It is entirely possible ? maybe even likely ? that you know the plot of Tom Six?s horror movie ?The Human Centipede (First Sequence)? without having seen a single frame of it. After receiving a modest theatrical release in the United States last year, the film has become a cult sensation as a video-on-demand offering and been referred to on mainstream shows like ?South Park? and ?The Colbert Report? because of its simple, memorable and thoroughly unnerving premise: a mad doctor who surgically combines three human captives into a single organism by stitching them together, mouth to anus.
Mr. Six?s sequel, ?The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence),? about an obsessed ?Human Centipede? fan, Martin, who tries to recreate the original movie?s ?experiment? in a dingy London warehouse, is already notorious, weeks before IFC Films plans to release it on Oct. 7. When it was presented over the summer to the British Board of Film Classification, the equivalent of the Motion Picture Association of America, the board refused to give it any rating at all, meaning that the movie cannot be shown or sold legally in that country. Explaining its decision, the board said: ?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.? It added that any further editing of the film would not make it acceptable for presentation.
That hasn?t dissuaded Mr. Six, a 38-year-old Dutch filmmaker, who plans to open ?The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)? at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Tex., on Thursday and is preparing to make a third and final film in an anticipated trilogy. He spoke with ArtsBeat recently by phone from Amsterdam, and in these excerpts from that conversation, he discusses the making of the ?Human Centipede? movies and his reactions to the British ban.
Q.
Where in the world did the idea for ?The Human Centipede? come from?
A.
One day I was watching television with friends, and there was a really nasty child molester on television, and as a joke, I said they should stitch his mouth to the [rear] of a fat truck driver as a punishment. And everybody was laughing. But that idea kept coming in my head. I thought, that?s the ultimate horror.
Q.
Once you?d written the script, did you find it at all challenging to cast the film?
A.
It was a real hell to get the actors. We did the casting in New York, and so many actors refused when I told them the idea. They thought I was a European nutcase. So many left, immediately. The smart ones, they stayed. They wanted to know more. We came to the moment that they had to sit on their hands and knees, very close to a butt in front of them, and then, again, so many girls dropped off, because they couldn?t do it. They went to acting school or whatever, and they thought, ?My God, do I have to show this to my parents??
Q.
The film has since insinuated itself into pop culture in all kinds of unexpected ways. Did you see the ?South Park? episode that parodied the movie?
A.
Oh, yeah. It?s amazing. It?s an honor that they did that. It?s so cool, if people make parodies out of your film. They made a porn version in L.A. It?s amazing.
Q.
The term ?torture porn? is often used to describe contemporary horror movies like ?Hostel? and ?Saw.? Would you be offended to see ?The Human Centipede? labeled ?torture porn??
A.
I don?t have any problem with that, because I actually like the term. I see porno films, of course, and I like them, I have no problem with that at all. And there have been so many horror films, and that?s all torture and misery. That?s the genre. I kind of like that they combine it. I think my film is a torture porn with European art sauce or something.
Q.
By giving the first ?Human Centipede? the subtitle ?First Sequence,? you were already indicating more movies to come. So what do you do for an encore?
A.
I made Part I very much psychological. A lot of things happen in your head and you don?t actually see it on the screen. In PartII, I really wanted to make it more graphic, show everything that I didn?t show in Part I. Because I see so many horror films that have a sequel, then the sequel fails because it?s like a copy of the first one. Most of the time it?s not better, or it?s not original, and then it fails. When I was doing promotion for Part I and starting to write Part II, so many people at festivals all over the world, they said, ?What if some maniac out there tries to copy your idea?? And then I knew that?s exactly the idea I must pursue.
Q.
Was that a genuine concern of yours, that someone might see ?The Human Centipede? and try to duplicate it in real life? Do you have to exercise restraint in your films because of these kinds of possibilities?
A.
No, I think as a filmmaker, film is of course art and entertainment, but as a filmmaker you?d never be restricted by what might happen. You?re creating a fantasy. It?s all fake and make-believe, of course. And if some crazy person out there copies something from a film, that person is already insane. So it could have been anything that triggered him. I think artists should never worry about that, and just make the thing they want to make.
Q.
Did the reputation that you?d earned from the original ?Human Centipede? make it easier or harder to get the sequel made?
A.
The production process was oh so much easier. As you can imagine, when we did the castings for the people inside the centipede, so many actors wanted to be in there. At the auditions they came in and they sat on their hands and knees right away. ?When can I start??
Of course, the villain was more difficult, because people who?ve seen Part I really admire Dr. Heiter, and that?s what I really didn?t want. I want the complete opposite of Dr. Heiter. I had this very specific character in my mind for the Martin character, and I saw a lot of people but none of them made it. And when Laurence came in, I thought, my God, that?s him, that?s him. He looks amazing. And then I asked him to rape a chair.
Q.
Really? Why?
A.
Because I wanted to see, is he capable of giving it all as an actor? That?s very important for me. And he did it, and he did it so convincingly and he had no shame whatsoever. And I thought, that?s it, that?s the guy.
Q.
How much of your shoot time on the sequel was spent filming the actual human-centipede portion of the film?
A.
I don?t know exactly the percentage. Just like in Part I, I saved it for last. I shot all the other stuff first. A little less than half of the shooting time. We had chairs everywhere, because there are people in the centipede, in ?Part II,? that are more heavy than the thin characters in Part I. They suffered for it. They enjoyed every moment but it was really tough on them.
Q.
Now that people know what ?The Human Centipede? is, did you run into people who did not want you filming in certain locations or who did not want to contribute other resources because they didn?t want to be associated with the sequel?
A.
I never encountered things like that. What I do encounter at festivals, and on the Internet especially, is that people who see the film become so very angry and emotional about it. I got so many death threats via Internet, Facebook and stuff. Because people can?t handle it. People, somehow they think I?m degrading humanity and they can?t see it?s separate. At festivals I had people that were even afraid to look at me. And I said, ?It?s just make-believe. It?s all fun, and the actors had fun, and it?s not real.? But people are so intensely angry.
Q.
Are you a weird person in your private life? Do you sleep suspended upside-down like a bat?
A.
No, no. I?m a victim of a very happy childhood, I think. I lead a very, very normal life. Usually people who make horror films are the most friendly people in the world. They just have an amazing and strange imagination, but I couldn?t hurt a mouse in real life. My father and mother were divorced, and I was raised by my mother, and she lived with my grandparents in a very big house near Amsterdam.
Q.
You work closely with your sister, Ilona, who produces your movies. I have a sister, and I?m not sure I could speak candidly with her about the ideas in the ?Human Centipede? films.
A.
I totally understand what you mean. But my sister?s just as crazy as I am, I think. She always comes up with crazy ideas. Even my mother loves the films. She?s seen the first one and she loves it. I told her the story of the second one and she loved it.
Q.
When you learned that the British Board of Film Classification had rejected ?The Human Centipede II,? how did you feel? Did it make you reconsider what you had done?
A.
When I heard about it, I immediately got two strong reactions. I thought, my God, this is brilliant for the marketing. And on the other end, I got really upset. Because how can it be that in 2011, people can?t see a film and judge for themselves whether to watch it or not? That?s really something from a dinosaur era. Now you have Internet and people can get copies from all over the world. So you can never stop the U.K. public from seeing that film. And then when they said it?s uneditable, it?s crazy. I always thought the British people had so much humor, so I?m really disappointed that the B.B.F.C. didn?t see the humor in the film at all.
Q.
Do you make your films with the deliberate intention of trying to get people upset?
A.
I like to make controversial films. I like that people talk about your work. I would hate it if I would make a film, and people wonder what to have for dinner when the film is over and not think about your film. I love it that people talk about it, hate it, can?t sleep over it.
Q.
But wouldn?t you rather that people react by saying, ?What a well-shot scene? or ?What a well-acted performance? than by saying, ?That movie should never have been made??
A.
I?d rather have those last remarks you said. I love that. Because if people say it?s a nice shot or it?s a nice story line, it?s so general. You can say that with almost any film you see. And things like, ?this film should never have been made,? that?s exceptional.
Q.
But what if your actions make it harder for other directors to make the kinds of movies they want to make?
A.
That?s true. But as a filmmaker, you have to look for new boundaries and see if you can make stories, create things that people haven?t seen before. And you cross the line, maybe, in moral terms, or things that go too far. But I think a lot of horror makers, they get new energy from this and they can think, ?Hey, I have to create something new also.? Because so many horror films are repeated over and over and over, with monsters, with knives, it?s all the same. There?s not many filmmakers in the horror genre that really make original stuff, that make way for new ideas.
Q.
In its rejection of ?The Human Centipede II,? the British board cited a scene in which the main character is seen ?wrapping barbed wire around his penis and raping the woman at the rear of the ?centipede.? ? But I did not see that scene in the version of the film I was shown. Is that being edited out of the American release?
A.
In America, IFC knows that best. They have two versions that they are going to release. I don?t know exactly how they?re going to do that, but there will be two different versions. You can ask IFC how they see that, how that want to do that.
Q.
Who are your favorite artists? Whose work do you look up to?
A.
I really love comedies. I really like the guy who made ?Borat? and ?Bruno,? Sacha Baron Cohen. As a filmmaker, Lars von Trier, I really admire his body of work, what he?s doing. I like a guy like Werner Herzog. One of my favorite actors of all time is Klaus Kinski.
Q.
You?re already planning a third ?Human Centipede? film. What can you say about it at this stage?
A.
I really wanted to make a second one, and overall I wanted to make three. Because three films make a human centipede, you can actually place them together and they form one film of four and a half hours. I have some really cool things for Part 3 in store. I have one film more to show some more crazy ideas. But then I am fed up with ?Human Centipede? so I don?t want to do it anymore.
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