After sitting on this movie for some time, I finally got the time to sit down and watch this strange film with a lot of hype behind it. A lot of people have been paying attention to this movie due to its strange premise. If you’ve seen some of the pictures released online, and even the trailer, you’ll definitely have a good idea of how gross the movie should be. It’s a familiar movie to genre watchers, with Americans in a foreign land getting kidnapped and having weird, disgusting things done to them. This movie attempts to top similar movies such as Hostel and Turistas. Is it really as disgusting as it lets on?
While on a road trip in Germany, a couple of American women who want to party it up get a flat tire on their way to a bar. They run through the woods until they reach a house of a German doctor. An EEEEEEVIL German doctor who has crazy plans for them and someone else.
The movie started making waves a short while ago when the title was announced. Once the pictures and trailer hit the internet, people had made up their minds and knew it was going to be one of the most disgusting movies ever, especially after a picture was put online showing a diagram of how the three unfortunate people were going to be joined. The person in the front will have a second person’s mouth completely sewn around their butthole while a third person’s mouth gets sewn to the second person’s butthole. The mind races at the disgusting nature of this operation. You may be surprised/disappointed/relieved to find out that the movie isn’t anywhere near as bad as you imagined.
The film has a set up very similar to films like Hostel, Turistas, etc. Foreigners getting abducted in a faraway country to get sliced up, operated on, God knows what else those crazy countries like to do. The film doesn’t take long to get through this beginning, knowing that the audience has seen this type of opening before. It’s not long before the girls find their way to the house of Dr. Heiter, a famous surgeon who specializes in seperating conjoined twins. He has since retired but still works, his last work was taking three of his pet rottweilers and putting them together in the way he intends to put these people together. His beloved pet died so he decides to replace them with three human dogs. He later kidnaps a Japanese man to complete his trio of pets. He has them tied to hospital beds and explains the operation in some squeamish detail with diagrams to really make the audience squirm in their seats. However, we don’t see much of the operation, we only see the final, horrific result.
The movie comes off like it should be a gorehounds’ favorite, but the end result is much different than expected. The surgery is very short-lived, the surgery that was done around the mouths and anuses is covered up for the most part. Of course, these people have to eat and we witness what happens but everything is covered up so it’s up to your imagination to really see what’s going on. It’s strange to watch a movie that has a lot of potential to be disgusting but reel it in when it’s time to show the goods. It actually winds up being more about their humiliation than how disgusting they look.
Dieter Laser is great as Dr. Heiter. He just exudes hatred and contempt for humans, he really comes off as the type of person who would try this crazy thing just because he doesn’t care if they live or die, although he would prefer they live so he can use them as his new pet. Ashley Williams and Ashlynn Yennie, as the American women, do what they can, although they aren’t portrayed as the smartest of people. Heiter comes off as so evil right off the bat, they should never have gone in his house, regardless of their predicament. Their performances quickly degrade into just whimpering and crying. Akihiro Kitamura plays the Japanese man kidnapped to complete the operation. He only speaks Japanese which is an immediate language barrier as he can barely communicate with anyone. He becomes the defacto leader because he’s the only one of the three who still speaks and is defiant until the end.
In the end, the movie is all about the torture and humiliation of three people. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, it’s just happening. The movie runs quickly to get into the thick of things and wraps up almost as quickly. It’s not a bad film by any means, and its intention to disgust the audience will surely do just that to most, but given the premise, there could’ve been more to it.
Story: 6 – It’s original yet familiar at the same time.
Blood: 7 – The movie skimps on the surgery scene and covers up a lot of the post-surgery work, although the movie is still disgusting. There’s also some nasty gun shot wounds and throat slicing.
Boobs: 4 – Our female leads go topless and under better circumstances, it’d be nice to see, their nudity just adds to their humiliation.
Overall: 6 – Disappointing given the hype behind it, but it’s not that bad and winds up a little more accessible due to the “less is more” approach given to the premise.