Editorials
[Special Feature] Psychology and Horror: A Means To An End. Dissecting ‘The Human Centipede 2’
Written By: Joseph Forsberg
We are a product of our environment; psychological defects can be the result of how we grew up and the trauma we experience at a young age.
Borderline Personality Disorder: A condition in which people have long-term patterns of unstable emotions or pure rage, caused by sexual abuse or lack of communications in the household. Their behavior may reflect negative feelings of themselves or others.
Tom Six’s The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence is by far one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen; yes it has a lot of violence and gore, but the worst part to me is the fact that every single part of Martin’s personality can be diagnosed. His goal throughout this movie is to create a centipede out of 12 random people; to him this would be a beautiful master piece, almost a form of art. Martin, the villain in the film, is not always displaying random behavior; for the most part, he has a reason for every action taken and his personality is influenced by everything that he has had to endure throughout his entire life. This man is not insane; Martin is simply an example of how our environment can create pure evil. When fantasies are no longer an escape from reality, one must create a reality that reflects fantasy.
Human Centipede 2 introduces us to the mind of the mentally disturbed who has reached the point of a complete breakdown. Martin is a middle aged man who lives with his mother and has a low level job at a parking garage. Although his physical characteristics portray him as an older male, his IQ and lack of vocabulary puts his maturity level around that of an adolescent. The movie and his personality have made it very clear that he has been sexually and verbally abused by his father; victims of sexual abuse have been known to become abusers themselves, especially when the child does not receive proper medical attention. Social bond theory states that outside sources such as teachers, parents, or counselors can prevent violent behavior by reaching out to the victim in need. Unfortunately for Martin, he never had a chance to live a normal life; his father was sent to prison, his mother was verbally abusive and blamed him for everything that went wrong in their lives. With this type of environment, a child has no choice but to separate him-self from the rest of society and create his own little world through fantasies. These fantasies are a friendly form of escape but can easily turn violent as he continues to suppress his traumatizing experiences. After a while, the memories will be drawn out from the unconscious and once again become a reality. Martin’s first sexual experience was being molested by his father so he probably began envisioning himself doing the same to others while in the comfort of his own fantasy. At the age in which this experience first happened, I believe Martin was suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. His moods and relationships have been unstable and inconsistent, and he clearly has a poor self-image. There is a good chance Martin would have killed himself had he not found an external object to represent his rage and the pain he wanted to inflict on to others; in this case, he found the centipede. Centipedes are known as violent creatures and in Martin’s warped mind it could have been a phallic symbol. People who suffer from this disorder like their privacy but lack the skills to be independent; they have to rely on others whether they like it or not. Notice that Martin relied on his abusive mother for breakfast, dinner, and a place to live.
Borderline Personality Disorder does not lead to the type of behavior Martin displayed throughout the movie; it is more of a starting point that can escalate as his life becomes more depressing and wasteful. First impressions are everything; it is quite possible that Martin associates pain with sexual pleasure as a result of being molested and most likely sodomized. These disorders of sexual arousal are called paraphilias; this means that sexual arousal occurs almost exclusively with the use of inappropriate objects or in the presence of an inappropriate individual. Martin experienced a real life fantasy when he first watched Human Centipede; the pain that was inflicted on the characters as he watched is what truly turned him on. However, watching was not enough, and Martin needed to experience that pain. He wanted to be a part of the movie and tried to duplicate the same level of pain by masturbating with sandpaper; only this was not pain, this was pleasure. People who suffer from sexual disorders tend to compulsively masturbate; because of the objects used, it is likely that Martin’s genitals are mutilated and the ejaculation process was quite painful. His urine is shown as a dark red color so it is possible that his semen is discolored as well. The human centipede became a fetish; Martin used this as hardcore porn, made a scrapbook, and even hid pictures under his mattress. This fetish was too much for Martin to handle; in his mind, creating his own human centipede would be the ultimate high and give him the sexual arousal that fantasies no longer could. At this point, Martin’s sexual disorder has escalated to sexual masochism; this is when someone loves to inflict pain on himself as a way to become aroused or reach a certain high.
Martin is a very unique character; he would not be categorized as a killer because the pain inflicted on his victims was incidental and necessary to fulfill his fantasy. The violence was a means to an end; he wanted his victims alive in order to successfully create his centipede. Although he killed his mother, he did that out of rage and to defend his obsession with The Human Centipede. Some might consider him to be a sexual sadist, but I do not believe this is the case. He showed no signs of being sexually aroused when becoming violent with his victims; the excitement he did show was when he finally started seeing his fantasy come to life as he began stapling someone’s ass to another person’s mouth. There was a scene where one of the victims died; because of unstable emotions and irrational behavior, Martin started to cry; it was if he started to come back into reality and notice his dream might not come true. This also further indicates that he had no intention of killing his victims. His emotions were fueled by frustration; he knew he could not duplicate what had happened in the first film. His techniques were sloppy and did not realize that the amount of pain he inflicted on his victims would eventually kill them; he simply thought he could create the centipede in his own way. Remember that his IQ is very low; he went into this procedure thinking that he could become the doctor that he idolized so much. Martin is the definition of a disorganized asocial offender. He is socially inadequate, unskilled worker, shows poor personal hygiene, and has a very unstable mood. His disturbing and chaotic crime scene shows that he simply does not care about anything else except fulfilling his fantasies.
We have no way of knowing what people are thinking; what we do know is that something could set them off at any time. There is really no way to determine if or when they will break. At some point maybe they will blame the world for their trauma and unfulfilled life; they might take it out on themselves or find pleasure in torturing other people. Martin had a specific agenda because of his film fetish; as I said before, he is very unique and is a great example of how sometimes people can’t distinguish fantasy from reality. As for the rest of these personality types; some are simply here to watch the world burn.
Could Martin be considered a victim? One could argue PTSD, but it is highly unlikely that it could be justified. It is quite clear that Martin is mentally unstable and is need of help from a mental health professional.
“Stop your crying, your tears only make daddy’s willy harder”
About the Author: I am currently going to school for Forensic Psychology; I am finishing up my Bachelor’s Degree and plan on continuing my education until I receive my Doctorate. Although I am still in school, I spend hours a week studying human behavior and psychological profiling; my main focus is on sexual homicide but study all types of murder. I do not currently work in law enforcement or around people suffering from personality disorders; this psychological profile on ‘The Collector’ is based on years of research, school, and books written by retired FBI Profilers. – Joseph Forsberg bloodnguts666.wordpress.com
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Evil Dead Burn.
Fans of The Evil Dead franchise have become accustomed to an excess of gore. From the low-fi horror of Sam Raimi’s 1981 original and the slapstick comedy of Army of Darkness to Fede Álvarez’s 2013 remake, which literally ends in a rain of blood, grotesque dismemberment and comedic violence are as important to an Evil Dead film as the outline of Bruce Campbell’s iconic jaw.
Sébastien Vaniček‘s franchise installment, Evil Dead Burn, follows suit with wall-to-wall violence and set pieces built around extreme carnage. As the Deadites rise once again, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) must fight to the death against her possessed in-laws hell-bent on punishing her for their family’s sins.
Co-written by Vaniček and Florent Bernard, Evil Dead Burn follows the ill-fated Price family, descendants of Dr. Benjamin Price who discovered an ancient dagger capable of sending Kandarian demons back to hell. Newly uncovered from its protective spell, this dagger has called to the evil dead and led them to the family’s ramshackle home. Keeping plot to a bare minimum, Vaniček fills nearly every scene with powerful Deadites and their dastardly acts as they torture the Prices to find the weapon. Horrific moments like a woman drinking hot wax from a lit candle and a shocking post-credits child murder don’t even crack the top ten of disgusting, painful, and disturbing carnage that floods the film.
In any other franchise, we would be listing the film’s most gruesome kills. But fans of Evil Dead know that when we’re talking about the Necronomicon, mere death is only the beginning.
10 ) Deadites Burn
Though Burn checks off all the Evil Dead boxes, its story is a franchise anomaly. Rather than possessing anyone who crosses their path, Vaniček’s Deadites have set their sights specifically on an unwitting clan, intent on recovering the powerful dagger. Resurrected from a nearby lake, Deadite Jessica (Greta van den Brink) informs us of this plan while murdering the eldest Price son. Will (George Pullar) is speeding down a deserted road when he slams into the malevolent demon standing in the middle of the road. After his car rolls off the deserted road, he awakens to find himself upside down, a strange woman lodged in his cracked windshield.
As he desperately tries to reach his phone, Jessica slowly twists her head, tearing the skin of her distended neck. Completely detached from her shattered body, the demon’s head rolls out the window and begins chanting a Kandarian curse. Will’s car bursts into flames as Jessica vows to seek out the rest of his family. While burning alive, Will learns that he is merely the first on a deadly hitlist filled with the people he loves most.
9) Dinner from Hell
Despite a remarkably streamlined plot, Vaniček hints at the Price family’s extensive dysfunction. An uncomfortable dinner erupts in aggression as they gather for lunch after Will’s funeral. Mother Susan (Tandi Wright) berates her recently widowed daughter-in-law while father Edgar (Erroll Shand) — already under Kandarian influence — blames younger son Joseph (Hunter Doohan) for his eldest son’s death. No one is safe as long-held tensions break through to the surface and family secrets ricochet through the air.
With Edgar behaving erratically, Alice and Thya (Luciane Buchanan), Joseph’s girlfriend, try to move sharp objects out of his reach. But Edgar manages to get a hold of a fork and turns his rage on the family dog. As he stabs Max repeatedly in the face, Joseph tries to pull his father away. Both are injured in the struggle and rush to the hospital, leaving Susan and Alice to deal with the corpse. A horrific moment of animal cruelty, this scene sets up a no-holds-barred film in which anyone can be brutalized. But perhaps most disturbing is the viciousness already lurking in this troubled family, barely concealed resentments that existed long before the Kandarian threat.
8 ) Bathroom Brawl
As Deadites possess the Price family, Alice barricades herself in an upstairs bathroom. She reluctantly shields her mother-in-law, despite Susan’s atrocious behavior. Almost immediately, Alice regrets this decision when the woman reveals the depths of her hatred. She rejects clear evidence of Will’s domestic abuse, continuing to blame Alice for their troubled marriage. Leaning her cheek against a scalding hot radiator, Susan submits to Kandarian possession and becomes a Deadite before our eyes. Though disturbing on its face, she seems to choose possession over an honest reckoning of her family’s dark secrets.
Now a Deadite, Susan attacks Alice with broken shards of the toilet bowl and wraps the shower curtain around her head. Scampering across the ceiling, she hangs her daughter-in-law by the neck with the plastic sheet as Alice desperately gasps for air. With only her hand free, Alice gouges Susan’s face with a safety razor, finally managing to break herself free. As Deadite Susan taunts her from the corner, Alice revs up a brush trimmer and plunges the circular blade into her shoulder and chest. We cheer for Alice as she finally pushes back against Susan’s passive-aggressive disdain.
7) The Pen is Mightier
In a sea of blood-splattered dismemberment, one scene is so tense that it makes us squirm despite its lack of visual gore. With the family’s ailing matriarch possessed, Deadite Polly (Maude Davey) attacks Alice in the upstairs hallway, pressing her face against the bush trimmer’s still blade. Insisting that Alice has caused Will’s death, Polly invites the grieving woman to avenge her child by turning on the power tool. An instant before her mother-in-law can send the blade tearing into her cheek, Alice manages to escape by jamming a shard of glass into Polly’s eye. But not before the elderly demon can deliver a cringe-worthy injury.
Though Alice struggles with all her might, Polly slowly drives a fountain pen into the younger woman’s ear canal. Ringing blots out all other sounds as Alice’s face twists in pain. We imagine a tiny object bursting through our own eardrums, puncturing the soft tissue lying beneath. Though Alice tries to extract the pen, she only succeeds in breaking it off, leaving half of the quill buried in her ear. She will eventually use tweezers to remove the tip, sparking another moment of deafening agony.
6) Chekhov’s Dishwasher
As Susan prepares for the aforementioned family meal, Vaniček drops a delicious bit of foreshadowing. While the grieving mother thaws frozen food, she absently fills an old dishwasher whose door has long since busted its latch. Reminiscent of a scene from Final Destination, the faulty appliance falls open, leaving a shelf full of gleaming forks and knives suspended a foot above the floor, just waiting for their moment to strike. After returning from a fatal incident we’ll discuss in a moment, Deadite Thya returns to the Price home, hell-bent on retrieving the powerful knife.
As she advances on Joseph, the frightened son retreats to the kitchen and brandishes a carving knife, subtly nodding to an ultra-violent kitchen scene in Álvarez’s Evil Dead. But Thya will not be deterred. Advancing on her boyfriend, the Deadite startles him into tripping on the outstretched door and impaling himself on the upturned utensils. She presses Joseph further onto the blades while he plunges a corkscrew into her throat. But even this will not stop the maniacal demon, who rips her throat open with the wine tool, dripping her blood over Joseph’s upturned face. Adding insult to injury, she marvels at his willingness to kill the woman he professed to love, casting a pall over their entire relationship. Not only gruesome and excruciatingly tense, but this moment plays into Joseph’s insecurities as the failed son of this disturbed family.
5 ) On the Lake
Evil Dead Burn begins on a seemingly peaceful lake overrun with lurking Kandarian demons. Jared (Keanu Karim) is trying to enjoy a quiet day of fishing but can’t stop his friend Leo (Victory Ndukwe) from answering the phone. Along the dock, Jared notices a bite on Leo’s reel and eventually pulls up a severed head savvy viewers may recognize from Lee Cronin’s 2023 sequel Evil Dead Rise. Moments later, Jared finds himself ensnared by reels, hooks digging into the corner of his mouth and eyelid. As the fishing line wraps around his neck, he’s dragged, screaming, into the lake.
Leo returns in the pouring rain and sees Jared desperately calling for help. He quickly boats out to save his friend, but a mysterious force pulls him down into the depths. Leo finally drags Jared back into the boat, only to see that his body has been cut in half, intestines spilling out of his bisected waist. As he struggles to make sense of this carnage, Deadite Jessica emerges from the lake and capsizes the boat, her clenched demon hands causing the water to boil. Though Leo manages to swim to shore, his skin is a blistered and bubbly mess. Deadite Jessica absently steps on his hand, easily peeling away flesh like overcooked meat. This jaw-dropping opener not only sets the stage for a brutal film, but situates the story in franchise lore while simply explaining the Deadites’ return.
4) Car Trouble
The shocking trailer to Evil Dead Burns shows the aftermath of a vicious attack. As Deadite Thya crosses the family threshold, the camera reveals a car’s headrest still impaling her face. But this devastating sight merely hints at the cruel circumstances of her actual death. Incapacitated in the disastrous family dinner, Edgar slumps in the backseat while Joseph tends to his wounds. Though seemingly incapacitated, the possessed father snaps to attention and wraps his seatbelt around Thya’s neck, pushing against the back of her seat. Joseph holds a gun to his father’s head, but can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
As Thya tries to escape the car, Edgar viciously slams the door, severing four of her fingers. She manages to trigger a fire extinguisher, filling the car with cloudy white chemicals and giving Joseph a chance to escape. But Thya is not so lucky. Trapped in the car, she screams as Edgar pummels her with a detached headrest, stabbing the poles through her neck and face. Joseph watches from a safe distance as his father beats his girlfriend to death, knowing he was unable to save her life.
3) Head Shots
When Deadite Thya comes stumbling back home, Joseph believes he’s seen the worst. Unfortunately, his misery is only beginning. After fighting off his newly-sadistic undead girlfriend, he tries to flee with his surviving family, only to find Deadite Edgar blocking his path. Flanked by Deadite Max, Edgar taunts his son by insisting that he should be dead in Will’s place and confirming the young man’s greatest fears. Edgar then does what Joseph could not and shoots himself in the head.
The family screams in horror at this devastating sight, then freezes in stunned silence as Edgar does not fall. Grinning, the maniacal father shoots himself twice more, blowing gaping holes in the sides of his head. For the rest of the film, Deadite Edgar will terrorize his family with these unthinkable wounds, even tempting his wife with a bloody kiss. Vaniček mixes emotional devastation with gore as Joseph must watch his father’s suicide while confronting the truth of his own ineptitude.
2) Down Through the Chimney
Along with references to the beloved Ash (Campbell), it’s become tradition for an Evil Dead film to reference the franchise’s signature weapon. But Vaniček subverts our expectations when Edgar’s chainsaw is out of gas. Instead, Alice employs a rusty bush trimmer to fight off her Deadite mother-in-law. Unfortunately, the extended weapon only shreds her flesh, leaving the monstrous woman still able to fight. Trapped in the attic, Alice must clamber out of an upper window with Deadite Susan hot on her heels.
Having dropped the ceremonial knife off the third-story roof, Alice has no choice but to improvise. Toting the bush trimmer, she inches her way down the chimney, pausing to turn halfway down. As Susan follows her daughter-in-law down the chute, Alice turns on the bush trimmer and waits for impact. Vaniček brings us into the living room as buckets of blood and dismembered body parts begin to rain down over the hearth. It’s the kind of moment Evil Dead fans love, gleefully gory carnage via an unexpected power tool.
1 ) Goodbye Stranger
Despite this plethora of grisly gore, Vaniček’s final act tops the list while delivering a poignant beat of empowerment. With the house on fire and the Deadites subdued, we believe that Alice is finally safe. But as she watches the Price home burn to the ground, the corpse of her husband walks out of the flames. He taunts her memories of their abusive marriage, insisting that she stayed because she likes the pain. Demanding the sacred weapon, Deadite Will chases Alice to a construction site and into an open hydraulic press. In the fall, Alice impales her ankle on a massive spike, leaving her trapped as the pit fills with boiling hot tar.
But Alice finds the strength to save herself and pulls her ankle off the bloody spike. She distracts Will with a decoy knife, then pummels his chest with a jackhammer. Exacerbating her emotional pain, Deadite Will reminds her of his love. But it seems that Alice has had enough. She stabs him with the ceremonial blade, then crushes his head as it turns to ash. It’s a well-earned moment of empowerment as our final girl vanquishes her most powerful demon.
Vaniček’s crowd-pleaser continues the Evil Dead trend of gleefully crude massacres. Two extra scenes hint at a continuation of this gruesome massacre, promising more brutality in films to come.
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