Can movies be evil?

  

Originally published in The Daily Nebraskan, 12-09-2013

Is it possible to watch a film so reprehensible, so ugly, so mean and disgusting that it doesn’t just simply repulse us, but disturbs something deep inside us? Makes us feel sad?

I became a film lover years ago through watching horror movies. When I was younger, I sought out more and more graphic horror films in search for the sickest, most depraved film in existence. I ended up exploring Italian giallo movies and J-horror and moved on to less lurid, more mature fare, but that germ remains. I wanted to see something well, sick. I was always looking for that scene that would make me feel sick and want to turn away. I watched regular movies, too. I wasn’t a complete gore hound.

 Why would I want to see such things? I suppose it comes down to basic thrills.
Why do people love “Jurassic Park?” Or “Psycho?” Or those godforsaken “Paranormal Activity” sequels? The basic idea is the same. We want thrills. Dissonant imagery and shock value produce a kind of adrenaline rush, and that’s exciting. It doesn’t really matter whether you get that thrill from anime or action dramas or slasher films, so long as your interest is not harming other people.

Before I go into whether a film could be “evil,” what even is “evil”? We don’t have solid words for what this thing is, but we have strong feelings about what it might be. We know that good is good and bad is bad, even as most of our daily actions are painted in shades of grey. Suffice it to say, I define “evil” as extreme selfishness to the point of harming others, with great emphasis on the “extreme.”

Most films are neutral. They are produced with a genre, an idea, a story, actors and other things in mind. The great films aim to enlighten us about the world and can even start us on the path to being better people. It is a rare film that is truly reprehensible at its deepest level, and I can only think of two historical examples of “evil” films: “The Birth of a Nation” and “Triumph of the Will.”

“The Birth of a Nation,” released in 1915 and directed by D.W. Griffith, is often hailed as one of the great masterpieces of cinema for its epic scope and abundance of pioneering cinematic techniques (which in fact were not new, but borrowed from earlier, marginalized film makers like Alice Guy-Blache). Its first half covers the Civil War, and the second half details a white supremacist vision of reconstruction, in which the Ku Klux Klan are portrayed as the saviors of the South. Its impact was so powerful at the time of its release that it caused a resurgence of the Klan across the country. “The Birth of a Nation” is a film which valorizes the worst kind of people, but does it brilliantly.

 

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” nearly speaks for itself. It is a documentary of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.

The identities of individual Germans are dwarfed by the immensity of the crowd, the juggernaut of war and the ideology of the Nazi movement. Various Nazi officials make speeches, including Hitler. One of his speeches is shot as a gradual pan, the likes of which we see so often in Hollywood blockbusters. The camera is moving in the way Hitler is moving the crowd. His speech is intercut with the smiling faces of blonde-haired German youth.
Luis Buñuel was hired to edit the film in a way that would make Hitler look bad. Reportedly, he could not do it. Such is the insane brilliance of Riefenstahl’s method. To see the hundreds of thousands of people, all united for an evil cause, all surrendering themselves to the messianic Führer, is to witness pure madness on an enormous scale.

There is a consensus that those two films are evil, and they seem obviously so. I haven’t seen many films which I felt were truly amoral, but I did see something several months back which shocked, appalled and disgusted me like absolutely no film I’ve ever seen. Not only was this movie the sickest movie I’ve ever seen in my life, I felt like the director was trying to hurt me, as though he were personally mocking me. Maybe just the fact that I watched this film and sat through the whole thing is reason enough to be mocked. I am talking about “The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence.”

“The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” is a sequel to the notorious “The Human Centipede: First Sequence.” For the lucky readers who have never heard of it, “The Human Centipede” was about a mad German surgeon who creates a conjoined triplet joined by their digestive tract. In laymen’s terms, he sews them together ass-to-mouth. The second film is about Martin, played by Lawrence R. Harvey. Martin is a fat, balding, mentally deficient, mute man who lives with his mother and works in a parking garage. He’s inspired by the first “Human Centipede” movie to assault and kidnap twelve people for use in his own centipede. Contrasting to the first film, “The Human Centipede 2” is in black and white.

“The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” has virtually no plot. People are knocked on the head and magically pass out just long enough so that Martin can transport them to a warehouse where he will attempt to stitch them together. The idea of a man like this kidnapping so many people without arousing the slightest suspicion is ridiculous until the very last shot, where we realize (spoiler) that the entire movie has taken place inside his head. We’ve just sat through over an hour and a half of this disturbed man’s fantasy, the second half of which has next to no dialogue; all we hear is the groaning, screaming and crying of Martin’s victims in the warehouse.

I never want to see it again, and I don’t understand why anybody would want to. Director Tom Six created this film in response to horror fans who said the first film didn’t go far enough. That movie was more psychological dread than visceral gore. In this movie, Six mocks those who were disappointed with the first film through Martin, who in his own way is so disappointed with “The Human Centipede” that he quadruples the number of people he will have in his creation. A sense of inescapable dread pervades the film. Six throws everything at us: violence, rape, incest and coprophagia. Even children and infants are not safe from the mad director’s vision.

It made me feel sad. I was sorry that I watched it. “The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” is evil, but unlike “The Birth of a Nation” or “Triumph of the Will,” it has no redeeming technical qualities. It subtracts from you. It is not socially relevant other than as a piece which makes us ask ourselves, “Why am I watching this? Why did I ever think this was a good idea?” The film is as ugly and empty as Martin’s mind. Nothing exists within but suffering. The film only wants to hurt you, the viewer. It exists for no other reason. It is evil.

I believe it is entirely possible for films to be evil. The chilling thing about people we regard as evil is that they believe fully that they are doing good. Griffith thought he was simply telling the truth when he made “The Birth of a Nation.” Riefenstahl believed in the transformative power of the Nazi party when she documented the 1934 rally in “Triumph of the Will.” I have no idea what Six was thinking when he made “The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence,” but I can’t imagine it would be positive. Out of all the films mentioned here, this is the only one I don’t think anyone needs to see.

There are no boundaries, no rules in cinema. People can create what they want, and that’s beautiful, even if what they create isn’t as beautiful. It is important that we know what evil looks like. If we understand the darkness, we can hope to prevent it.