The Human Centipede II refused a certificate by the BBFC

From denofgeek [excerpt], The original Human Centipede may have toyed with an extremely grim, tabloid-baiting concept (it involved victims being sewn together by a mad doctor – feel free to Google it if you’re not yet familiar, and have a strong stomach), but was far less graphic than its trailers and overall synopsis may have implied.

That doesn’t, however, appear to be the case with Tom Six’s sequel, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), which is apparently far more excessive than the original. At any rate, it’s failed to impress the people at the British Board of Film Classification.

While the days where the BBFC would actively censor or ban films outright have mercifully passed, the entity still has the right to refuse to classify a film it feels is too extreme to qualify for an 18 certificate. While this refusal doesn’t mean a picture is actually banned from being shown, it effectively prevents it from being presented in a theatre without the written permission of the local council.

This was the case, you may remember, with the controversial A Serbian Film, which the BBFC insisted had to be cut to comply with the requirements of an 18 rating.

The board has defended its decision regarding Human Centipede II in a lengthy statement, which, we should point out, 'spoils' huge chunks of the film. It's also likely to put most people off seeing it.

Those spoilers aside, the BBFC’s argument is that the film “little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised”.

As a result, “It is the Board’s conclusion that the explicit presentation of the central character’s obsessive sexually violent fantasies is in breach of its Classification Guidelines and poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers.”