Movies
Tom Six’s ‘Human Centipede’ Interview Blows My Mind: Chair Rape and Torture Porn
I’ve never met Tom Six, and haven’t really conversed with him at all. To be frank, I don’t even know what to make of him. Is he arrogant? Is he a sociopath? Is he one of those directors who only cares about shocking his audience? I’ve been in the dark ever since his The Human Centipede (First Sequence) blew my mind back in 2009. Being that I’m the kind of guy who likes to stare you right in the eye and see what makes you tick, the shroud of mystery around Six has literally drove me insane. Up until today, I’ve had no actual opinion on the Euro director.
But now, with The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) premiering at the Fantastic Fest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, the director has opened up with an absolutely mind blowing interview with the NY Times where he talks about making his new villain rape a chair, and how he’s comfortable having his films tagged as “torture porn.”
Read on for some choice segments.
First, Six responds to the accusation that Human Centipede just may be “torture porn.” He embraces it: “I don’t have any problem with that, because I actually like the term,” Six tells the NY Times. “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.”
My personal favorite part of the interview is where Six talks about his approach to the first film, and then upping the ante for Full Sequence. This is the answer of a true film fan who understands what he’s doing. It reminds me of what James Cameron said about both T2 and Aliens.
“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,” he explains. “In ‘Part II,’ 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.”
The most random portion of the feature is where Six explains that he forced Laurence R. Harvey to rape a chair in order to land the role of the new villain, Martin.
“The villain was more difficult [to cast], 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.”
He continues explaining “why” he made him perform that bizarre act: “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.”
This brief interview tells me a lot about Six as a person and a director. Most of all it has made me respect him more as a person and a director. You can read the entire interview by clicking below. What do you think of Mr. Six after reading?
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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