You already
nip tuck dvd know that in the film, a mad doctor attaches three people together surgically in a centipedish, dodecapedal arrangement. Here's the spoiler The Human Centipede does in fact contain a sort of human centipede. This is revealed in the trailer, to remove any question that the humipede is hypothetical, or unaccomplishable, or metaphorical. But why show it in the trailer The title is your sell, the hint, a
ncis dvd verbal equivalent of that shadowy glimpse of partially draped bodies on an operating table. People okay, a fairly few people are going to want to see the thing realized, and these are the ones that would shell out ten bucks or place a furtive order OnDemand.
Common wisdom, both dramatic and marketing, says: keep the thing out of the trailer. For a low-budget indie horror film, that title is plenty to reel in your target audience
one tree hill dvd though they'd also have turned out for alternative titles Dr. Heiter's House of Horrors, or Three Corpses: White, or maybe Eat Shit and Die! but the uninterested demographic of non-horror viewers and people who involuntarily shake their heads when using the phrase "torture porn" will let it slide without note. Without
prison break dvd context, The Human Centipede is an eccentric title, but it's not more inherently pause-giving than The Wasp Woman, or The Kiss of the Spider Woman, or Mansquito. But a strange thing happens when the trailer reveals it, like a two-and-a-half-minute short film following the hint-glimpse-revelation structure standard for nonstandard-monster movies.
When the trailer buildup culminates not in Only in theaters, but in the clear display of the thing, the film is reduced to a kind of tautology, an exact one-to-one correlation
pushing daisies dvd title Human Centipede, content: Human Centipede, and the combined entity becomes some type of self-contained memetic jokery, like SNAKES ON A PLANE. Hey guys, did you hear about THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, are you gonna see THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE It's about THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. Seeing the trailer is seeing the movie, and people rightfully feel entitled to comment, since they've pretty much seen the whole thing.
And on from
seinfeld dvd there to the next person in the word-of-mouth chain. The admittedly brain-grabbing title/concept obliges repetition: you can't hear it without the urge to tell someone else about it, whether in giddy, can-you-believe-it glee; offended, can-you-believe-it indignation; or baffled, can-you-believe-it incredulity. Even the most bothered are compelled to pass it on, if only to get it off their chests and out of their heads.
It's a distinct, unambiguous
sopranos dvd marketing identity, but it also removes the actual film and thus the need to see it from the equation. The premise is the title is the trailer is the film. The fact that the unfailing word-of-mouth is largely Internet-transmitted qualifies The Human Centipede as viral-but as with biological viruses, not all filmic viruses are equal. Some biological viruses pass through the air, some through casual contact. Some, fittingly, are transmitted through the fecal-oral route. An opposing example Cloverfield's press pointedly avoided showing the monster
star trek dvd viral, but left people wanting to see it. The Human Centipede showed the monster at trailer's climax viral, no need to bother with the movie, unless you need that extra badge of honor, like a Three Wolf Moon t-shirt, to show your dedication to the bit.
