The British Board of Film Classification has denied director Tom Six’s upcoming sequel The Human Centipede (Full Sequence) its 18 certificates (think of it as a rating). Without the BBFC’s approval, the film will not be allowed to play in the U.K.
Last year, Six told IFC:
When I was writing [First Sequence]. I had so many ideas that I couldn’t fit them all in the movie. And I wanted the audience to get used to this crazy centipede. Now, in ‘Part 2,’ I can use all my ideas. So everything is in it this time. I don’t hold back anything. It’s pretty nasty.
It appears the degenerate Dutchman wasn’t kidding. According to the BBFC, the principal focus of The Human Centipede (Full Sequence) is “the sexual arousal of the central character at both the idea and the spectacle of the total degradation, humiliation, mutilation, torture, and murder of his naked victims.”
The BBFC goes on to state (Spoiler Alert!):
Examples of this include a scene early in the film in which he masturbates whilst he watches a DVD of the original Human Centipede film, with sandpaper wrapped around his penis, and a sequence later in the film in which he becomes aroused at the sight of the members of the ‘centipede’ being forced to defecate into one another’s mouths, culminating in sight of the man wrapping barbed wire around his penis and raping the woman at the rear of the ‘centipede’.
There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience. There is a strong focus throughout on the link between sexual arousal and sexual violence and a clear association between pain, perversity and sexual pleasure.
It is the Board’s conclusion that the explicit presentation of the central character’s obsessive sexually violent fantasies is in breach of its Classification Guidelines and poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers.
Wow. They had me at “degradation” and “humiliation” of “naked victims.” But, barbed-wire rape? Looks like someone’s calling out A Serbian Film. I am really interested in finding out what newbie actresses Six managed to land this time.
The Human Centipede: First Sequence starred Ashlynn Yennie and Ashley C. Williams as American tourists abducted by an evil German scientist hell-bent on creating a human centipede by sewing them together mouth-to-anus.
IFC Films released the controversial film last April to critical acclaim from the horror community and surprisingly much of the mainstream media. Read my review here.