Review: ‘The Human Centipede III’ continues down depraved, rancid path

If you hate movies, and you find sexual assault funny, “The Human Centipede III: Final Sequence” should meet your needs.

It’s a buffet of lower-the-bar depravity in Tom Six’s third go-round with his digestion torture porn concept, which — if you didn’t know by now — follows a sadist intent on stitching a victim’s mouth to another’s anus, and so on. This time, it’s a racist, megalomaniac prison warden (an unintelligible, endlessly howling Dieter Laser, from the first film) with guess-what designs on mass inmate control. (Should this review have started with, “Warning: soilers ahead”?)

The trilogy’s “commentary,” if you can call it that, comes from the meta notion that each successive installment takes place in a world in which the previous one(s) are only movies, bluntly hinting that those suggestible to such movies are more sicko than anything in a little ol’ film.

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The true joke the director’s trying to pull with “III” is to see how visually, morally ugly he can be (a kewpie-doll secretary character exists only to be abused and raped) and still have a fanbase who buys his empty no-compromise public persona.

As horror, it’s frightless and boring. As comedy, it’s desperate and laughless. As exploitation, it’s exceedingly dull. Even excrement was once something of substance. “The Human Centipede III: Final Sequence” is just rancid air. It too shall pass.

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“The Human Centipede III: Final Sequence”

No MPAA rating.

Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

Playing: Arena Cinema, Hollywood.