REELNEW:Censorship is back in vogue. The British Board of Film Classification has astonished film analysts by refusing a certificate to the sequel to Tom Six's notorious horror film The Human Centipede.

Ticketreaders will recall that the first film (cover your eyes, Auntie Maureen) focused on a mad scientist who grafted the mouths of certain unfortunate captives on to the bottoms of others to create a many-legged entity that recycled bodily waste in singularly unpleasant fashion.

The decision is unusual in that the board refused to consider reclassification, even if the film was heavily recut. A statement read: “There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience.”

Six, who savours this sort of publicity, reacted in characteristically volatile style. “Apparently, I made a horrific horror film, but shouldn’t a good horror film be horrific?” he wrote in an email. “My dear people it is a f***ing MOVIE. It is all fictional. Not real. It is all make-believe. 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.”

The BBFC has banned only 11 films in its 98-year history (including, in chronological order, The Wild One, The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Mikeyand Grotesque).

At time of writing, The Human Centipede (Full Sequence)had not been submitted to the Irish Film Classification Office.

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