2011 film by Tom Six
The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) is a 2011 psychological body horror film written, directed, and co-produced by Tom Six. An international co-production of the Netherlands and the United States, and the sequel to Six's 2009 film "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)", the film stars Laurence R. Harvey as a psychiatrically and intellectually impaired English man who watches and becomes obsessed with the first "Human Centipede" film, and decides to make his own "centipede" consisting of 12 people by using crude and violent techniques to connect their lips to each others buttocks, including Ashlynn Yennie, an actress from the first film.
"The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" received substantial attention and controversy for its graphic depictions of violence, sexual violence, forced defecation, and overall body horror. It was subject to heavy censorship throughout the world where it was sometimes edited to remove objectionable content or banned altogether. It was critically panned, with much criticism focused on its acting, plot, editing, and violence, although Harvey's performance received some praise from critics.
Plot.
In the tollbooth of a parking garage in East London, Martin Lomax is watching "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)", a film he is obsessed with, on his laptop. Short, obese, asthmatic, and mentally challenged, Martin lives in an unkempt council flat with his emotionally abusive mother, who blames him for having his father put in prison for physically, psychologically, and sexually abusing Martin when he was a boy. Dr. Sebring, Martin's psychiatrist, touches him inappropriately and prescribes him heavy medication. Martin keeps a pet centipede.
In an appointment with Dr. Sebring at home, Mrs. Lomax talks about her son's unsettling discussion about creating a twelve-person centipede. Dr. Sebring says that Martin's obsession with a twelve-person centipede and centipedes in general is a "phase", relating the pain of a centipede's bite and phallic shape to the sexual abuse he endured at the hands of his father. Mrs. Lomax remains resentful and apathetic towards Martin.
Martin acquires a dingy warehouse after killing the owner and landlord, and begins abducting people to use for a twelve-person human centipede. His victims include a young couple, a man and his pregnant wife, and two drunk girls who catch Martin masturbating with sandpaper. Martin's mother finds and destroys his scrapbook in disgust after unsuccessfully attempting a murder-suicide. When Mrs. Lomax attempts to dispose of his centipede, Martin throws his centipede on her face, which bites her. After killing her by bludgeoning her head with a crowbar, Martin then lures his detested neighbour, Dick, to the scene, before shooting and kidnapping him.
Back at the tollbooth, Martin catches on one of the CCTV security cameras Dr. Sebring and a cabbie having sex with a prostitute. Martin kills Sebring in a fit of rage and abducts the others. Martin's final victim is Ashlynn Yennie, the actress who played Jenny in "The Human Centipede", whom Martin lures under false pretenses of being Quentin Tarantino's casting agent.
Martin assembles his "centipede". Following his notes and sketches from "The Human Centipede", Martin severs the ligaments in each person's knees to prevent them from fleeing and uses a hammer to knock out their teeth. However, Martin cuts into the buttocks of one victim too deeply, causing him to bleed to death. Instead of surgical tools, he uses a staple gun and duct tape to attach each person's lips to the next person's buttocks. The pregnant woman, who was planned to be the front of the centipede, is presumed dead; Martin places her in the corner. Martin's "human centipede" is ultimately ten people long with Ashlynn in front.
Martin experiments by having his centipede walk around and force-feeds Ashlynn cream-of-mushroom soup using the funnel and tube when she refuses to eat from the dog bowl. Disturbed by Ashlynn's screams, he tears her tongue out with pliers. Martin soon starts rubbing on his victims' stomachs in hopes that they defecate. When they don’t, this angers Martin, which makes him inject each victim with a laxative, forcing them to uncontrollably and violently defecate into the mouth of the person behind them in a chain like reaction, causing each victim to swallow each other's excrement much to Martin’s excitement. He wraps his genitals in barbed wire and rapes the woman at the back of the centipede. The pregnant woman awakens and runs outside screaming, in labour. She leaps into a victim's car and gives birth. When Martin pursues her, she stomps on the accelerator, crushing her baby's skull in the process, and drives away.
Martin returns to the warehouse and finds that the centipede has separated into two halves. Furious that his centipede is ruined, Martin executes the victims. As he hesitates to kill Ashlynn, she punches him in the crotch and shoves the funnel into his rectum, before dropping his pet centipede into it. Martin fatally stabs her in the neck and staggers out in agony.
The scene cuts back to the tollbooth with Martin rewatching the credits of "The Human Centipede", leaving the audience to wonder whether the events even happened.
Cast.
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Production.
Director Tom Six stated in 2010 that he was working on a sequel to "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)", as well as a possible third film depending upon its success. He said that the plot would follow on from the first film, but with a centipede made from 12 people as opposed to the three victims of the first. The tag-line would be ""100% medically inaccurate", in contrast to his "100% medically accurate" claim for the first film. Six stated the sequel would be much more graphic and disturbing, making the first film seem like "My Little Pony" compared with part two."
Speculation regarding the plot of "Full Sequence" grew after the Weekend of Horrors convention in May 2010, when Ashlynn Yennie and Akihiro Kitamura, who had starred in "First Sequence", hinted that their characters might return for the sequel despite their deaths in "First Sequence". Additionally, Ashley C. Williams, whose character was left alive at the end of "First Sequence", stated in September 2010 that she was shooting a horror film in Britain, which led to speculation from FEARnet that she is reprising her role of Lindsay. In a further interview, Yennie confirmed Six's statement that the sequel would contain "the blood and shit" which viewers did not see in the first film.
Six was inspired to make the movie a metafilm after reporters kept asking him if he worried about people committing copycat crimes inspired by the first film. Although he had previously considered the concept for a possible sequel, the questions cemented his idea.
According to Six, he intentionally made "Full Sequence" very different from "First Sequence" for two reasons. First, when he was writing the script of "First Sequence", he knew people would want more "blood and shit" than is shown. Second, the two parts reflect the different characters: the coloured "First Sequence", with a slow-moving camera, fit the story of Dr. Heiter, while Martin Lomax's character required a "dark and dirty" film. Six shot "Full Sequence" in colour, but "was always thinking about black and white" and realized while editing that it was "much scarier" that way. It was also Six's idea to have little dialogue in the film's second half, except for moans, screams, and whimpers.
Principal photography for "Full Sequence" began in London in June 2010 with a largely British cast. A teaser trailer was released on 24 September, in which Six introduced Martin, a man wearing a cardboard box over his head, as the new doctor.
Release.
United States.
The film had its United States premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, on 22 September 2011. The film's distributor, IFC Films, gave audience members complimentary barf bags at the screening, and stationed an ambulance outside the theater as a gimmick. However, one audience member became so physically ill during the premiere that paramedics had to assist her.
The film began a limited theatrical release in the United States on 7 October 2011. It was released unrated and only had midnight showings. The film was released in an "unrated director's cut" on DVD and Blu-ray on 14 February 2012; the film runs a total 91 minutes.
A full-colour version of the film was released for the first time in the United States on 27 October 2015, exclusively on "The Human Centipede: The Complete Sequence" Blu-ray set.
In April 2016, a Tennessee high school teacher was suspended after the film was played during class. Tom Six responded by tweeting "It should be mandatory to watch THC2 in school classes...It deals with a character that is bullied and what to do!" Six also said that he would be giving the teacher an autographed copy of the film.
Censorship.
United Kingdom.
In June 2011, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) refused to classify "The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)" for a direct-to-video release, effectively meaning that the film could not legally be supplied in any format in the UK. The BBFC had given the preceding "First Sequence" title an 18 certificate. The Board stated that they had considered "First Sequence" to be "undoubtedly tasteless and disgusting", but deemed it acceptable for release because the "centipede" was the product of a "revolting medical experiment". By contrast, the BBFC report on "Full Sequence" stated that the film's content was too extreme for an 18 certificate and was "sexually violent, and potentially obscene". The board members felt that the centipede of "Full Sequence" existed purely as "the object of the protagonist's depraved sexual fantasy". They criticised the film for making "little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised and degraded for the amusement and sexual arousal of the main character and for the pleasure of the viewer", and stated their opinion that the film was potentially in breach of the Obscene Publications Act. The BBFC initially suggested that cutting the film would not affect the decision, "as the unacceptable material featured throughout".
Tom Six responded to the BBFC's decision in a statement released the next day:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;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 ["sic"] horrific horror-film, but shouldn't a good horror film be horrific? My dear people it is a fucking MOVIE. It is all fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief ["sic"]. 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.
Eureka Entertainment, the film's UK distributor, issued a statement criticising the ban, echoing Six's sentiments about the revelation of plot details in the BBFC's report, and announcing their intention to appeal to the Video Appeals Committee.
In October 2011, the BBFC ultimately granted the film an 18 certificate for "very strong bloody violence and gore, and sexual violence" after 32 compulsory cuts were made, totalling 2 minutes and 37 seconds. Sir Quentin Thomas, president of the BBFC, stated:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;When we first examined this work earlier this year we judged that, as submitted, it was unsuitable for classification; and, as we explained to the company, we could not ourselves see how cuts could produce a viable and classifiable work. That remains the view of one of our Vice Presidents, Gerard Lemos, who is therefore abstaining from the Board's collective decision. The company lodged an appeal against our decision to refuse classification. In the course of preparations for that appeal, the company proposed a number of cuts which it was right for us to consider. In response, after further examination, we proposed a more extensive series of cuts. These cuts produce a work which many will find difficult but which I believe can properly be classified at the adult level. The company has now accepted these cuts, withdrawn its appeal and the work has been classified, as cut, at 18.
The sales director of Eureka Entertainment supported the decision, stating:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;We are really pleased that after nearly four months of detailed discussion and debate, we have been able to reach an agreement with the BBFC and to produce a very viable cut of the film which will both excite and challenge