On Friday, as you may remember (or as you may not remember, if you quickly pushed the experience out of your mind to protect your mental well-being), I liveblogged a Very Special On Demand Viewing of The Human Centipede, so that any curious-but-potentially-squeamish readers could get a sense of whether or not they might want to subject themselves to the horrors of the moment's most buzzed-about human/insect hybrid how-to film. As chance would have it, I followed up my afternoon Centipede screening with a night trip to Disneyland, where I placed myself in the thrall of yet another unspeakable cinematic abomination: the Magic Kingdom's Captain EO Tribute, an attraction hastily revived following the death of embattled (but still generally beloved) star Michael Jackson.
Surviving this unprecedented double-feature demands some kind of analytical reckoning, and so we've pitted the two in a point-by-point deathmatch to determine the superior work of art. Which will prevail? Let's find out.
MALE STAR POWER
Captain EO: The 1986 version of Michael Jackson was at the height of his powers, a crossover icon who was inarguably the biggest star in the world, and a man who could render teeming crowds of frenzied fans incontinent with delight with nothing more than an approving wave of a rhinestone-spangled glove.
Human Centipede: Despite possession of the coolest sounding name in the history of cinema and an IMDb profile that runs 64 entries, Dieter Laser is hardly an international household name.
Advantage: EO. Though Laser's Dr. Josef 's chilling melange of David Gest androgyny and Christopher Walken Dada-malevolence was utterly unforgettable, there's no topping MJ's marquee value. In truth, The Human Centipede is more of an ensemble piece. [Human centipede wriggles to center stage, tips three top hats in unison to terrible pun, then exits stage left, moaning in unfathomable pain]
FEMALE STAR POWER
Captain EO: "Supreme Leader" Angelica Huston won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Prizzi's Honor in 1986, the year of EO's release, and has since been nominated for two other acting Oscars.
Human Centipede: Co-stars Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie have a combined five IMDb credits between them.
Advantage: EO. You can bet that if Huston had been cast in Centipede, no one would've dared relegate her to MiddlePart or HindPart status. She's a Frontsie all the way.
DIRECTING
Captain EO: For reasons that are unclear, but almost certainly involve an air-drop of hundreds of bags emblazoned with cartoonish dollar signs into his Napa Valley compound, Oscar-winning Godfather auteur Francis Ford Coppola took on the EO gig, revolutionizing theme-park cinema as we know it.
Human Centipede: Dutch director Tom Six (also Centipede's writer) may be criminally insane.
Advantage: EO
WRITING
Captain EO: It took the powerhouse trio of George Lucas, Coppola, and Rusty Lemorande to write the screenplay for EO's barely coherent screenplay.
Human Centipede: Dutch writer Tom Six (also Centipede's director) may be criminally insane.
Advantage: 'Pede. Which is the more disturbing vision: a deranged German doctor turning three helpless, drugged captives into a horrifying insectoid creature with his scalpel, or a leather-clad, galaxy-hopping pop star turning evil Space Borg into Cats-quality Broadway dancers with his magic hand-lasers?
(Full disclosure: We may be awarding this category to Six out of spite because of Lucas' involvement with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. These wounds heal slow, Georgie.)
CONJOINED, FURRY SIDEKICK
Captain EO: Idy and Ody (The Geex), the fuzzy, two-headed navigators of EO's spaceship.
Human Centipede: ThreeDog, Dr. Josef's experimental petipede.
Advantage: 'Pede. There was something profoundly affecting about the way Josef lingered on the photo of ThreeDog early on in Centipede, stroking the image of his lost companion. Meanwhile, the Geex look like something that Jim Henson would have stuffed in a burlap sack and tried to drown in the LA River, enraged that his engineers had been playing around with a stolen strand of Alf DNA.
NAUSEA FACTOR
Captain EO: The cutting-edge 3D visual effects of 1986 are vomit-inducing by 2010 standards. (OK, Avatar standards, not Clash of the Titans standards.)
Human Centipede: We shudder to think about what might happen if 3D technology ever fell into Tom Six's hands.
Advantage: 'Pede. Though we came closer to emptying our stomach's contents because of EO's blurrily rendered effects, we need to account for the incapacitating soul-heaves induced by Six's transgressive centiporn.
FASHION
Captain EO:
Human Centipede:
Advantage: EO. Look at those decorative studs, the finely crafted ribbing! A lab coat's not going to cut it, no matter how stylishly a deranged surgeon wears it.
STAR'S TRAGIC ADDICTION TO EXTREME SURGERY
Captain EO: Michael Jackson's horrifying conversion from handsome, high-cheekboned pop idol to removable-nosed, chemical-bleached ghoul has been exhaustively documented.
Human Centipede: Dr. Josef's obsession with the transformative power of the knife was turned outward, with transgressive, harrowing results.
Advantage: Even.
MEDICAL ACCURACY
Captain EO: In science fiction, the rules are often rewritten in the name of dramatic expediency.
Human Centipede: 100%.
Advantage: 'Pede.
VIOLATION OF SOCIETAL NORMS
Captain EO: It probably gets very lonely on that starship, and with only an elephant, robot, and shaggy, duel-headed Fraggle for companionship, there seems a pretty high probability of interspecies fraternization.
Human Centipede: This movie was meticulously designed to bring about the end of society. (Unless your idea of society includes keeping people sewn together at the mouth and anus for pets. And it may! We're not here to judge you.)
Advantage: 'Pede.
FINAL TALLY:
Captain EO: 4
Human Centipede: 5
While EO made a s
tronger than expected showing, in the end there's just no beating the 'Pede. Better luck next time, Disney!