Thoughtful reviews, the Boulder film scene

" I am the monster’s mother "
— Sigourney Weaver, Alien Resurrection

MRQE Top Critic

Betty Blue

There can be beauty in tragedy, particularly when the key ingredient is the same in both —Marty Mapes (review...)

Betty arrives like a bolt from the Blue

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Pity those who see The Human Centipede (First Sequence) and have no idea what they’re in for. Allow me to commit a critical no-no here and string a series of adjectives together to cover The Human Centipede. The movie is disgusting, disturbing, sick, ludicrous, outrageous, bizarre, and deeply perverse.

Director Tom Six, who was born in the Netherlands, devises a scenario in which two American tourists (Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie) are taken hostage by a crazed German doctor (Dieter Laser). The not-so-good doctor connects them — via surgery — to a Japanese man (Akihiro Kitamura) who’s also being held at the doctor’s isolated home in the German countryside. There’s no delicate way to put this, so I’ll just tell you that doctor’s preferred method for conjoining folks involves a mouth-to-anus connection.

Six seems intent on breaking new ground in horror. I suppose he does, but I’d say only hard-core (and I use the term advisedly) horror fans should attempt to sit through a movie that includes depictions of maiming, extreme degradation and surgical procedures that evoke comparisons with Nazi barbarities. Six begins with standard horror tropes (two American girls make really stupid decisions), but quickly lets us know that his forte is the kind of grim embellishment that borders on absurdity but also is truly revolting.

Proceed at your own risk.