The Panic Continues: Tom Six And His Centipedes.

In case you haven't heard by now (horror fans are buzzing about it no matter where they live), you can hear it here: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), the latest film from Dutch director Tom Six, has been rejected for classification by the BBFC.  Let's take a look at the teaser trailer:



As you can see, he is well aware of the polarizing effect his film has had.  The Human Centipede (First Sequence) is a film that allegedly made Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) physically ill.  I was bored stiff.  The tale centers on Dr. Heiter, a German doctor living alone who kidnaps three tourists and sews them together, mouth-to-anus, to create a new kind of creature.  The film's tagline "100% Medically Accurate" is, according to Six, true: if given an IV drip to supplement the rear segments' diet of feces from the front segment, they could "live for years".  Accurate or not, the first film is mostly a statement about fascism and the horror of Nazi medical experiments.  There is little gore, and most of what makes the film so uncomfortable is left in the imaginations of the viewers.  Not so with the sequel, as the BBFC will attest.  In their own unique brand of paradoxical moralizing, they've included graphic descriptions of why they rejected the film in their press release on the subject.  I hesitate to print it here because it contains spoilers about the events of the film, so I will instead post a link to the BBFC and let them do the spoiling:

THC2 BBFC Press Release

Why am I writing about this?  Because it shows that, while the board may have "loosened" their restrictions in the last 30 years, they are a long way from allowing truly free expression in film.  Also, as keen eyed readers may have noticed, Full Sequence was NOT submitted for cinema classification.  A direct-to-video release was sought.  That would have been a nasty video, indeed.

Many UK horror fans are outraged by this turn of events, and I can't say I blame them.  What makes this almost funny is that, in the "digital age", all the BBFC has done is ensure that it will be downloaded illegally thousands of times over as soon as it is available.  Horror fans who would normally respect the artists and pay money for their own DVD copy are not given the option to do so, and must resort to piracy.  The BBFC has robbed the rightful copyright owners of hundreds of thousands of pounds in revenue.  Six Entertainment has six weeks to appeal the decision, and if they can overturn this one, it would be an incredible coup.  Here's hoping.

If it remains banned, maybe we should stock up on DVDs and mail them, unsolicited, to our friends across the Atlantic.  Could they arrest me for that?  I should check the customs laws to make sure.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.