Written By: Joseph Forsberg

We are a product of our environment; psychological defects can be the result of how we grew up and the trauma we experience at a young age.

Borderline Personality Disorder: A condition in which people have long-term patterns of unstable emotions or pure rage, caused by sexual abuse or lack of communications in the household. Their behavior may reflect negative feelings of themselves or others.

Tom Six’s The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence is by far one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen; yes it has a lot of violence and gore, but the worst part to me is the fact that every single part of Martin’s personality can be diagnosed. His goal throughout this movie is to create a centipede out of 12 random people; to him this would be a beautiful master piece, almost a form of art. Martin, the villain in the film, is not always displaying random behavior; for the most part, he has a reason for every action taken and his personality is influenced by everything that he has had to endure throughout his entire life. This man is not insane; Martin is simply an example of how our environment can create pure evil. When fantasies are no longer an escape from reality, one must create a reality that reflects fantasy.

Human Centipede 2 introduces us to the mind of the mentally disturbed who has reached the point of a complete breakdown. Martin is a middle aged man who lives with his mother and has a low level job at a parking garage. Although his physical characteristics portray him as an older male, his IQ and lack of vocabulary puts his maturity level around that of an adolescent. The movie and his personality have made it very clear that he has been sexually and verbally abused by his father; victims of sexual abuse have been known to become abusers themselves, especially when the child does not receive proper medical attention. Social bond theory states that outside sources such as teachers, parents, or counselors can prevent violent behavior by reaching out to the victim in need. Unfortunately for Martin, he never had a chance to live a normal life; his father was sent to prison, his mother was verbally abusive and blamed him for everything that went wrong in their lives. With this type of environment, a child has no choice but to separate him-self from the rest of society and create his own little world through fantasies. These fantasies are a friendly form of escape but can easily turn violent as he continues to suppress his traumatizing experiences. After a while, the memories will be drawn out from the unconscious and once again become a reality. Martin’s first sexual experience was being molested by his father so he probably began envisioning himself doing the same to others while in the comfort of his own fantasy. At the age in which this experience first happened, I believe Martin was suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. His moods and relationships have been unstable and inconsistent, and he clearly has a poor self-image. There is a good chance Martin would have killed himself had he not found an external object to represent his rage and the pain he wanted to inflict on to others; in this case, he found the centipede. Centipedes are known as violent creatures and in Martin’s warped mind it could have been a phallic symbol. People who suffer from this disorder like their privacy but lack the skills to be independent; they have to rely on others whether they like it or not. Notice that Martin relied on his abusive mother for breakfast, dinner, and a place to live.

Borderline Personality Disorder does not lead to the type of behavior Martin displayed throughout the movie; it is more of a starting point that can escalate as his life becomes more depressing and wasteful. First impressions are everything; it is quite possible that Martin associates pain with sexual pleasure as a result of being molested and most likely sodomized. These disorders of sexual arousal are called paraphilias; this means that sexual arousal occurs almost exclusively with the use of inappropriate objects or in the presence of an inappropriate individual. Martin experienced a real life fantasy when he first watched Human Centipede; the pain that was inflicted on the characters as he watched is what truly turned him on. However, watching was not enough, and Martin needed to experience that pain. He wanted to be a part of the movie and tried to duplicate the same level of pain by masturbating with sandpaper; only this was not pain, this was pleasure. People who suffer from sexual disorders tend to compulsively masturbate; because of the objects used, it is likely that Martin’s genitals are mutilated and the ejaculation process was quite painful. His urine is shown as a dark red color so it is possible that his semen is discolored as well. The human centipede became a fetish; Martin used this as hardcore porn, made a scrapbook, and even hid pictures under his mattress. This fetish was too much for Martin to handle; in his mind, creating his own human centipede would be the ultimate high and give him the sexual arousal that fantasies no longer could. At this point, Martin’s sexual disorder has escalated to sexual masochism; this is when someone loves to inflict pain on himself as a way to become aroused or reach a certain high.

Martin is a very unique character; he would not be categorized as a killer because the pain inflicted on his victims was incidental and necessary to fulfill his fantasy. The violence was a means to an end; he wanted his victims alive in order to successfully create his centipede. Although he killed his mother, he did that out of rage and to defend his obsession with The Human Centipede. Some might consider him to be a sexual sadist, but I do not believe this is the case. He showed no signs of being sexually aroused when becoming violent with his victims; the excitement he did show was when he finally started seeing his fantasy come to life as he began stapling someone’s ass to another person’s mouth. There was a scene where one of the victims died; because of unstable emotions and irrational behavior, Martin started to cry; it was if he started to come back into reality and notice his dream might not come true. This also further indicates that he had no intention of killing his victims. His emotions were fueled by frustration; he knew he could not duplicate what had happened in the first film. His techniques were sloppy and did not realize that the amount of pain he inflicted on his victims would eventually kill them; he simply thought he could create the centipede in his own way. Remember that his IQ is very low; he went into this procedure thinking that he could become the doctor that he idolized so much. Martin is the definition of a disorganized asocial offender. He is socially inadequate, unskilled worker, shows poor personal hygiene, and has a very unstable mood. His disturbing and chaotic crime scene shows that he simply does not care about anything else except fulfilling his fantasies.

We have no way of knowing what people are thinking; what we do know is that something could set them off at any time. There is really no way to determine if or when they will break. At some point maybe they will blame the world for their trauma and unfulfilled life; they might take it out on themselves or find pleasure in torturing other people. Martin had a specific agenda because of his film fetish; as I said before, he is very unique and is a great example of how sometimes people can’t distinguish fantasy from reality. As for the rest of these personality types; some are simply here to watch the world burn.

Could Martin be considered a victim? One could argue PTSD, but it is highly unlikely that it could be justified. It is quite clear that Martin is mentally unstable and is need of help from a mental health professional.

“Stop your crying, your tears only make daddy’s willy harder”

About the Author: I am currently going to school for Forensic Psychology; I am finishing up my Bachelor’s Degree and plan on continuing my education until I receive my Doctorate. Although I am still in school, I spend hours a week studying human behavior and psychological profiling; my main focus is on sexual homicide but study all types of murder. I do not currently work in law enforcement or around people suffering from personality disorders; this psychological profile on ‘The Collector’ is based on years of research, school, and books written by retired FBI Profilers. – Joseph Forsberg bloodnguts666.wordpress.com