THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3: FINAL SEQUENCE

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3: FINAL SEQUENCE

Bill Boss (Dieter Laser) perspires heavily from beneath an oversized white Stetson hat as he presides as warden over a Texan prison - the most notoriously violent correctional facility in the whole of America, in fact.

He's nuttier than the contents of a greedy squirrel's winter food supply: prone to screaming expletives in extended, slow-motion fashion for no good reason ("fuuuuuuuuck yooooouuuuu!!"); sexually abusive on a daily basis to his big-busted blonde secretary Daisy (Bree Olson); not averse to goading psychopathic prisoners, calling the black ones "niggers" and snapping the arms of any who inflict violence upon his staff.

Needless to say, the prison has a terrible reputation. Despite his permanent state of exaggerated delirium, Bill is just about sane enough to realise he needs to keep his unruly inmates under control a little better if he wishes to keep his job.

His accountant and right-hand-man, Dwight (Laurence Harvey), has a plan. He plays the first two HUMAN CENTIPEDE films on DVD for Bill in his office - and suggests that they employ a similar method of control to keep the prisoners in line. That is, take their 500 inmates and sew them all surgically together arse-to-mouth to create a huge, er, human centipede.

Bill is too pig-headed and mentally chaotic to pay any attention to Dwight for some time. He's also too interested in either forcing Daisy to swallow his semen post-blowjob or slicing out the testicles of inmates foolish enough to antagonise him. In this latter instance, Bill relishes in ripping out the unfortunate felon's (Robert LaSardo) bollocks, sending them to the kitchen to be cooked for his evening meal, and then ecstatically smearing his face in the blood of his newly fashioned "sissy eunuch". Yes, Bill's a bit of a live wire ... he keeps dried, disembodied clitorises in a jar to eat for strength, for fuck's sake.

Following a visit from concerned governor Hughes (Eric Roberts), Bill is told he has just two weeks to clean up his prison's act - or both he and Dwight face dismissal. This is where Bill finally agrees to listen to Dwight's plan, which involves drafting in filmmaker Tom Six (the mastermind behind the entire CENTIPEDE trilogy, appearing as himself) to share his "100% medically accurate" instructions.

The plot is largely irrelevant. FINAL SEQUENCE exists as a bizarre series of sketches which, over the course of 102 minutes, bend over backwards to live up to the film's tagline: "100% politically incorrect". Certainly, the combination of misanthropic tirades spilling from Bill's mouth and sexual shenanigans do hark back to an era when all that PC nonsense was yet to become a state of mind. With overstated, comical performances from the males and Olson permanently dressed in low-cut tops and almost-snatch-revealing skirts, it's difficult not to think of Benny Hill as the film lunges from one cartoonish skit to the next.

Lines such as "even the corpse of a spastic would turn you down" and "I'll stuff your baggy homosexual shithole with Cuban cigars up to your throat" are clearly designed to upset Daily Mail readers everywhere, writer-director Six not only aware of the controversy raised by the film's two predecessors, but eager to exploit their negativity publicity to the max.

To this end, we get people being raped in a stab wound in their abdomen; one unfortunate's colostomy bag being torn off and a gun then thrust into the bloody stoma; visual gags revolving around puke, rape, shitting in mouths etc.

If it all sounds too extreme, too offensive to even contemplate, the curious thing is isn't anything of the sort. The exaggerated mannerisms and OTT script, all magnified by a quite simply off-his-tits central performance from Laser, ensure that there are more titters to be had than moments of recoiling in disgusted horror. The whole production feels like it was coked up to its eyeballs throughout, with razor-sharp editing and sensational music (including, at one key point, an instrumental version of "The Star-Spangled Banner") working alongside the sun-kissed colourful photography and lampooning performances to ensure a feverish pitch is maintained from start to finish.

Okay, so Olson's busty bimbo is a pastiche of everything from Daisy Duke to Pamela Anderson and beyond. Harvey's Southern accent is bizarrely bad (and inconsistent), and Laser's mental persona seems to determined to drag every scene out in a bid to steal centre-stage. But, as the film progresses, it becomes increasingly evident that what may at first appear to be stupidly bad acting is actually perfectly in synch with the film's demented, anything-goes approach. By the time Six and Roberts appear in extended cameos, it's clear that both of them know precisely how to play this: like the oddest, most outrageous comedy the former can possibly muster.

Events are certainly grisly at times, but Six never spoils the twisted sense of fun by lingering unduly on the gory stuff. The editing remains brisk during these moments, resulting in a film that is often bloody - and sick, definitely - but never nasty.

FINAL SEQUENCE is certainly an odd film. It's odd that Six has chosen to confound expectations on what is undoubtedly his most high profile picture to date. It's also commendable. He could've repeated past formulas, and repeated either the mad scientist histrionics of the first film (FIRST SEQUENCE) or the meta film-within-film conceits of part 2 (FULL SEQUENCE). Indeed, he does open proceedings by bravely revealing part 2 was, like its predecessor, a film. To end such a talked-about trilogy with an outrageous comedy is not only brave, but also fair indication of how the first two instalments are to be taken (i.e., not too seriously).

Eureka's Monster Pictures offshoot bring THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3: FINAL SEQUENCE to UK blu-ray and DVD in its fully uncensored form. We were sent a screener of the blu-ray disc for review.

It presents the film as an MPEG4-AVC file, encoded in full 1080p HD and benefitting from being correctly framed in its original 2.35:1 ratio. The warm colour schemes are accurately conveyed, the bold palette impressing vividly throughout. A cinematic depth of vision is keen for the duration, while detail remains consistently strong - nowhere more so than during the close-ups of Laser's craggy, heavily sweating visage.

English audio comes in options of both 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Either way, they do a fair job of attacking their viewer with the lead man's filthy verbal insults. Optional English subtitles for the Hard-of-Hearing are also provided.

A static main menu page opens the disc. Curiously, there is no scene selection menu.

Extras begin with a solid 24-minute Making Of documentary. This offers a wealth of on-set behind-the-scenes footage. Laser and Harvey are jovial on the shoot, Six comes across well, and Olson has fun giving us a guided tour of the lead actors' dressing room. A quick look at the practical FX work is possibly the highpoint.

A 4-minute alternate ending adds a coda which is odd as it is disquietingly sober. Its removal from the final cut of the film is no doubt due to the fact that it seems at loggerheads with the preceding 100 minutes' sense of total hysteria.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3: FINAL SEQUENCE is odd. Strange. Bizarre. It's fevered from its expletive-riddled, sweaty, loud opening to its expletive-riddled, sweaty, loud finish. It's also nothing like part 1 or 2, which were also nothing like each other. Six has therefore made three very different films, all linked with by a concept he himself explicitly condemns as ludicrous in this final instalment.

You may not get the comic book broadness of it all to begin with. You may wonder what the fuck Six was thinking, making such a hysterical film which feels like half its budget must've gone on pumping hard drugs into Laser and then filming while he went berserk. But stick with it, the film's unrelenting madness begins to make its own sort of sense as it forges on. By the time you settle down to a second viewing, you're belly laughing from the start...

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Monster Pictures UK
Region B
Rated 18
Extras :
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