Now that Dutch director Tom Six is finished with his name-making Human Centipede trilogy, it looks like the controversial filmmaker is doubling down on his scandalous reputation with The Onania Club, a project which he promises will be “one of the most vile, inhumane movie experiences of all time.” Whether you regard him as an artful provocateur or a purveyor of trash, it appears that with this new effort, he has little interest in changing your mind either way.
That’s fairly evident with the pic’s first teaser trailer, too, which can be seen up above. Sure to push buttons and stir controversy, the brief promo features a group of elite women watching 9/11 footage and, well…take a look for yourself and you’ll see.
It’s uncomfortable stuff, to be sure, and between its crude title (‘onania’ is an archaic term for masturbation) and what we see here, it’s a safe bet that the flick will be taking a sex-and gender-based angle with its horrors. Six has even claimed that it features “mostly strong female characters” and will “definitely pass the Bechdel test with flying colors.”
Details remain scant around the film’s story, but the director released a statement along with the trailer which explained the following:
“My latest movie deals with human vileness on many levels. Its main theme is ‘schadenfreude’, an emotion that philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called: ‘the most evil sin of human feeling’ and ‘diabolic’. Where The Human Centipede trilogy is mostly body horror; [this one] deals with this pure psychological horror.”
Whether the movie itself will be worth all the fuss remains to be seen, but The Onania Club is set for a fall release, giving you at least a few more months to decide whether you’ll be tracking it down or avoiding it like the plague.