I decided to throw my hat into the ring. I'm not sure how many I will get to, but this is my tentative list.
1.) The Human Centipede
2.) Evil Dead
3.) Evil Dead 2
4.) Hostel
5.) Dawn of the Dead
6.) Night of the Living Dead
7.) Halloween
8.) Re-Animator
9.) Scream
To start off:
The Human Centipede
I wanted to start October off with a bang. I didn't go into this much talked about and controversial body horror film with high hopes. I expected to be grossed out and left bored by feeble attempts at shock horror. The premise is pretty heinous. A disturbed doctor kidnaps his victims and stitches them together, mouth to rectum, to form a 'centipede'. Clearly this is high brow entertainment.
For the most part I got what I was expecting. The premise delivered what it was advertising. I'm not one to be impressed with graphic displays of mutilation. I don't go for a director trying to shock and disturb the audience just for the sheer sake of producing an emotion. This is cheap. A well crafted and thought out horror film can use graphic displays to accent and heighten the emotional response to a film, but it should not be centered around this. To his credit I don't think director Tom Six does that here. There are many disturbing elements, but I don't think he went overboard with graphic imagery. Sure, there is some - how could there not be given such a premise? - but he also showed restraint. Six at least attempted to go beyond exploitation.
That being said I would never consider this a 'good' movie. Beyond the initial premise the movie doesn't really go anywhere. It tries. It tries very hard. Six appears to be grasping for any sort of deeper meaning he can possibly think of, but it never comes through. It's clear he is channeling the works of better filmmakers like Takashi Miike, but comes nowhere near the quality. Scenes are set up to appear to appear meaningful, but its really just hollow mimicry. Beyond featuring some decent acting by Dieter Laser as the doctor there is really little of value here. The best I can say is that its not as awful as I thought it was going to be.
2/5