It is being widely reported that the sequel to Tom Six’s 2009 horror film, The Human Centipede has finally received a classification from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence has now been granted a certificate 18 despite being denied a certificate earlier this year in June, after the BBFC felt the film posed “a real risk of harm.”
The film finally received it’s classification and the removal of the ban within the United Kingdom after the distributor, Eureka Entertainment, agreed to 32 cuts, which amounts to two mins and 37 seconds of film and after a huge amount of publicity surrounding the film and whether the BBFC should actually be able to have the authority over banning a film completely.
The cuts that the BBFC have sanctioned in order for the film to be shown within the United Kingdom included: a man masturbating with sandpaper around his penis; graphic sight of a man’s teeth being removed with a hammer; graphic sight of lips being stapled to naked buttocks; graphic sight of forced defecation into and around other victims’ mouths; a man with barbed wire wrapped around his penis violently raping a woman; a newborn baby being killed; and graphic sight of injury as staples are torn away from individuals’ mouth and buttocks.
BBFC president Sir Quentin Thomas said many would find it “difficult” to watch but that the cut film could “properly be classified at the adult level”.
The concerns that the BBFC had earlier this year about the film included those “relating to sexual violence, graphic gore and the possibility of breach of the law relating to obscenity” and have now passed the film on the basis that the cuts will adhere to their rulings on the above.
One of the BBFC’s vice-presidents, Gerard Lemos, felt the film remained unclassifiable and abstained from the board’s collective decision.
The sequel follows a man who has seen the original film and aims to repeat the medially inaccurate attachment between humans to create his own centipede for his own violent and sexual enjoyment.
Eureka Entertainment, the film’s UK distributor, said they were “really pleased” that an agreement had been reached but felt “slight disappointment” that cuts had been required.
However, continued its sales director Ian Sadler: “We feel that the storyline has not been compromised and the level of horror has been sustained.”
Since it’s inception in 1912, the BBFC – formerly the British Board of Film Censors have banned 11 films, the most recent being Grotesque, a 2009 Japanese horror film. But after the upheaval that the film has caused in the press, it appears the BBFC have given in and for the first time, I may have lost faith in the classification system in this country. I was more than satisfied with the reasons for initially banning the film and felt it was not a suitable representation of the art form of cinema, on top of this money is being made from the film. Now that the banning has been overturned, where do the BBFC stop and is there place in society important anymore with things like the internet?
