"Okay, let me make one thing perfectly clear: this is not jumping the shark. I'll repeat that again. This is not jumping the shark, no, no, no, no, no, no, no... THIS IS JUMPING THE SHARK, COMING BACK, SHOOTING HIM IN THE BALLS, RAPING HIM, EATING HIS FLESH, CONSUMING HIS SOUL, MOUNTING HIS HEAD ON THE WALL... AND THEN DOING THE SAME THING TO TWELVE MORE FUCKING SHARKS JUST TO BE SAFE!!!"

[link]

-Doug Walker

I really don't want to write this journal, and you really, honestly shouldn't read it.

Seriously, look away.

Leave right now.

No, honestly, I'm not kidding. You are much better off doing anything else right now.
Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was once fired form her post in the Clinton administration for recommending a certain activity to teenagers.... You are better off doing THAT right now than reading this horrible, horrible journal.

Are you still reading this?! What part of "Stop reading" don't you understand?!

Seriously, by continuing to read this journal you are tearing off your logic suit, and jumping head-first into Lake Stupid.

DO YOU EVEN THINK I'M REMOTELY KIDDING AT THIS POINT?!?!

Seriously, you get your art-appreciating, `loish-faving, wi-fi-using, junk food-eating, pageview-envying, Daily Deviation-aspiring, DVD-watching, video game-playing butt OUTA HERE!!!

... Still here?

All right, you asked for it.

As previously stated. I really don't want to write this journal, but I suppose it's just in human nature to seek some kind of catharsis, whether the route you chose to search for one on is even likely to be fruitful or not.

Well, in any case, everything started this past monday night.
I now have the good fortune to live adjacent to a shopping plaza. Ergo, I am in direct walking distance to a mini-mart, coffee shop, pizza joint, liquor store and video store, and concurrently me and my housemates take advantage of our proximity to these convenient services very often.
So, I was in there, returning the movies I had previously rented and was looking for new ones, when I looked up on the shelve and saw a title that I have heard of but never actually bothered to look into.

After taking it down off the shelve and reading the back cover, my curiosity was peaked, but not enough to actually rent it, mind you. But still, I did become curious.
Upon going home I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, and then watched the trailer on Youtube.

Never before has a movie trailer brought me within a hair's breath of vomiting.
Honestly, if the muscle control in my throat was just one jot weaker I would have tossed my cookies all over my bedroom floor.

I lost about an hour of sleep on monday night, disturbed, unnerved, enraged by the horrific premise of this movie, and then on tuesday I was correspondingly grumpy and pissy, all day, for a full 24 hours.
At work, at home with my housemates, just a miserable wretch of an irreversibly joyless, hallow husk of primate flesh.

Which movie elicited such a response from me?

"The Human Centipede"

For those of you who don't know what this movie's about... I refer you to the disclaimer at the head of this journal.
But if you really want to know...

Imagine a demented German doctor who once specialized in separating conjoined twins.
Said doctor then proceeds to kidnap three tourists, lock them in his basement, surgically graft their knee joints so they are permanently bent, making them incapable of walking...

... Then proceeding to graft the three people, mouth-to-anus, forcing them to be linked in a living chain of human digestion. "The Human Centipede."

Oh, and by the way, I didn't just spoil anything for you...

THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE!!!

If you know the premise, you know the content of the entire flick. No human drama, no psychological delving into the potential perversities of the human psyche, no subtlety or nuance at all.
The entire point of the movie is to show this abomination of nature that the bastard love child of Josef Mengele and Dr. Mindbender from G.I. Joe couldn't have dreamed up.

And of course, to my mind, one of the most unnerving things about the trailer was the flashing of the graphic "100% Medically Accurate" toward the end.
Now, for someone who's as predisposed to empathy as I am, seeing the actual footage in the trailer of the completed human centipede was nearly enough to make me blow chunks, but in the addled, dissociative state this put me in, the flashing of this graphic only further shook me up.

For all of tuesday there was little else I could think of. And I don't think I could have shifted thoughts if I had tried.
Disgusted by what the human mind was capable of, even if only in the realm of fiction I fell into a severe depressive slump. All the while, the following thought kept running through my head:
"I'm twenty five, I have no girlfriend, and "The Human Centipede" is setting the new precedent for cinema... What reason do I have to live?"
Clearly not one of my better mindsets.

Now, before I thoroughly tear this piece of celluloid cat vomit a new one, please allow me to correct one of the IDIOTIC MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE PREMISE!!!

As to the claim that this movie is 100% medically accurate, it has already been thoroughly beaten into the ground by every reputable medical professional who has even heard the premise.
I have no formal medical training whatsoever, and even I can debunk this mind-bogglingly stupid claim.

Now, of course the premise of this movie is to link three people in a chain, mouth-to-rectum to form one unbroken line of digestion. Forcing person number two to eat the feces of person number one, et cetera.
... Allow me to point out a few small problems.
Firstly, there are between 300 and 1000 species of bacteria that live in the human digestive system. And one of the main forms of waste that these helpful microorganisms create, and which we must ourselves expel is GAS!
I'm unwilling to actually see this movie and even more unwilling to look any further than wikipedia for information, and frankly I don't care, for a premise as ludicrous as this completely ignores the necessary expelling of gas in the form of flatulence by all humans.
Okay, let's ignore all the obvious logistical problems and pretend for a moment that it was feasible to graft three people mouth-to-anus... What happens when someone in the chain farts.
Presumably the evil German doctor created the seal on the dirt button airtight, so there was no chance of his victims expelling their forced meal of solid human effluence in defiance... How do they deal with farts? Since there's no way to expel the gas through the mouth, they would be forced to take the methane into their lungs to equalize the sudden pressure and then expel it through their nose.
Given how often people fart in a given period of time, being forced to breathe in so much methane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen sulfide would make the victim asphyxiate long before they died of "Blood poisoning" as one of the victims did in the movie.
And as the mythbusters taught us, yes, even pretty girls fart. [link]
And furthermore, what about vomiting?
If just watching the trailer for this piece of shit made me nearly blow chunks, imagine the physical reaction you might have if you woke up with your lips carbon-bonded to someone else's bunghole.
Conceivably the answer would be the victim would just swallow their vomit again (charming) But honestly... think about the last time you spewed, and recall the speed that the stomach reject that which it REALLy doesn't want.
You'll probably be choking to death on your own sick long before you have to suffer the indignity of being a link in a digestion chain.

And beyond being just an idiotically stupid premise, it's also just a bad story.
Based on the Roger Ebert review I read, we don't get any inkling of why this doctor is creating this abomination that human's clearly weren't designed to endure.... AT ALL!
All were told is that he was once a specialist in separating conjoined twins, and he's become obsessed with two humans who share a system of functioning organs... That's all!
No explanation, no psychological motivation, no nothing. He's insane. That's all.
This is lazy script writing at it's worst.
I'm an aspiring novelist with no publishing credits to my name and I could write a more goddamn convincing motivation for this stereotypical, cardboard, insane, German doctor.
And as previously stated, there's no story here at all. None.
The end of the movie is just cops breaking in, shooting the doctor and the last surviving member of the centipede holding the hand of the dying one (according to wikipedia)
... THAT'S FUCKING ALL!!!
There's no story to tell here, noting beyond showing off how gross and repugnant an idea one demented Dutch director can come up with.
Joseph Campbell, the great mythological historian once said; "The definition of a story is that something has changed and something is different in the realm of the narrative after the described events have transpired."
Or as Stephen King more aptly put it; "All truly great stories are about SOMETHING!"
... Well this is about forcing people to eat shit directly out of other people's asses... and no metaphor I can think of encapsulates what a horrible, repugnant precept this is.


"The Human Centipede" even fails as a horror movie.
I told my dear friend of my woes, because she was one of the few people I knew with all certainty who could stomach this abomination.
This is a woman who has a love of horror movies that's so ingrained that she saw the recent remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street" in the theater twelve times... and even SHE was too disgusted by the premise to see this fucking movie!
Outside of audiences seeking shock value or those who are so inured to compassion and common, human empathy that they can perceive no joy in their cold, unfeeling hearts that they would find it amusing to capture people and force them to consume the product of another person's colin, there shouldn't be any kind of audience for this movie at all, at all!

But you know what really gets under my skin? You know what really grinds my gears and riles me up about all of this?
Well, I'll tell you.

I saw this imported move, "The Human Centipede" at the video store not 2000 feet from the front door of my house. This locally-owned, Mom n' Pop pillar of the community had this movie about forcible anal bonding right out on the "New Release" shelf, where it fell alphabetically right next to "How to Train Your Dragon."
... And yet they are forced both by national standards and probably by local ordinance too, to keep their pornography quarantined behind a closed door at the back of the shop.

... Now, let me see if I got this straight...
It would be unthinkable to let a video containing images of willing, consenting human beings engaging in the very act of reproduction endemic to nearly all species of animals and to ALL of the mammalian kingdom fall into the hands of a child...
And yet is it perfectly okay to leave a movie steeped in the most imaginatively perverse and unnatural distortions of the natural life cycle and human physiology, out in full glory for all to see, right next to a CG movie marketed to and made for young children no less...

... These are our standards, America? Really?

The Moral Majority and the "Traditional Values" crowd raise no ire and cause no uproar when we let this plotless abomination of the most disturbing distortions of healthy bodily functions clutter up the grids of our media and culture.
And yet these new centurians refuse to throw their mistempered weapons to the ground when it comes to expressions of human sexuality?

... America.

Well, in any case, I certainly couldn't dwell on my indignation for long.
As they said in "Inception" (the movie I ended up renting to try and give me something to focus on besides this piece of shit) "The human mind always drifts toward the positive and tries to reject the negative."
So slowly I tried to rebuild my composure as the days went by. I realized that there was a reason that "Forest Gump" and "LOTR" grossed a bagillion dollars and this wretched carcass fit for hounds... well, didn't.
Say what you will about the state of American culture, at least we have enough sense to support stories that at least ATTEMPT to give us compelling characters and involved plots.
As much of a depraved and downright evil precedent as this movie might be trying to set, we will always end up supporting those who aspire to a higher artistic standard, both in our culture and with our wallets.

Slowly, as the week progressed, I began to feel better. Although my trying to jog to get back into shape and ending up giving myself back and leg pain didn't help.
As I was trying to cheer my friend Kelly up at work by telling her jokes, it was as if I was re-discovering the healing power of laughter, but on a more fundamental level, the purpose and even the existence of laughter.
After seeing the world through this movie's eyes. all seemed barren and unspeakably bleak, until I gradually remembered that there was the potential in this world that things might come into being that don't... well... such.
It sounds like an obvious revelation but believe me it was slow-in-coming.

To top it all off, I decided to spoil myself a little bit.
At Newbury Comics up north on 95 there was a sculpture I'd been eyeing for some time.
I decided my week had been so awful, I deserved to possess what I desired.

Ever since I saw this sculpture, I wanted it... And now I have it.
I RULE!
And yes, Miss Barbara Gordon with her campy playfulness, peerlessly deft handling of the batterang and her... physical attributes are helping me feel a good deal better.

Well, in any case, I really hope this journal didn't bum you out or gross you out, but I actually do feel better for having written it.  

So now, I'm going to leave you with something that is life-affirming, uplifting and downright joyously rapturous... at least compared to this awful movie. Because it at least expresses themes of love, jealousy, anger and desire, which are relatable human emotions, as opposed to the unfathomable desire to perform ungodly surgery.

This is "Ex Lover's Lover" by Voltaire.
Enjoy.


[link]

Three heavy stones will keep it from floating,
Weigh it down to the bottom, food for the fishes.
And I know that it won't be discovered
'cause I will be careful, so very careful.
What if it doesn't rain for days and the river is
Reduced to it's muddy bed?
With a corpse exposed I would work in haste
And I might bury the bones in a shallow grave.
And the rain comes and moves rocks and the stones
Washes away all the dirt and the mudflows
Bones are exposed and well.
You know how that goes!

I wait for the day when I'll finally defile
The bodies of my ex lover's lovers.
I'll pile high to the sky
The bodies of my ex lover's lovers
Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.
Die Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.

I saw you with him. You looked so happy.
All of that can change, cause I am so lonely
And I have lots of time to send you straight
To the Devil. I'm taking my time
To plan your demise.
What if I were to cut you up and mail each part
To a different town? It would take the most
Brilliant private eye the rest of his life
Just to put you together.
A piece in each mailbox all over the planet
From Moscow to Tokyo to Guadalajara.


I wait for the day when I'll finally defile
The bodies of my ex lover's lovers.
I'll pile high to the sky
The bodies of my ex lover's lovers
I wait for the day when I'll finally destroy
The bodies of my ex lover's lovers.
I'll pile high to the sky
The bodies of my ex lover's lovers
Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.
Die Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.

I saw you with him, you looked so happy.
That will never change because I know myself
Too well. I don't have the courage
To carry out my dreams
And only there will I see them
DIE...
Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.
Die Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.
Die Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them die.
Die Die die die die die die
Die die die die die die die
Watch them... die.