Many had doubted if we really needed another Toy Story film, what with the third instalment conclusively tying things up and allowing us all to move on with our lives. But those people were wrong: Toy Story 4 is a completely necessary addition to the Human Centipede franchise.
As if by numerical inevitability, the fourth film is set after the third one, with Woody, Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Chucky and co. now belonging to new girl Bonnie, who is frightfully terrible at noticing her toys have moved from one spot to another, despite handling them just seconds ago.
Woody (brilliantly motioned captured by Glenn Close) is having an existential crisis, a bit like he did in the third film, because he isn’t Bonnie’s favourite toy and he’s a selfish cunt like that. At this point, I did wonder if we were retreading familiar ground, but never before has a Human Centipede film featured a piece of disposable cutlery with severed body parts attached to it.
Like an adolescent, utensil-obsessed Victor Frankenstein, Bonnie elects to animate a plastic spork, augmenting it with human eyes, arms, feet and glands, a sight that left the child beside me utterly terrified due to its remarkable resemblance to Madonna.
‘This is exactly what the Human Centipede franchise needed,’ I thought to myself as the Madonna spork repeatedly tried to kill itself by jumping in a bin. While it may address exactly the same themes as Toy Story 3 and provide half the amount of laughs and tears, at least people will no longer be able to put a spork in their mouth without thinking about the pop singer’s donated facial features, thus saving the environment.