Video nasty: Censors move to ban horror film
Tuesday, 7 June 2011 4:48 PM
By politics.co.uk staff
Censors have banned a new horror film in the UK, saying it poses a "real risk" to cinema-goers.
In a move with echoes of the 'video nasties' scares of the 1980s, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) - sequel to the already controversial 2010 movie The Human Centipede (First Sequence) - has been denied an 18 certificate.
As a result, it cannot be legally supplied anywhere in the UK, including on DVD or online.
Comment: The Human Centipede might be ugly - but a ban is worse
The film's plot involves a man who becomes sexually obsessed with a video of the original film, in which kidnap victims are stitched together to form a human centipede.
Justifying why cuts could not be made to the film, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) said: "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."
The central plot of the film centred on the "sexual arousal of the central character at both the idea and the spectacle of the total degradation, humiliation, mutilation, torture and murder of his naked victims".
There was even a suggestion the film might breach the Obscene Publications Act.
It poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers".
In its 99-year history, the BBFC has only banned 11 films, including the recent Japanese horror film Grotesque and the 1974 classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
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