We analyze the 2015 horror film Human Centipede III: Final Sequence (HC3), written and directed by Dutch filmmaker Tom Six. The Human Centipede films demonstrate how controversy can be tactically generated to create meaning. Six anticipates his detractors’ offense, and disarms them of their ability to critique his films without adding to their notoriety. Thus, the series epitomises how repulsion can be strategically utilised. Furthermore, Six’s constructed persona exposes the interplay between commercial success, grotesquery and censoriousness as a cyclic system that can be abused. These films wear their generic lineage on their grimy sleeves, contextualising conventional motifs such as the mad scientist archetype against contemporary cultural anxieties regarding the body, sex and violence. Six’s films are far more sophisticated than has been accounted for. This article argues that these reactive forms of suppression fail to engage with the films themselves, or the concepts (such as disgust and offense) on which those judgements are made. Additionally, the sequel was officially banned or heavily censored in numerous countries. The consequent combinations of faeces and bloodshed, torture and degradation have been roundly vilified by the critical press.

Tom Six’s The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009) and The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011) are based on a disturbing premise: people are abducted and stitched together mouth-to-anus.

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