BRITISH CENSORS BAN CENTIPEDE SEQUEL

The British Board of Film Classification has banned the sequel to director Tom Six’s horror film The Human Centipede in Britain, saying that it may not be screened, distributed on DVD, or even made available via the Internet since it “poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers.” In The Human Centipede II the lead character watches a DVD of the original, in which the villain stitches together his victims mouth to anus, and decides to recreate an even grislier scenario. Here’s how Britain’s Guardian newspaper describes one scene: “[It] involves him wrapping barbed wire around his penis and raping the woman at the end of the centipede, having become aroused by the sight of his victims being forced to defecate into each others’ mouths.” [Director Six later complained that the BBFC had included spoilers in announcing its decision and urged it to “give people their own choice to watch it or not.”] Said the BBFC: “There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalized, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience.”