Since becoming a worldwide sensation with his Human Centipede films, director Tom Six has revelled in his role as provocateur and cause célèbre. When his follow-up to his Centipede films, The Onania Club, couldn’t find a distributor courageous enough to release it – despite high praise from those who’d seen it (us included) – Six seemingly disappeared from public view. It turns out he’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and has been battling the symptoms for six years.
Which brings us to this self-released documentary, which sees the artist bow out of public life with a characteristic F-U to his haters and giving his fans one last chance to revel in his own particular brand of satire.
Filmed as an oral retrospective of his own career, with Six chain-smoking hand-rolled Cuban cigars (“Like an angel pissing in your mouth”) while recounting his thoughts and achievements. Tom himself plays the doc’s director, barking orders, keeping things moving, and adding extra commentary (“Success is a snooze-fest for a documentary!”). His producer is his wife Marci (Maartje Willems), who acts as the acid-mouthed producer; the camera and sound are played by ‘dwarfs’; the editor is a child (Oliver Julius Willems), the assistant director is heavily tattooed, speaking through an electronic voice box (Damian Kurosa), and there’s a constant – literal – Censor Nazi (Servaes Nelissen). The latter interjects with trigger warnings and protestations on the content. Offence is the name of the game, and it’s never been done in such an entertaining way.
When explaining his physical condition, Six gets serious. The description of what he’s going through cuts through like a knife. Even then, though, he has a brilliant way with words. When revealing his passion for movies still remains, and he spends his time watching sleazy thrillers from the forties and fifties – “When the cameraman didn’t have Parkinson’s and the editors didn’t have epilepsy”.
If this is how Tom Six bows out of the movie world, it’s a fitting and poignant way to go: in his own terms and done in the worst possible taste. Release The Onania Club!
THE END OF TOM SIX is available on YouTube with a pay-what-you-want model (check out the hilarious levels!) and on signed DVD from theendoftomsix.com
