Rating: C-
Dir: Pakphum Wongjinda and Chalit Krileadmongkon
Star: Chanya McClory, Mike Angelo, Benjamin Joseph Varney, Kulteera Yordchang
a.k.a. The One Hundred
Centipedes definitely rank among the ickiest of insects, as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s all those legs, and I suspect I am not alone in my distaste. This Thai film – I presume the original title refers to the number of legs – attempts to leverage the sensation into a full feature, with results best described as mixed. It takes place in a Bangkok hotel a few months after the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. The characters are sequestered in a hotel under quarantine for 14 days, to nobody’s delight. That includes siblings Fame (McClory) and Fiew (Varney), who run a travel vlog, as well as Taekwondo champion Leo (Angelo). The staff, under sleazy manager Wit, are no happier to be there either.
And that’s before people start to vanish, courtesy of a bizarre centipede creature called a Tablongplum in local folklore. Quite what are the rules by which it operates, I’m not able to say for sure. But it appears to be able to take over people, using them as a host, before eventually (I guess) getting bored and moving to another victim. It has the capacity to shoot tentacles out if necessary, which comes as quite a surprise to Fame and the rest of the residents. It’s also rather good as disposing of the bodies, making it difficult for them to convince the authorities of the threat. Or even Wit, who’s more concerned about his hotel’s reputation, or simply sexually harassing the more vulnerable of his employees.
As well as the main monster, this film also throws a slew of relatively normal sized centipedes around, which the overlordpede can control (again, presumably). However, these also seem largely to be CGI, and not especially good CGI at that. The results are therefore limited in the ick factor for which I was hoping. Compare, say, the far lower-fi Centipede Horror, which actually had its actress cramming live centipedes in her mouth. That’s why it is still spoken of in awed tones among cult movie fans, forty years after its release, while I’m pretty sure this will quickly be forgotten. Not that it made much impact to begin with.
Part of the problem is the film wants to tack on more or less superfluous subplots to every character. So Fame has a rare blood disease, Leo is estranged from his father, and so on. I don’t know about you, but I am not watching a movie titled Creepy Crawly, for plot lines lifted from soap operas. It’s more effective when instead stealing from The Thing, in particular the concept that you don’t know who is infected. However, this is quite a minor point, because it seems they can’t last five minutes without going a bit tenticular. Not that I mind, since this is when the movie is at its most fun. Though that probably implies a greater of entertainment than is actually provided overall.