God help me, I don't know where to start because my gut feeling is that censorship IS a bad thing and yet, just reading the short description of this movie tends to make me think 'well, some stuff SHOULD be banned.'
What IS indisputable is that it doesn't matter whether these people (Tom and Ilona Six) are nice or not; first of all you have no real way of knowing whether they really are nice, and secondly what is being considered is their OUTPUT, not their personal disposition.
I did not watch Hostel because the very idea was abhorrent to me (it may for all I know be a great movie but I used personal choice to avoid it.) Likewise Grotesque and A Serbian Film. With regard to the latter, I am distrustful of the director's claim that it was a metaphor for what happened in his country. Was that the best way to draw attention to what happened? DID it even draw attention to what happened? My guess is that it was 'enjoyed' by people who wanted to see the rape of an infant purely for shock value or in order to project their own depraved fantasies. I'm guessing that very few people who watched it now have a clearer idea of what went on during that tragic time.
In a way, what is more important than whether these films should be banned is WHY ARE THEY BEING MADE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
What does it say about the state of the world (and particularly about attitudes to women and children) that such images and narratives are deemed worthy?
Why are film makers so interested in the sadistic depiction of man's inhumanity to man (and womankind?)
It is easy to come up with a pseudo-intellectual justification of shock cinema but in the end, so much of it is simply intended to shock for shock's sake and/or in order to make money.
I can't prejudge a film I haven't seen (and in all likelihood never will see) but I am absolutely certain that the image of a woman being anally raped by a barbed-wire penis is not (and never will) add anything valuable to the human experience.
I can't really fathom what this 'nice couple' thought their film would add to the world in terms of thought, experience, value, meaning or aesthetics.
What films containing such imagery and concepts seem to express is actually a hatred of humanity. I am frequently depressed and appalled by the actions of human beings across the planet and I have seen and appreciated films which shed light on man's inhumanity to man but for me movies simply designed to revel in cruelty, sadism and misogyny are pornography of the worst sort and while I am glad I am not in the position of the censor, I hope that this 21st Century trope dies on its feet as soon a spossible.

I think people should be careful about how they relay and discuss this news about the BBFC ban. Passing along that one (admittedly) gut-wrenching description unfairly paints the film with broad strokes and the truth of the matter is only one, conservative film ratings board has seen it and distributed any information regarding only the most extreme content. This is a good discussion, but keeping it grounded by a one-liner about THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II (as it will across many sites until someone else sees the film and provides more information) feels like domino #2.

It's a horror movie, and horror movies are designed to take the viewers to a very dark place, to create fear and high anxiety through distubing images, for example The Exorcist which contains a little girl violenly masturbating with a crusifix and a film that was banned in the U.K for many years on video and which is now regarded as the most respected horror films of all time..Now if you were to put a description that says "a movie that involves a little girl that puts a crusifix inside her vagina untill it bleeds" would you want to see that movie??? You have to look at the movie as a whole before anyone passes any judgment on it....I understand peoples concern over such material, and if your easily offended then just stay clear of those types of movies..It all comes down to choice, and i dont like people telling me what i can and cant see when it comes to horror fiction movies..

The censorship/banning issue is really something I won't obsess about anymore. Before the Internet that was also a big issue in Germany. Availability of movies with a certain amout of violence was very limited. And it still is to some extend, like in the UK. I will be able to watch the movie some way or the other and that is good to know. What other people consider art, decency or taste is not relevant to me. A movie is a movie is a movie is a movie. Every adult person should be able to watch any fictional/artistic work and no one has the right to consider you a less decent human being for it. The discussion about the subject ends there for me. That is not to say that the issue is not worthy of discussion, just that I personally have wasted too much time discussing it.

I consider myself an anti-censorship person, but in cases like this one what worries me isn't censorship, but the movie itself.

Can someone explain me what value is in showing that on screen?

Recently there is a new wave of movies that are only based on showing torture on screen. They can disguise it as they want, but the only point in those movies is the torture... Saw, A Serbian Film, Martyrs... and now this one. Take the violence out and those films are nothing. You can say they actually are trying to condemn violence in media, but how can you condemn something by doing it? Do you fight drugs selling them or declare peace invading countries? Amenabar's Tesis condemned violence in media... This movies just sell it in a most hypocritical way.

I don't believe it's the role of government to set the rules of good taste. It sounds like something that would receive a hard 18-Certificate, but in the end, it's still just a gross horror film featuring simulated violence and gore. The blood's corn syrup and the barb wire is probably rubber or plastic. It's all fake. If it's not or an actor or an actress was coerced into doing something against their will or harmed, then that's a different story. The only thing this ban ensures is that more people will download it illegally.

It's interesting since the first film claimed it was "medically accurate" and was about a scientist conducting an experiment (no matter how twisted). Here though it's different - it seems to be taking the "movies make you sick!" belief and runs with it (much like the "porn makes you a rapist" clique), taking a viewer of the movie and having him get off on it to the point he does his own version in real life. While the original's premise is disgusting, it at least bears a resemblance to a story. This seems more like something a fan would make to criticize the first film. I have a feeling there's a lot more to this than meets the eye.

As for the question, I might take the easy way out and say that in the case of entertainment it's not protected. Just because someone gains joy from something doesn't make it protected. Now if you had asked about art, that might be different. But this is about a business decision, making a sequel to a movie that made enough money to deserve one. So rather than try and make a good movie with an intriguing story it looks like Six went for shock and awe. Sorry, but if rape is a person's bag and they find that entertaining then that's fine, but I don't think it's something that distributors should be able to show to the public.

Although I admit that's a very weak response, since I hate censorship. I just have a tough time accepting that watching anybody get raped is entertainment unless it has an overall point in relation to the story and not just for shock value.

Great discussion. In my opinion, Dejan Ognjanovic put it the best so far a few comments above.

We have laws in our society that limit what can be shown on screen (i.e. child pornography). While subjective at the time of their creation, they are agreed upon by our appointed lawmakers and then enforced objectively.

Asking why someone would want to watch something can only be answered subjectively. Determining something has no value (or might be harmful to an adult viewer) is also a subjective decision.

No one should be able to subjectively disallow free adults from doing anything that is not objectively disallowed by law. If anyone disagrees with this assertion I would love to hear examples of why and maybe I will reconsider this position.

Our society has a long history of subjectively disallowing (censoring) material. That censorship is often retrospectively viewed as foolish and even harmful to society, regardless of if there were people who asked "why anyone would want to see such things" at the time. You can count on the fact that as time goes on, societal norms change, and our subjective opinions change as well. If they change to a certain degree, then the laws that objectively govern what cannot be legally shown can also be changed. And this is exactly why we have (or should have) anti-censorship laws in place to govern what cannot be subjectively banned.

Wait - to clarify - this barbed wire scene is in The Human Centipede sequel?

I enjoyed the first film - quite a bit more than I thought I would. It was silly in its extremity. The scene described is not silly. It is loathsome. I do not want to see something that abhorrent in a film that does not treat its violence with gravity.

The rape scene in Lucky McKee's The Woman, for instance, was abhorrent and difficult to watch, but the film did not take it lightly. I cannot imagine The Human Centipede treating rape with the same seriousness.

Should it be illegal? It's all about the context, I suppose.

Dejan Ognjanovic pretty much said what I was going to say on the subject

But as for _why_ anyone would want to see this ... film is probably the only time a human being will be able to see the scene described above. Knowing that he'll be watching that in a safe environment and knowing that nobody was actually hurt (bad) while filming it. It's pretty much just another freak show and that's just something people find amusing.


Furthermore, I've never watched something in a film that had a lasting (negative) effect on my being, so I would be surprised if this film would turn into a life-changer for me. Seeing the description of the scene in question, it looks pretty horrendous, but so did A Serbian Film and that just didn't do much for me. In the end it's all about presentation, which makes me wonder how the BBFC handled Martyrs.

And one final thought: people will probably be more shocked seeing a penis on screen than they'll be shocked watching the rape scene.

For me, the most interesting aspect of this is the idea that the film “poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers” coupled with the concerns that the film may be in breach of the Obscene Publications Act, which “prohibits the publication of works that have a tendency to deprave or corrupt a significant proportion of those likely to see them”.

This idea of ‘harm’, the idea of a film that ‘depraves and corrupts’ – the concern here is that the audience need protecting. But which audience are we talking about and what are they/we being protected from?

There’s no evidence that the viewing of Human Centipede 2 harms, depraves or corrupts. The film has already been viewed numerous times by the people who made it – writer, director, producer, cast, crew, sales agents, distributors – and by the BBFC themselves. Have they been harmed, depraved or corrupted? If not, then why should we think that there is the potential for others to be so harmed and corrupted? What sets them apart and why wouldn’t it set us apart too?

It seems to me that the description of the film suggests that it is at the very least a comment on the idea of film corrupting the viewer. We’re told that the lead character masturbates to a viewing of Human Centipede:First Sequence and that he creates his own, more ambitious, human centipede. Surely this is a satire on the whole idea of the imitability of horror films. As far as I know, nobody in real life has attempted to create a Human Centipede, nor is there evidence that the first film harmed, depraved or corrupted anyone. So the only place to see this harm taking place is within Human Centipede 2.
For all those asking ‘Why make something like this’, surely this is the answer, at least in part – the film appears to be about the idea of a ‘corrupting film’, it’s engaging in this debate. (It also seems to tie in with the central idea of the first film – something is passed through one body then excreted into a second and then onto a third. Maybe the mooted third HC film will feature someone ‘inspired’ by HC2…)
So if the film has a central idea about the idea of corruption, does that make it corrupting? Because the central character is depraved, are we in danger of becoming depraved too? What harm will be done to us if we view the film?

No-one is accidentally going to watch HC2 if all the existing laws and classification structures are abided by. If the film were classified 18 it would not be legally viewable by children. It is unlikely that the film – which would also carry a description of its content alongside its classification (eg ‘Contains very strong sexual violence, sex and violence’), which would alert the viewer to any content which might upset them – would be unwittingly viewed by someone who didn’t want to see it.

But there is also a concern that ‘vulnerable people’ might be exposed to the film, with the implied idea that it might do psychological damage (corrupt and deprave). Again, where’s the evidence that Human Centipede or any other horror film does this? Also, are these ‘vulnerable people’, as the OPA states, ‘a significant proportion’ of those likely to see the film? Where’s the evidence for this?

All films seek to affect us – they want to get inside our heads or our guts – they want us to think or feel. Some filmmakers want us to think about unpleasant things, things that trouble us, things that upset us, things that disgust us – and they do this because they know that there is an audience out there that wants to think about these things. They want to see stories about death, murder, mutilation, violence and depravity because they are trying to process the reasons for these things existing in the real world. In real life, torture, murder and sexual abuse are abhorrent, but they happen every day and they affect us and often the reasons for them happening are hard to understand. What’s wrong with producing a piece of work, a fiction, a story that attempts to examine a worldview that is alien to us, a worldview that embraces the abhorrent? Are we really so psychologically vulnerable that we need to be protected from ideas that are troubling?

I haven’t seen Human Centipede 2, so I don’t know whether it has a coherent argument about the potential of film to corrupt or whether it’s just a barrage of extreme sexual violence. The point is that it’s a fiction and its designed to affect the viewer -as all films are – and I can make up my own mind as to whether I want to see it and whether I want its worldview in my head. If I were to watch it in a cinema or at home I could at any point get up and leave or turn it off. I don’t need someone to protect me from it.

To reverse the original question – should the ability to see a woman sexually humiliated - in this case surgically altered and anally raped by a man whose penis has been bound by barbed wire - in the name of entertainment be prevented by law? If no harm were done in the creation of this image, if all parties involved were consensual and fully aware of the context of the image’s creation, then why should we be prevented from seeing it? As yet, we don’t know the context of this image, beyond what the BBFC have told us, but I think we could as individuals decide whether it was something that had creative or entertainment or intellectual value or not, and if not, then we could discuss why not. The film, if released, would find an audience willing to engage with its worldview or it wouldn’t – the same as any other film. I think that denying the film a release under the pretence of protecting the audience from harm grossly underestimates the ability that the vast majority of us have to process fictional images and ideas.

I believe the main problem of the absolute, no-excuses anti-censorship proponents is that they believe everyone else to be like them: well-educated, sensible, politically informed (and opinionated,) with liberal leanings, etc., so they can easily dismiss the need for censorship as "it's everyone's responsible, adult choice to do, not the government to nanny-choose for them."

But what about people with less sophisticated brains? People just wanting to have some fun watching an horror movie they heard was gross or something? Or the ones that are just bored and go to cinema/movie rental place and pick the movie randomly without knowing even what it is about? How do you know watching (needlessly, should I add? why there's a need of something like this to even exist?) this won't awake in a random viewer some dark desires that eventually drive them to behaviour that simulates what they saw? Or that they would be emotionally scarred? (I know you guys are tuff and can't understand that people can actually be emotionally weak.)

As I said in the other thread, it's not like you will be actually stopped from watching the movie, you'll just have to jump one hoop more and you'll get it. I believe that slightly inconveniencing a small group of, intelligent, capable and mature potential viewers is worth sparing even one single person from potentially being negatively affected by the movie.

To me, the Mike Leigh film Naked contained scenes more disturbing than what I hear is depicted in HC2 since he placed the film in an environment that is entirely familiar. HC2 is doubly abstracted from reality, at least I assume this to be the case for the vast majority of people.

I doubt I will ever see a human centipede in real life, and I find the concept of violating another human so abhorrent as to effectively be fantastical, or in other words, completely unreal. This is why HC2 fascinates me, because it portrays an impossible situation, and yet it has been banned. Banning thought is such a damn weird concept!

Yet in the real world we have the very real fact of financial greed causing war and suffering on a scale that is literally impossible to conceive, and depicting this in mass media is fully permitted.

Also, there was a comment on the Guardian website regarding the banning of this film that I thought was brilliantly written:

(quoting the article)The BBFC's decision to ban Tom Six's shock-horror film lays bare a phobia about violence, but only when it's sexual

Reading the interview with Six for the original film, I think this was exactly the phobia he was aiming at. That for most people, true horror lay in the threat of "being interfered with". In some ways, the catharsis in most horror films is when the victim dies - it would be more horrible, and horrific, to continue living after mutilation than to die, and in context, death becomes the happy ending. That ending doesn't really happen here, and is amplified by the mundane fashion in which the victims become victims.

And if the film was truly meant as a piece of art, it's banning by the BBFC on these grounds, without viewing, and from all possible forms of distribution, is the finishing touch. The two films offer an analysis of what true horror is: the fantasy of something ghastly happening to you in the first, and the post-modernist nightmare of what the consequence of watching such a film could be. Then, like the final part of the triptych, is the banning of this second film by the BBFC.

It achieves brilliance as art by being banned. The happy ending is the confirmation that it's not real because the horror can be stopped, not by a hero with a gun in side the film, but by a judicial board outside of it. If the horror rests on the concept of ultimate victim-hood, the final message and ultimate rescue is that the horror can be destroyed by an act of personal control and will (the deducted judgement of a voting panel set up within a democratic society).

To be clear, I was also a pro musician and played caustic music when the PMRC thing was rearing it's head. I had no qualms about rating albums, a very unpopular stance among my peers.
I also say to this day that all that gangster rap bullshit indeed caused an upswing in kids trying to imitate what they heard on those albums, which glorified violent crime. I saw it happen with my own eye, as well as lived in predominantly poor and black areas before that music came along, and watched the attitude change at a sea level when it gained mass popularity.
Say what you want, argue what you want, what people put in their heads changes them. sadly, most people are too stupid to intellectualize what they see and merely "react".

Desensitization is as bad as censorship. We won't see that affect here likely, because we all engage with the art we choose to view. sadly, the average viewer does not.

How people say horror movies should be made to put you in a situation or place that you would not be safe in while still being actually safe. They should illicit emotions and feelings that you might not want to experience in day to day life. I want to be scared by my horror films. For me my preference is to be creeped out. Make me fear what is happening or could possibly happen with shadows and anticipation and a horror movie is a success to me. Just seeing brutalization is not something that scares me in movies as I know it is fake (and I'm really glad that it is fake). This pretty much covers every physical act that I can imagine. I want to be on the edge of my seat for the next creepy or disturbing element to make me jump.

Each and every audience member is different though. The above is what does and doesn't scare me. For some the brutalization aspect might be much more scary and I will not judge them for being put in that scary place in a different way just because they are different than me.

If my type of being scared is fine then I should accept that their way is also fine.