and it became the butt of many late night TV monologs and the punch line for countless morning radio shows. Once South Park does an episode on something, it's safe to say it's become part of the gestalt of human consciousness. Hell, my 60+ year-old mother knows about the movie, what it's all about, and she has no interest in the weird flicks I watch. And in the case of this movie, I am very glad she will never, ever see this film. But should you? Well grab a barf bag, you're sure to need it, and let's see if anyone can top the over-the-top Human Centipede. This film is set in a world where the first Centipede movie was just that; a movie. That film has become the obsession of a very odd, mentally retarded man living with his bitter mother in England. This sequel is shot in black and white, probably for a number of reasons. The more charitable side of me might say that it was done as an artistic statement. In this world the first movie was "fake" but shot in color. Here in the "real" world things are not only devoid of color, but as the viewers will soon learn, far, far worse than anything that happened in the original Centipede movie. That said, the choice to go with black and white could also be because of all the gore and various bodily fluids flying all over hell and back in this movie. They might have been too much for anyone to handle in living color. The star of this show is a demented, roly-poly, bald, bug-eyed, sweaty little troll of a man named Martian. While the villain of the first movie, the awesomely insane Dr. Heiter, had a creepy but cool vibe to him, there is nothing cool whatsoever about Martian. He is completely and utterly repulsive and reprehensible. Martian never once utters a single word, so actor Laurence R. Harvey has only his "unique" physical attributes, and acting without aid of dialog through grunts, facial expressions, and body movements, to portray one of the creepiest nut jobs ever captured on film. I'm sure in reality Mr. Harvey is a charming person, but here as Martian, he is frighteningly icky. Love this movie or hate it, and it seems many people really despise this film, credit must be given to Laurence R. Harvey for creating a nightmare inducing madman you'll not soon forget. And that's where the praise train ends for Human Centipede Ii. All aboard the bad taste express. Remember those barf bags I told you to bring? Well you just might need them now. Martian works in an underground parking garage where he spends all his time in his little booth, watching his favorite movie, masturbating with sandpaper, and dreaming sick dreams of making his own human centipede. One day Martian rents out a warehouse and then starts clubbing random people over the head with a crowbar. When the poor KO-ed people wake up they are naked, tied up in that warehouse, and about to face a fate worse than death. After Martian collects a dozen people for his much larger centipede, he gets to work putting them together. But whereas the psycho in the first movie was a famous surgeon, Martin is a mentally challenged parking garage attendant. That means he has to resort to using pliers for yanking out teeth and a box cutter to slice through the sinews in legs (so that the centipede properly crawls around) and to create the flaps of butt skin used to attach everyone a** to mouth. He then employs a staple gun to make sure everyone stays in place. Still with me? Ok, on we go. Things go both good and bad for Martin in his quest to live his dream. Good: he manages to trick one of the actresses from the original movie to come to London so he can use her in his new and improved centipede. He does this by posing as a casting director for a film (naturally), although that dialog all happens off screen as remember, Martin never talks. Lord only knows how he was able to pull that off. Bad: he accidently kills one of his would be centipede segments, a very pregnant woman, by bashing her brains in with a crowbar one too many times. Good: he makes his human centipede, has it movie around much to his simplistic, sadistic glee, and then injects everyone with concentrated liquid laxatives to recreate the infamous "feed her!" scene from the first movie. Bad: the quite literal sh** storm this causes is so overpowering that it even makes Martian sick. Good: Martian gets some jollies when he wraps his penis in barbwire and then rapes the last woman at the tail end of his centipede. Bad: the pregnant woman he thought he had killed comes to, runs for the door as her water breaks, and gets into a car, desperate to escape. In fact she is so desperate, that even once she has given birth in the car and her newborn baby falls to the floor and gets its infant head stuck under the car's gas pedal, she still stomps on the gas (and thus cruses her newborn's head) to get away. Do I need to go on? Because I easily could, there are a whole slew of other atrocities I could recount for you, but I'd like to leave some things as surprises should you wish to punish yourself by watching this movie. As for the extras on the oh-so lovely Blu-ray from IFC Midnight, there are a good selection for such a low budget and infamous little movie. First off there is an audio commentary track with director Tom Six and actor Laurence R. Harvey, that's as informative as it is often off-putting. Then there's a twelve minute interview with the madman who dreamt up all this human centipede stuff, Tom Six. And quite frankly, he didn't appear as pants-on-head crazy as you would think from his movies. There's a nine minute on set tour of warehouse were the centipede comes alive that has some nice behind the scenes bits, not to mention a whole lot of fake butts being tapped to actors. There is a very short special on the foley artists who make up all the disgusting sounds for this fine film. Another short is about making the movie poster. A single deleted scene (that adds nothing at all to the film), a short promo piece featuring Tom Six, trailers and teasers round out the extra goodie bag. The Human Centipede Ii (Full Sequence) is shock for the sake of shock and nothing more. Its artistic merits are nil, save for seeing just how messed up and wrong a movie can be. Writer/director Tom Six gleefully admits that he wanted to make the most disturbing, sick, controversial, and yes, shocking movie ever made. Did he succeed? Well it would be a good race between this and A Serbian Film for the gold medal of bad taste. But with all that said, if you like to test your limits or to see how strong your stomach is, you might want to give this movie a watch. Or if nothing else, you can play a game of "how much of this crap can you take before you leave the room" with your friends and family should you wish to inflict this upon them. Of course they may not talk to you afterwards, but that's the chance you take. For the vast majority of people out there, I would say that this movie is not for you. If you read this review and were repulsed by any of the things I described here, seeing the events in the movie are far worse. Consider yourselves warned.

With the success of the After Dark Films Horrorfest "8 Films To Die For" brand, and the unanimous success of the first installment of After Dark Originals (ADO), ADF, in conjunction with Lionsgate and IM Global, has announced that they will be bringing another set of 8 terrorizing films to theaters in 2012 - After Dark Originals 2 (ADO2). “We’re very proud of this new line of horror films and Dark Circles is the perfect film to set the tone for our ‘newest brand of fear’.” - Courtney Solomon, CEO of After Dark Films After Dark Films kicks off After Dark Originals 2 with its first chilling feature of the new series that will send shivers down your spine. Dark Circles, written and directed by Writer-Director Paul Soter (of Broken Lizard infamy, the team behind Club Dread, Super Troopers and Beerfest) and starring Pell James (The Lincoln Lawyer) and Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do), will have its blood-curdling theatrical release in 2012. “Hopefully this will serve as some kind of cinematic equivalent of birth control.” - Paul Soter, Writer/Director of Dark Circles Description: When new parents Alex and Penny retreat from the city and move into a place outside town, the stress and massive sleep-deprivation caused by their infant has both of them seeing things in the house that may or may not exist. Persistent sightings of a strange woman has each of them wondering if they are suffering from hallucinations, or if their new home holds a dark, supernatural presence. As their fragile grasp on reality spirals into delirium, Alex and Penny find themselves nearly helpless to deal with the horrific truth of what is really going in this house. After Dark Films has made yet another unprecedented commitment to the production of eight original horror films this year under the After Dark Originals “A New Brand of Fear” label, continuing the Company’s mantra of supporting first time independent film writers and directors. The creation of the second AD Originals slate is just another example of the Company’s commitment to the Indie film industry. Continuing the success of After Dark Originals, the second installment will uphold the tradition of giving After Dark fans the scare they crave. The ADO 2 slate will make the genre proud, with supernatural demons, psychological killers, gruesome mysteries, and even a sci-fi sector fully equipped with aliens and a killer leprechaun. Beware horror fans, After Dark Films is giving the fans exactly the type of horror movies they asked for! Come and see for yourselves. We dare you...

Author and filmmaker Gregory Lamberson announced three new theatrical screenings for Slime City Massacre, his gooey celebration of 1980s cult films which stars Debbie Rochon and Brooke Lewis and features cameos by Roy Frumkes and Lloyd Kaufman. After a successful tour on the horror film festival circuit, SCM was released on DVD in 2011 by Media Blasters and enjoyed a limited theatrical release from iFN, Indie Film Net. “This is what it takes to make the audience aware of a film that defies easy categorization,” says Lamberson. “SCM is horror, it’s sci-fi, its action, and its bizarro comedy. It took the original Slime City about eighteen years to develop its reputation as a cult film; it needed to fade away and be re-released and rediscovered. Our goal with SCM is to keep it out there in public, so that the people it was made for have a chance to see it on a big screen, with an audience. I’m glad that promoters keep contacting me to screen it, and not the other way around.” First up, the slimy opus mucks up the Tampa Pitcher Theater in Florida on Thursday, February 9th, at 9:30 pm. Lamberson will do a Q&A with Lee Perkins, one of the stars of the film. The screening launches Cult Movie Mayhem’s “Screaming Cinema” series. Future entries in the series include Father’s Day, Theatre Bizarre and Herschell Gordon Lewis’s The Uh-Oh Show. Romance is in the air one week later, on Friday, February 17th, when Las Vegas bets on slime for “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” at Theatre7, sponsored by the PollyGrind Film Festival, which named SCM “the Biggest Baddest Mother of the PollyGrind” in 2010 and awarded author Kealan Patrick Burke with its Best Actor award. On May 26th, the slime returns to the scene of the crime at Buffalo’s Central Terminal; SCM was filmed in abandoned buildings surrounding the historic Art Deco tower in 2009. “Beyond Ghosts ParaHorror Weekend” is a three-day event to benefit the restoration of the Terminal, and Lamberson and local cast members will screen the film. Lloyd Kaufman will be on hand to show Poultrygeist, also filmed in Buffalo. Lamberson has three new horror books being published this year, including the zombie novella Carnage Road from Creeping Hemlock Press in April; his werewolf sequel The Frenzy War from Medallion Press in June; and Tortured Spirits, book four in "The Jake Helman Files," from Medallion in October. Slime City Massacre was co-produced by Medallion Movies, a division of Medallion Media Group.