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The BBFC have made a brave decision to ban The Human Centipede II. Apart from a brief spell of madness in the 80s during the video nasty phase, very few films have been banned outright in the UK for a period of time. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the most notorious but the board felt that all the Saw films, the Japanese nasty Audition and even Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, where Charlotte Gainsbourg gets intimate in all the wrong ways with Willem Dafoe and a pair of scissors, could be released uncut. Even the very very nasty A Serbian Film made it to release, albeit with substantial edits. Yet the BBFC not only have banned THC II from being released, they have categorically stated that no amount of editing will ever justify the film for release. So the gore level must surely verge on the apocalyptic.
Reading the synopsis, it is hard not to feel nauseous. A man gets a recording of the first Human Centipede, and becomes obsessed by it. After gathering together unfortunate victims and recreating the centipede, he performs disgusting acts, such as a rape with the aid of barbed wire and being erotically attracted to how the centipede ‘disposes’ of its waste. The director Tom Six’s response has been blunt: "My dear people it is a f****cking [sic] MOVIE. It is all fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief [sic]. It is art. Give people their own choice to watch it or not. If people can't handle or like my movies they just don't watch them."
My own personal opinion is that ‘art’ here is a Trojan horse used to justify acts without merit, only for the purpose of extreme fetishists and gore-lovers, sort of like people daring each other to eat the hottest curry possible. The BBFC has allowed films before with an extreme level of violence but have specifically stated : “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." Which seems very comprehensive and true.
However, banning it, as disgusting as the movie sounds, is the wrong move. Let me make this clear; I am not the sort of person who likes movies such as The Human Centipede II; on the contrary I can barely get through any horror movie with my hands over my eyes. But what this decision has done is to give the film much more advertising that it should have. The general consensus of the first Human Centipede was that the premise was certainly shocking but the film then disappointed. The second was garnering considerably less interest until this ruling came up. In addition, just as watching video nasties like The Driller Killer and Cannibal Holocaust was a rite of passage in the 80s, so too will all 15 year old boys flock to this film, because of its notoriety. Especially now that a film is a torrent away, downloaded for free in a few minutes, it is almost impossible to impose any sort of ban on the film.
Banning THC II is entirely counterproductive. It will do nothing to stop the viewing of the film; rather Six will cash in on its notoriety and it will spread as a cult film through the internet. Though it is disgusting and far from the ‘art’ Six says it is, banning it under obscenity laws is not the answer.
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