Centipede!

for some reason, the first comment on this movie that is posted is from this guy: Check this Film Out!, 1 November 2004 Author: Donald Murphy from Kansas who gives it like 10 stars and a plot synopsis. from what it looks like, he works for the DVD company that put this out and he is trying to get you to buy his product. do not trust this man. if your idea of a good movie is bad plot with bad acting, cliché characters and dialog, lame special effects, and bad everything else (this is what i look for in a movie), you will think this movie is okay. as far as bad movies go, it is pretty middle of the road. as far as good movies go, it does not even rate. i was mildly entertained by this movie, but i would not recommend it. no wait. get it. it is sweet!

The sole purpose for making this film in India must have been the cheap labor because most of the film is shot on fakey cave interiors and the exterior shots are no more exotic than Red Rock Canyon in Nevada. Too bad they didn't make it in Hong Kong at least they could have gotten some of the folks who worked on the Shaw Borthers old 1982 shock and schlocker Centipede Horror to show them how it was done. In that film they actually use real centipedes and it's as gross as Hell. In this film they use old school puppetry and while I'm sick and tired of crappy cartoony CGI monsters this foam latex critter can't even pass the Roger Corman level of New World Pictures monsters. Hell it can't even entertain as much as the no budget ping pong and hotdog monsters from The Horror Of Party Beach. The best thing you can say about it is that some of the actors are trying hard and that it's nowhere as awful as anything I've seen from Asylum pictures who gave us I AM Omega, Beast Of Bray Road,Transmorphers and Snakes On A Train.

Dukey

I guess it's time all sci-fi/horror/fantasy fans rose up and seized control of the SF Channel. The current directorate is certainly doing such a lousy job that even a committee could do better. I mean, a long line of incredibly foul made-for-TV movies--of which 'Centipede!' is the latest--is NOT the reason I continue to pay 60-some-odd bucks a month for cable. I can hardly wait to see how SFC mangles 'The Wizard of Earthsea'; maybe Ursula K can be our new commissar.

Okay, okay, I should know better by now. In all my years of viewing these kind of flicks (damn near a half-century), I've resigned myself to the fact that most of the genre is not going to be 'Lord of the Rings', 'Star Wars' or 'Clockwork Orange'. But is that any excuse to not at least attempt the production values of moderately well-done mainstream movies? You don't need big bucks, just a measure of talent. None here, I'm afraid...or if there was, it was exceptionally well-hidden.

Take special effects; they had to be kidding. Were those sock puppets? I've seen more believable animation at a Punch and Judy show.

And plot? A bunch of kids celebrate one of their group's pending marriage by going caving in a really deep cavern system, and end up getting eaten by giant centipedes. Oh, yeah; and they got this device that tracks individual transponders ($129.95 at Radio Shack) that each one carries, so that when one of the kids gets noshed, the survivors can--SURPRISE!--actually track the monsters! Hoo-hah! With such clever originality, how could you ask for more?

Might as well forget character development, too. This is one of those rare movies where absolutely NO one is sympathetic. I wanted them all--even the native comic-relief, with his politically-incorrect 'funny Indian' accent--to DIE HORRIBLY. Unfortunately, they didn't--die horribly, that is.

They just died. And so did the flick.

I can say one good thing about 'Centipede!', though; it's over, and I'm not watching it any longer.

This is one of those flicks that is just inexcusably bad. There have been less than a handful of really good monster movies ("Alien", "Aracnaphobia" and "Tremors") in the last quarter century, so no one should expect SciFi Channel movies to be theater quality, particularly their "Creature Features". But at least their offerings should rank up there with Maynard G. Krebs' "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland." Unfortunately, "Centipede" is just rank.

One can usually forgive inept acting and low grade special effects. (I particularly liked the truck load of dynamite that caused a boffo fireball -- but didn't blow up the truck.) These things cost money. But how do you forgive scripts that attempt to create tension by having the protagonists do stupid things rather than by having the antagonist do evil things? Through the last half of the movie, these guys are continually chased by a "monster", so instead of running like hell they just as continually hang around until one by one they get caught. These characters are so inept that one wants to cheer for the monster, even if he does look like a latex hand puppet. Oh, it is a latex hand puppet! Personally, I kept hoping the bug would get them all because they all deserve (need) Darwin Awards. Unfortunately, three get away.

I can't help but wonder, did they attempt to base this thing on the centipede video game? Anyway...

The film centers around a group of friends who, to celebrate the upcoming marriage of one of the group members, decide to go caving in a remote, extremely deep cave system. What could possibly go wrong?

This could actually have been cool. Those who know invertebrates realize that centipedes are powerful predators, and that a centipede the size of an anaconda would be terrifying, but bringing such a beast to life was just too much of a challenge for these filmmakers. From the beginning of the movie, they do whatever they can to hurt your suspension of disbelief. For example, this movie is supposed to be set in India, yet all of the Indian characters speak English...when talking to each other! I'm pretty certain that soldiers in the Indian army don't speak English when talking amongst themselves far from any Americans. In addition, the cave sets look fake and the centipedes themselves, when they are finally revealed, look like...well...puppets of some kind. It's not pretty.

"Centipede!" gains two stars because, first, it is so horrible it will make you laugh. Second, the actors are far better than you think from watching the movie. Think about it for a minute: would YOU be able to act scared, or even concerned, while being chased by a giant puppet?