Saturday 22 October 2011

The Human Centipede: Variations

Over the last few months the biggest news in the film world has been the launch of The Human Centipede II, the long-awaited sequel to the classic The Human Centipede, which is about a surgeon who grafts a bunch of people together as per the title. Sadly, the sequel is just more of the same basic concept, and so I have come up with some hypothetical ideas that a further sequel might use.

Yeah, ving love to you too

The last time I used my powerful brain in this manner I managed to solve the problem of Paul Simon's Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover, and perhaps next time I will work out a pragmatic, just, and workable solution to the problem of post-Ghadaffi Libya and The New Middle East. Or I might draw up a list of unlikely Beatles song titles. The choice is yours.

Or rather, it is mine. Look at the fish; they long to escape, but if they could break the bowl they would all die. For a fish, freedom equals death. And so it is with people. Time is a cage. Being is an anagram of begin, and that is what I will do.

The Human Centipede of the Lambs, in which an evil serial killer who lives in a basement stitches together a bunch of lambs, but they turn on him and bite him, and then Jodie Foster comes along and shoots the serial killer and adopts the poor lambs - but Hannibal Lector gets hold of them, and eats them with a nice red wine, which makes sense because you're supposed to drink red wine with lamb.

Saving the Human Centipede, in which the centipede storms up the beach on D-Day, chowing down on Germans, and along the way its component bodies are killed off, one by one, until there's only one left. At which point the government ask him to come home, but he refuses because he's not going to leave his buddies, dammit.

The Human Centipede Two: Electric Boogaloo, which pretty much writes itself. The human centipede finds itself unable to function in society, *but* it's one bad mama-jama on the dance mat, and so it takes up breakdancing and becomes a hero. In the end, all the other dancers realise that six legs are better than two, and they start sewing each other up as well, until eventually two-legged people are the persecuted minority. But that's not a problem, because before long the whole world becomes one giant breakdancing centipede and there is no more war.

The Human Atari Centipede in which an evil scientist kidnaps a bloke and encases him in a Centipede arcade machine, feeding him ten pence pieces, forcing him to make bloop-blip noises, tee hee joystick tee hee. Followed by The Human Outrun, in which the man is encased in a Ferrari, and forced to drive across America whilst listening to catchy jazz fusion music.

The Passion of the Human Centipede, an epic set in ancient Judea, which stars Christian Bale as Jesus Christ. His followers are so fanatical that they staple themselves to his bottom - perhaps in the belief that the son of God's poop has mystical powers - but the Roman authorities take a dim view of this, and decide to crucify him before the entire population of the ancient world becomes one giant breakdancing centipede and there is no more war.

But the plan goes awry, because the centipede is too large to nail to a cross, and so he breaks free and goes on the rampage. It all ends with a huge battle between the cream of the Roman army (with catapults, spears and so on, boiling oil, etc) versus the gigantic and pissed-off Jesus Centipede, which towers over all of them and sends dozens of men flying through he air with every sweep of its tail, bolts of lightning and so forth, holy fire, it's awesome.

In the end the Romans have to enlist the help of Plato, who designs an electrically-powered flying machine that carries bombs. Jesus swats it out of the sky, sending it spinning out of control, but Jude Law jumps in the pilot's seat and pilots it on a heroic suicide run that blows up most of Jesus' body. But it's not over, because what remains of Jesus climbs to the top of Mount Sinai, where he is cornered by the Romans, and it's a bit sad, like King Kong. It ends with Jesus engulfed with flames, shouting "is this the end for Jesus?", raising his fists to the heavens as the flames rise higher. God is played by Helena Bonham Carter and she is very upset, which sets up the sequel.


The Human Centipede: Its First Assignment, in which the human centipede joins the NYPD, and is sent out to patrol the streets with a badge and a gun and a hastily-modified uniform. Lots of jokes whereby it trips up thugs with its back legs, spits poop at them, does trick shots, transforms into a fly and melts their faces off etc. Genuinely scary bit where it rears up on its hind legs and frightens a drug dealer, who says "lawks a lordy, I ain't never gonna do drugs again" in a comedy black person voice, and in the background a wino takes a look at his wine bottle, shakes his head, and then throws the bottle away.

The Human Sausage-Dog, in which the mad scientist buys a sausage dog, and looks at it.

With The Human Centipede, which is released in the States as Meet the Human Centipede. Or was it the other way around? Same poster, anyway, a moody black and white number with Ringo's head grafted onto a body of unspeakable horror. Lots of tracks you don't recognise because they didn't put their singles on the album, you have to buy Past Masters for that.

The Human: Being, in which a mad scientist creates a life form that eats food with a mouth located in the front of its head, and poops from an orifice located in between its buttock cheeks, which exist in order to keep the orifice closed, and provide useful hand-holds in case someone else wants to do that. This creature wears a hat, and has a job, and brings home the bacon, so that no-one knows it are actually freek. "Is it not a man?", people say.

The Centipede Human, a macro-scale drama starring an evil centipede that gathers other centipedes and stitches them together - thousands of them - in order to create a human-sized human being made out of a writhing mass of dying centipedes. With a core of dead rotting insects where its heart should be. This creature goes on to be quite successful in the world of business and ends up rich, with a much younger wife, and a yacht.

The Human Centipede League - that's pronounced leeg, not lee-ague - in which a crazed fan of electronic pop pioneers The Human League kidnaps Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh, Glenn Gregory - by mistake - and Phil Oakey, and forces them to reform the early version of The Human League, by stapling them to (a) each other and (b) a Roland System 100m modular synthesiser. The crazed fan also captures the two girls, and slide projectionist Philip Adrian Wright, but... well, that bit's horrible, to be honest. The snapping... the... the twisting (hand gestures). Best not dwell on... No.

The Human Centipede with Two Backs, in which a man and a woman decide to lock their hips together for ninety minutes or so, in a variety of positions - from the front, and from the other side. This would be cheap to film and you could probably save a bit of cash and do it on videotape, sell it via mail-order or the internet. Ends with the revelation that the couple could have separated themselves at any time, but chose not to do so.

The Alien/Predator Centipede, in which a mad scientist in the future grafts an Alien (from Alien) onto a Predator (from Predator), with a colonial space marine taking up the rear. People will go to see the film to find out whether aliens poop, or not.

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