Yesterday we got a glimpse at a new Australian trailer for Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) that, we admit, held a lot back. Today, Entertainment Weekly’s Inside Movies has released the first image from the film, showing off the new villain Martin (Laurence Harvey) as he strikes his creepiest facial expression. Martin would be the man whom Tom Six referred to as “the sickest bastard of them all” in the film’s first teaser trailer, although in that one poor Martin had a box over his head so we didn’t know what he looked like. Oh boy, do we know now. Take a look.
Here again we see Human Centipede II’s brilliant marketing campaign at work. The first film harbors a nasty reputation for being one of the sickest films ever made, something Tom Six himself champions in the teaser trailer and seeks to outdo with the sequel. The graphic images to which he subjects his audience in part 2 are indeed extreme; enough to earn him a ban on the film in the UK. But what was the content of the first full trailer for the sequel? Nothing more than shots of people watching and reacting to the footage. And now we get our first still image from the film and what is it? It’s merely a man’s face; no blood, no mutilations, no surgical alterations.
Tom Six is doing everything he can to force viewers to imagine the worst possible depravity they can without actually giving them anything from the film to prove it. He’s still playing his cards very close to the chest and creating a great deal of buzz without being the least bit explicit. Is this a reaction to his film getting banned in the UK? Is he gun-shy about revealing the actual content? Possibly. But more likely is the possibility that this is all a carefully constructed marketing gimmick. Frankly, it’s working on me.
One thing that’s definitely aiding in the film’s underground mystique is the fact the actor playing Martin has never before appeared in a film. It seems as if Tom Six really did pluck this guy out of some back alley or mental hospital. Ok, now I’m really freaked.
