Yesterday the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) took the surprising decision
to ban the UK release of Dutch director
Tom Sixs film
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence). The original film was a shocking and grotesque study of a mad scientists descent into depravity as he sews three people together to make a literal human centipede yet the BBFC allowed it to be released in its uncut form with an 18 certificate in the UK. On that occasion the board stated that while the film was undoubtedly tasteless and disgusting it was a relatively traditional and conventional horror film. However with the sequel they have gone so far as to say it may be in breach of the Obscene Publications Acts 1959 & 1964 (OPA) due to the principal focus of the film being 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. Tom Six has six weeks to appeal the decision but the BBFC have already said that even with cuts the film could be in breach of the OPA. Tom Six released the following statement to
Empire Online regarding the news:
Thank you BBFC for putting spoilers of my movie on your website and thank you for banning my film in this exceptional way. Apparently I made an horrific horror-film, but shouldn't a good horror film be horrific? My dear people it is a f****cking MOVIE. It is all fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief. 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. If people like my movies they have to be able to see it any time, anywhere also in the UK.
Do you think that the BBFC has gone too far by banning this film? Is this a return to the moral panic of the Video Nasties of the early eighties? Let us know what you think.