The Human Centipede III: Final Sequence (2015)

"Taking inspiration from The Human Centipede films, the warden of a notorious and troubled prison looks to create a 500-person human centipede as a solution to his problems."

Featuring extended cameos by Robert LaSardo (best known for playing Escobar Gallardo in "Nip/Tuck"), Eric Roberts (who clearly is not likely to be remembered for anything apart from being Julia Roberts' brother), and director Tom Six himself, this final entry in the now worn-out but once hilarious Human Centipede joke is undoubtedly on most people's "must see" list. Hell, it beats watching the dubious "Poltergeist" remake or the equally crappy-looking "We Are Still Here" this weekend, doesn't it?

Even more political incorrect (it kind of says so on the poster) than the previous installments, "The Human Centipede III" certainly does not disappoint. From the opening scene where Dieter Laser (playing the insane prison warden Bill Boss) fingers sexy Bree Olson (as Daisy, Bill Boss' beautiful personal assistant and sex toy) in front of Laurence Harvey (Dwight Butler now rather than Martin), you know that things can only get better. Or worse. It all depends on your point of view. Normal people will laugh at it, Right-wingers will laugh with it, and Lefties just shouldn't ever watch this movie without adult supervision because it will make them cry like the entitled little babies they are all over the internet forever and ever amen.

"You're a sadistic, vile, asshole!"

As a "meta" movie, "The Human Centipede III" often strays too far up its own arse (pun self-consciously intended) to actually be "in-joke" funny, but with decent production values (not unlike those of Full Moon) and a cast who know that they are supposed to be chewing the scenery (another pun there) as much as possible, it's quite amusing. Standouts are obviously the maniacal double-act of Dieter Laser and Laurence Harvey, but you know, that's exactly why they are in this movie in the first place.

Of course, it's all as predictable and as offensive as can be, but that's the point. There's racism, sexism, patriotism, and all the other "isms" that drive those irritating progressive-liberals batshit crazy. Plus there's more than one blatant attempt at injecting some damning condemnation of the American prison system into this satire. It doesn't entirely work (since everything about the justice system in America is constantly mocked by the rest of the civilised world), but Tom Six is a goddamned genius-troll with these things, and you just have to admire him for it. I wish he could direct an episode of "Orange is the New Black" in the same style.

Orange is the New Centipede.

As usual, I'm not going to give any major spoilers. This blog is only supposed to a free "guide" rather than a collection of moral essays after all. Another reason is that, hard as it may be to do so, "The Human Centipede III" is best viewed with as little prior knowledge as possible. There are a few gruesome shocks but much less gore than in its predecessors, and of course, things turn out very badly indeed for everyone involved. Highlighting every fart that goes to fair about how and why will absolutely ruin it for you.

Although never likely to be talked about as much as "The Human Centipede", nor quite as disturbing as "The Human Centipede II", "The Human Centipede III" is good wholesome family entertainment which should keep everyone amused on this Memorial Day (also known as just another barbecue day) weekend.

Highly recommended to Tom Six fans and sick fucks with a sense of humour everywhere.

The World's End (2013)

"Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind's only hope for survival."

Since I've been discovering far too many good movies recently, rather than tempt fate to throw a load of bad ones my way, I decided to redress the balance with a day of more torture than one person should ever have to endure. There may be no power on Earth which could ever get me to rewatch "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), but I finally watched "Hot Fuzz" (2007) and followed it up with "The World's End". Such a heroic act has to keep karma quiet for a while, doesn't it?

Although I can freely admit that I enjoyed "Hot Fuzz" almost until the end, I only did so as it was a kind of half-way house between the greatness of "Men Behaving Badly" (the British version) and the smarmy creepiness of Mitchell and Webb's "Peep Show" to prepare me for worse to come. Laddish comedy is so '90s and over now that movies such as "The Cornetto Trilogy" (or whatever the Hell these are called) are little more than throwbacks. I liked Olivia Colman's character, was amazed at how realistic Simon Pegg was as a far too politically correct cop, but the running gag with the swan stole the show. Let's face it, "Hot Fuzz" is only a comedic homage to "The Wicker Man" with a couple of lovely gore scenes anyway. Adam Buxton wearing a piece of church as a head is memorable, but nothing else.

I don't know what it is about the combination of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (with Edgar Wright as the director) which irritates me so much. It's not as if any of them owe me money or something; I just have a completely irrational loathing of them based on their movies. Thus, as you can imagine, I really wasn't looking forward to "The World's End"—even the title gave away that it was going to be yet another pub-centric fiasco which isn't funny—but surprisingly, I wasn't dead set against it either. If anything, my pre-movie mood could be described as hesitantly curious.

The thing you have to remember is that I have absolutely no sense of humour. It just doesn't exist for me in any kind of "laughing out loud" way, so I tend to watch comedies as dramas and note the wit, stunts, or happy endings which would place the subject matter in the correct category. When it comes to comedy, I'm 100% objective because I have no physical way of being subjective about it. For that reason, I can say everything that I need to say about "The World's End" in a few quick paragraphs.

Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers!

"This is a pub! We are in a pub! What are we going to do now?"

"The World's End" is very good indeed for the first 40 minutes. It's nicely filmed, the backstory is well told as an introduction, the characterisation is decent, the location is perfectly British, and several recognisable TV faces make everything comfortable. The witty banter reveals that the former bad boy hero is now a bit of a dick, his friends are easily led, and they're all uncommonly stupid, but it's aimiable enough. Sadly, everything goes horribly wrong when the first robots (or "blanks") appear. The whole mood of the film is killed in one fell swoop and never recovers afterwards.

What would have been better as a straightforward comedy about the reunion of old schoolfriends who reveal their secrets and discover a few more during a pub crawl then turns into a stupid parody of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"! WTF? WTF indeed! It's a pity that "Shaun of the Dead" already covered zombies because aliens are too far-fetched and ridiculous to be entertaining for me. I don't believe in aliens, I'm not even sure that there's intelligent life left on this planet, let alone anywhere else in the universe, and if there's one thing which will make me switch the channel on the TV instantly, it's anything about aliens. Unfortunately, you can't do the same thing in a movie theatre, and walking out wastes $12.

After a few text-speak jokes, the second-half of "The World's End" is a bunch of repetitive fight scenes which become extremely tedious by the third or fourth time they happen. There are, after all, only so many robot arms and legs you can pull off or eggshell heads you can crush before the action scenes fall into the same trap as the running-joke about "Starbucking" and identical-looking pubs. Needless to say, the carefully crafted characters are lost among the spectacle of effects and explosions, some of them physically. What a shame.

As I'm not down with the kids, I don't know if Pierce Brosnan's cameo is meant to be a special secret or a selling point, but either way, you know about it now. His former "Die Another Day" Bond-girl Rosamund Pike is on the alternative posters, so you already know that she's in this and is just as easy on the eye 11 years later. She doesn't have a very big role either, but ironically, she's on screen more than Pierce Brosnan in this movie.

Maybe if I had been as drunk as the characters were supposed to be, "The World's End" might been more entertaining, but I didn't completely hate it. Despite easily being the second weakest of the three Pegg-Frost-Wright movies and ending with a half-arsed swipe at our de-humanising reliance on modern technology, I'm sure comedy fans would get something out of it. It's simply a film of two halves—and twelve pints—which, just like this review, isn't very well written. That shitty ending which I'm sure everyone thought would be so clever is still too rushed, disappointing and unsatisfying for everyone except the characters themselves though. Stupidly, I expected more.

Placing the three movies in order of merit, I can now rate "Shaun of the Dead" as the weakest with 1 out of 10, "The World's End" gets 3 out of 10, and "Hot Fuzz" is the best of a bad lot with 4 out of 10. Thank God, I will never have to watch any of them again.

"I know all about you - sex for dinner, death for breakfast"

Hell Baby (2013)

"An expectant couple who moves into the most haunted house in New Orleans call upon the services of the Vatican's elite exorcism team to save them from a demonic baby. "

Yeah, I know I said I was going to take a break, but I saw that other people had been writing about this movie and decided to upset myself with another crappy one for my final "Torture Tuesday" until after October.

Although the cheap-looking opening slideshow of random American "houses" in various states of disrepair made me want to switch this off immediately, I stuck with it only to discover that it was a typical American comedy, i.e. full of moronic characters (who wouldn't survive in the real world without the aid of professional carers) doing and saying stupid things.

Thus, while the concept of parodying "Rosemary's Baby", "The Amityville Horror", and "The Exorcist" isn't necessarily a bad one, the execution leaves a lot to be desired, and of course, it's not the first time that any of those movies have been spoofed. There's nothing here that hasn't already been done in the "Scary Movie" series apart from a couple of un-politically correct lines.

In its favour, the awkward scenes between Rob Corddry and Keegan Michael Key are nicely done. Their style is a bit of a half-way house between "Airplane" and "The Office", and there's nothing to complain about if you're a fan of that kind of comedy. I prefer more slapstick and cruelty, so "Hell Baby" was just like watching a '90s-style teen-comedy full of tame running gags and puerile "gross out" humour to me. Having said that, I can't fault it for not being more obscene because it's an American comedy after all and can only be judged as such.

The actresses also do a good job being ditzy. It's a toss up between Leslie Bibb and Riki Lindhome for who steals the show as the hottest, but as the latter isn't padded-up to look pregnant and gets completely naked, I think she has the edge. Further eyecandy is provided in a flashback sequence of sexy Italian nurses played by Brittney Alger, Tara Cullen, and Jessica Loyacono.

I wasn't so enamoured by the priests and cops who are aren't skewered enough for their hypocrisy to really offend anyone. There's one jibe about Catholic priests being gay, but it's barely acknowledged, and it should have gone into much darker areas. The cops are simply idiots whose skits continue the "neurons not quite connecting" style. The only thing I got out of any of their interactions is that I now know what a "Po Boy" sandwich is, and I want one.

There's not much horror in this movie apart from a naked 90-year-old woman, one off-camera murder, four kills in total, and the fight scenes with the demonic baby. The production values are decent enough and the effects aren't too bad, but the finale borrows a lot from "Basket Case" (1982) and Cindy's battle with Mr. Kittles in "Scary Movie 2" (2001).

Given that I don't like horror-comedies anyway, I'm still objectively forced to rate this as below average rather than a complete waste of time. I can see how it would amuse some people, but too many punches are pulled and not enough is made of the horror elements for "Hell Baby" to be worth anything more than a curious rental.

54 reasons why Beetlejuice sucks!

Heavily promoted by the blogosphere's Horror Lamers clique as "teh bestest moovee evah", "Beetlejuice" (1988) competes with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975), "The Addams Family" (1991), "Psycho" (1998), "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), and "Trick 'r Treat" (2007) for the coveted title of my most hated film of all time.

I just can't abide any part of it. Even hearing someone mention the name is enough to get my hackles up, and if they then go on to say that they love the movie, they soon cease to be an associate of mine. I'm not ashamed to say that I've blocked people on Facebook and Twitter because of this piece of crap. If I had my way, all copies of the thing would be rounded-up and burnt on a huge bonfire!

Some would say that I simply have an irrational dislike of "Beetlejuice" based on my equally irrational dislike of all things Tim Burton and Alec Baldwin related, but that's not entirely true. While I freely admit to going out of my way to avoid any Tim Burton or Alec Baldwin movie, I have many good reasons for hating this one—fifty-four of them, in fact—which I now present for you below.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

1. Tim Burton has only directed one good movie in his whole career—"Batman Returns" (1992)—and, obviously, this is not it.

2. "Beetlejuice" was originally meant to be a real horror film, not a crappy comedy. According to the IMDb:

Looking for a project to make after the success of "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," Burton optioned a script by horror author Michael McDowell. Being a horror author, McDowell's script was decidedly non-comedic, and was primarily a horror-thriller with a few minor comic elements. McDowell's story featured no Afterlife sequences, no other ghosts except for the Maitlands, and depicted Beetlejuice as a winged, reptilian demon who co-opted the position of an angel named Swallowtail, who helps ghosts lead peaceful existences while they await entry into their permanent resting places. Beetlejuice's goal is to kill the Deetzes rather than get them out of the house, and once he's dug up by the Maitlands, he cannot be controlled; the idea that he can be summoned and exiled by repeating his name three times was not added to the script until Burton became involved. This Beetlejuice wanders the "living world," assuming a variety of different forms to torment the Deetzes, and in the climax attempts to kill the Deetzes' nine-year-old daughter, Cathy, who was the only person able to see the Maitlands (as opposed to Lydia, who in McDowell's script was a disaffected, sixteen year old punk rocker whom Beetlejuice attempts to rape). The Maitlands then guide Cathy through an exorcism ritual that both allows them to be seen to the Deetzes and banishes Beetlejuice to another realm.

3. The opening credits with corny Danny Elfman "oompah" music will set anybody sane's teeth on edge. You just know that this is going to be a comedy rather than a horror movie, and that horrible sick feeling where bile rises up inside you begins.

4. 2:57 - Animal cruelty! Horrible as spiders are anyway, Adam (Alec Baldwin's character) launches a great-big-hairy-one to certain death by throwing it out of the window instead of carefully taking it outside. "If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive!" Predictably, poetic justice soon follows.

5. 3:08 - Geena Davis was hotter than hot back in the day, but her character is dressed like a frumpy 80-year-old! What a terrible waste! No wonder Adam would rather play with his lame little model village than his wife. Yeah, right. It's so unrealistic! If you have something which looks like Geena Davis as a wife, there's no way that she's leaving the bedroom again until she really is 80 years old!

6. 5:18 - Adam listens to the crappiest music in the crappiest way possible. Mono cassette recorder! Ugh! At 19:15, you can see that he owns a much better looking stereo to play his fuzzy warbles on in his office.

7. 7:37 - One of the first rules of driving is that you never swerve to avoid hitting anything. Always brake instead! If the Maitlands had braked and run that nasty little yappy-dog over, the movie could have been all about them trying to make a baby for two weeks instead. Now that would have been worth watching!

8. 9:17 - WTF is up with this green screen crap? Dated much?

9. 9:43 - Apparently, ghosts are like vampires and cast no reflections. Gah!

10. 11.08 - The title of the movie is wrong, as you can clearly see. It's supposed to be "Betelgeuse" just like the star!

Candyman... Candyman... Candyman... whatever.

11. 13:46 - Delia Deetz (Catherine O'Hara) is kinda smokin' hot, but she's married to a cardigan-wearing doofus like Charles (Jeffrey Jones)! In what universe would anything like that really happen? Presumably, the same one where Geena Davis is a model village "widow".

12. 14:41 - Winona Ryder, as emo-kid Lydia, can't act!!! And what's with her Victorian funeral clothes? She's too miserable to be a Goth!

13. 15:12 - Introducing Otho (Glenn Shadix) aka a cheap attempt to milk some homophobic humour out of a camp stereotype in a PG-rated movie! And why does he come in through the window rather than using the front door? Apart from using his awkwardness and size to make him look even more ridiculous, it's never explained.

14. 17:44 - Crappy-looking decapitated head effect followed by a even crappier headless body running around. How is this supposed to be funny apart from being inept?

15. 20:18 - Lousy stop-motion sandworm... on Saturn! But Saturn is classified as a gas giant because it's almost completely made of gas and not sand.

16. 23:00 - Adam can't read or pronounce things properly. Typical Yank! Form your own conclusions for why he makes Betelgeuse sound like a Jewish name.

17. 29:59 - Why is sexy Miss Argentina (Patrice Martinez) green with a pinky-orangey wig and cape? What's she meant to be? Did Captain Kirk diddle her in "Star Trek" or something? She slashed her wrists as a suicide; she didn't suffocate!

18. 33:07 - "I've been feeling a little flat." Really? Is that the best joke anyone could come up with? It's also the only actual joke in this so-called comedy. Hilarious if you're still in infant school.

19. 33.27 - There's no greater accomplishment than ripping off the style of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) because you have no imagination of your own, is there? How (un)original.

20. 37:56 - Totally unconvincing stop-motion fly. How feeble is it not to use a real house-fly? Wasteful too. Flies are pretty cheap, and there are lots of them around. The Insect Actors Union will hear about this!

21. 38:17 - "Help me! Help meeee!" Because the target audience of 8-year-olds are likely to be familiar with "The Fly" (1958), aren't they?

22. 40:30 - Oh, how risque! Meh.

23. 41:52 - Because the target audience of 8-year-olds are likely to be familiar with "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) too?

24. 43:32 - Awful incongruous background music.

25. 44:35 - Even more ill-fitting (that means the same as "incongruous", just so you know) background music.

26. 46:03-46:56 - Why is Betelgeuse in a coffin, and why do the Maitlands need to dig him up? What's the point? Shouldn't he just appear when summoned like Candyman? A minute's worth of padding. Gah!

27. 47:46 - More animal cruelty! No need to throw the poor little mousey like that! That's a long drop for a tiny rodent!

28. 48:25 - "I've seen 'The Exorcist' about 167 times..." just like the target audience haven't, but 167 times more than the Horror Lamers have.

29. 48:27 - "And it keeps getting funnier every time I see it!" Exactly what's wrong with today's retarded "yukyukyuk" horror fans who would laugh to see a pudding crawl. "The Exorcist" is certainly not comedy, but now they will think it is because Betelgeuse says so. Ironically, however, it is funnier than "Beetlejuice".

30. 48:41 - Jerk-off gesturing is a bit much for a little kids' comedy, isn't it? I'm no prude, but WTF? Followed by a bit of upskirt perving at 49:00. Again, WTF?

31. 50:22 - The infamous F-bomb is dropped with a honking crotch-grab! Oh dear. Tim Burton really does have no idea who his target audience is meant to be.

32. 50:32 - "He seemed awfully pissed off," as the potty-mouthing continues. Oh, how boundary-pushing! Not. Did Tim Burton help Rob Zombie out with dialogue later?

33. 51:32 - A little bit of homophobia directed at Otho in a particularly unpleasant manner by Beryl (Adelle Lutz). Not even delivered in a joking way. Otho's witty "The Wizard of Oz" referencing comeback is, unfortunately, the most memorable line in the whole movie. Had to be "The Wizard of Oz" too, didn't it? Because we all know who stereotypically loves Judy Garland musicals!

34. 52:34-54:24 - The self-indulgent, incongruent and absolutely cringeworthy lip-syncing musical interlude.



Obviously this occurs for padding and because nobody could think of anything better to put in. On a deeply personal level, I detest this "possession" scene more than any other in any movie ever.

35. 59:46 - Pitiful Betelgeuse-snake stop-motion animation. Almost as bad as something Ray Harryhausen would have done 7 years earlier. So unrealistic.

36. 1:01:37 - "Edgar Allan Poe's daughter". Only a couple of things wrong with that reference and its implications.

37. 1:01:57 - Crappy misquoted "Dirty Harry" line for no laughs whatsoever.

38. 1:02:27 - A whorehouse in a kids' film? Not only age-inappropriate, but in this case, suggestive of necrophilia too. This is a PG! It's not even a PG-13!

39. 1:06:14-1:06:51 - The surreal (and poorly done) stop-motion metamorphoses of the Maitlands into God knows what their heads are supposed to be. Too weird. Too much of what Tim Burton was to become.

40. 1:07:18 - Further proof that Winona Ryder can't act. Exceedingly flat line delivery even for a depressive teenager with Asparagus Syndrome. She has less expression changes than Liv Tyler or Kristen Stewart put together!

41. 1:08:02 - A gross-out cockroach-eating moment. Animal cruelty!

42. 1:08:49 - "...and shit like that..." Oh, who even cares at this point?

43. 1:10:13 - Stupid unconvincing masks. What's the point when Barbara changes back (at 1:10:44) before the Maitlands get chance to use their "fright faces" on their intended victims anyway?

44. 1:14:14 - The whole atmosphere of what could be a chillingly tense seance/conjuring scene is completely ruined by more of Danny Elfman's music overpowering everything.

45. 1:17:37 - The two decaying-corpse ghosts hovering over the dining table could be one of the most horrific images ever... except that it's in a shitty kiddified comedy! Waste!

46. 1:18:46 - Betelgeuse's WTF fairground costume jumps the shark into cartoon land! It makes no sense, it looks stupid, and it's a precursor to everything which will ever become nauseating about Tim Burton's movies. There's surreal and then there's total bollocks, and this is firmly in the latter category!

47. 1:20:07 - Another homophobic joke as Otho's horror at magically being forced to wear an unfashionable '70s leisure suit plays on the stereotype about gay dress sense. Way over the heads of most children, but shame on you, Tim Burton!

48. 1:20:38 - What happened to the snakes which Betelgeuse put into Charles Deetz's hand at 1:20:33? Continuity!!!

49. 1:21:13 - Predictably, Delia's weird-ass sculptures just have to come to stop-motion animated life and join in the craziness. We're now in Tim Burton's whacked-out, arty-farty imagination, and it's not a pleasant place to be.

50. 1:21:45 - What the bloody Hell is that thing which comes through the "Dr. Caligari" doorway? An alien-corpse preacher? A deformed dwarf-corpse with macrocephalus? Whatever Tim Burton was drinking or smoking at the time, I don't want any! This whole scene is far too weird for anybody in their right mind to enjoy.

51. 1:24:17 - Barbara riding a sandworm across time and space to save the day! Well, of course! You couldn't make this shit up! Okay, you could if you couldn't come up with a better ending. Don't forget to laugh at the dated effects. No? Please yourself.

52. 1:24:46 - A happy ending for everyone then, except Maxie (Robert Goulet) and Sarah Dean (Maree Cheatham) who must have had their necks broken when they were violently launched through the ceiling at 1:19:24.

53. Another cringeworthy lip-syncing routine at the end.



54. If you add up all of Michael Keaton's time on screen, the title character only has 17 out of 92 minutes! That really sucks!


So there you have it. "Beetlejuice" isn't horror. It's not even a proper horror-comedy. It's not scary, it's not funny. It's embarrassing, dated, and cringeworthy, but it's definitely not funny.

What audience is this really meant for? It's a PG with normally R-rated language, adult situations, sexual innuendoes, animal cruelty, homophobia, a smidgen of (debatable) racism, attempted paedophilia, suicide, images of death and the dead, and so much cigarette smoking that it's almost an advertisement for the tobacco industry!

How the Hell did the MPAA pass "Beetljuice" as a PG when something like "The Conjuring" (2013)—which is clearly a PG-13—gets an R? If this isn't proof that the MPAA is corrupt, it's still food for thought, eh?

Is "Beetlejuice" something that 'ickle kids should watch? Based on the damage that it's done to the minds of the tasteless plebs in the Horror Lamers clique, I don't think so. It's not because of the rating though, it's just because the movie totally sucks.