Tom Six, the guy behind the Human Centipede trilogy, shared some heavy personal news this week. In a video to fans, Six said he's been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and that he's saying goodbye with one last movie.

Not much of a gentle way into a story like this. Six has always split horror fans right down the middle, a guy whose films inspired as much revulsion as devotion, and his farewell is very much on his own terms. According to MSN's coverage, the director recorded a video breaking the news, thanking fans for years of support, and making clear he's not going quietly.

The final film is called The End of Tom Six, and it sounds like exactly the kind of goodbye you'd expect from him. He filmed it while living in isolation with MS. Instead of walking away silently, he turned the experience into his last piece of work.

Say what you want about The Human Centipede and its sequels, and plenty of people have, but Six built something that burrowed into pop culture in a way most horror films never do. The first one became one of those movies everyone knew about even if they'd never watched it. The concept alone was enough to make it permanent. Certain films just become cultural shorthand, whether you've seen them or not, and Human Centipede is absolutely in that category.

Six followed the original with two sequels that escalated in ambition and sheer audacity. Full Sequence went meta, turning the concept inward on itself. Final Sequence went big, almost absurdly so, with a prison setting and a cast of hundreds. None of them were what you'd call subtle. All of them were unmistakably his vision, for better or worse.

What gets me about The End of Tom Six is the context. A director who spent his career pushing every boundary he could find is now facing the most personal challenge of his life, and he's choosing to make one last piece of work out of it. That's worth paying attention to, regardless of how you feel about his movies.

The film arrives August 15 on YouTube, where Six is releasing it independently with a pay-per-view option. No plot details yet beyond what he shared in his video message.

I've never been the biggest fan of his movies, but I respect what he's doing here. A lot of filmmakers would quietly step away. Six is telling his audience directly, with gratitude and with one more story to tell. That takes guts, and his career proved he's never been short on those.