naomi_jay | Smackdown! A Serbian Film v The Human Centipede II (Reply)

So the one good thing I can say about A Serbian Film is that it has raised my tolerance level to all-time-high. Everything I now see or hear goes through my spanking new internal ASF filter, and usually falls short, because frankly nothing I see or hear will ever be as bad as ASF.I am now totally immune to anything you can throw at me. Ha! Seriously, try it. I am now shockproof. So when I stumbled across the synopsis for The Human Centipede II, I was pretty blasé about it. I think it sounds just as crappy and ill-conceived as the original, and I'd probably think that even without the ASF filter, because ... well, come on.

The plot this time is that some guy is sexually obsessed with the original film and decides to make his own centipede so he can ... enjoy it a lot. (

dwg and I are lolling on Twitter about this, because we've both been like "in the next film someone will be all 'Dr Heiter just wasn't ambitious enough!'" and we're right, apparently. I think Tom Six has been reading our Tweets). Anyway, like the first film, this seems pretty thin, and I'm sure that like the first film, it will be badly scripted, acted, directed, and produced, and it won't even have Beloved 3-Hund to help.

I have to admit, I've developed a love-hate relationship with THC. I still think it's utter shite, and after ASF it looks even lamer, but it has provided me with a lot of amusement since. So in a twisted sort of way, I was quite looking forward to seeing the sequel and mocking that. Except I can't (legally) watch it. Because it's been banned in the UK.

I'm marvelling at this. Apparently it's been banned because there's no way to edit it in a way that won't link sex with violence (and us Brits are funny about sexualised violence but we think it's okay to give a guy who beats his girlfriend to within an inch of her life a £20 fine as punishment. True story). Reading through the synopsis, we have masturbation with sandpaper and barb-wire-on-penis rape, which "poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk, that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers." This is in contrast to ASF, which features *takes a deep breath* necrophilia, paedophilia, bestiality, rape, murder by fellatio, murder by decapitation during sex, the rape of a newborn baby, skullfucking, sodomy, and a really horrible soundtrack.

ASF had a limited 2010 cinema release in the UK, with four minutes and eleven seconds edited out to remove "elements of sexual violence that tend to eroticise or endorse sexual violence." Wow. I cannot imagine which four minutes and eleven seconds they removed to achieve that, because ASF is basically sexualised violence from start to finish.

So anyway, I know Tom Six said that he wanted THCII to be far more graphic and disturbing than the original, which would be like "My Little Pony compared to part two." And I get the idea of wanting to outdo yourself (although in this case you really wouldn't have to do much), but really? Masturbating with sandpaper was the best you could come up with? Okay...

Anyway, I can't help but feel that this is more of what the original THC was - crude stupidity for the sake of crude stupidity masquerading as something genre-defying and challenging. (I still refuse to accept that ASF is a commentary on wartime Serbian politics. You were not thinking about politics during the baby-rape scene, Mr Director). And like I said before, making something shocking doesn't make it intelligent or meaningful. Of course, I also don't think for a second Tom Six is trying to make intelligent, meaningful films, because, you know, I've seen his films.

So yeah. I think THCII sounds every bit as banal and ludicrous and stupid as the original. In fact, I'm certain it is, because a film in which a guy masturbates with sandpaper over people defecating into each other's mouths cannot be anything else. And that's ... okay. I accept that there is a market for that kind of film and that some people will think it's bold, transgressive cinema and not a bunch of poop and penis jokes strung together with a paper-thin central concept. That's fine.

What I cannot get my head around is that the BBFC think this film is worse than A Serbian Film. I really don't get that. It's like Tom Six has won something, somehow, and he didn't deserve to win it ... or something. Or like ASF gets a pass because of a purported political message. Masturbating with sandpaper* is terrible and we shouldn't be allowed to see it, but fellating a woman to death is just peachy?

I ... I don't get it. So I'll leave you with this: