FILM · 2009 · NETHERLANDS
The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
25 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
25 Interesting Facts About The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Interesting Facts (19)
- #001
Director Tom Six showed the human centipede drawing to every actor who attended the casting sessions. Many of the female actors left in disgust after learning what the role actually required.
- #002
When the Toronto Underground Cinema screened the film, there was a "centipede deal": if you bought two tickets, the third was free.
- #003
When the producers approached investors before shooting, they said they wanted to make an international horror film involving people sewn together, but they did not mention exactly how they would be sewn, fearing that the mouth-to-anus arrangement would put the investors off.
- #004
The pictures of conjoined twins displayed in Heiter's villa were painted by director Tom Six, who felt they contributed to the atmosphere of the house.
- #005
Director Tom Six contacted a real surgeon for the human centipede design. That is why the film carries the tagline "100% medically accurate," which is not true.
- #006
(At about 1 hour 20 minutes) Akihiro Kitamura wrote the monologue his character delivers before committing suicide.
- #007
Although the film is set in Germany, it was shot in the Netherlands because of the similar landscapes between the countries. Heiter's house, where much of the film takes place, was a villa the production team found in the Netherlands. The property was in a residential area and was surrounded not by woodland, as it appears in the film, but by other houses, so the producers had some difficulty keeping the other houses out of the shots. Real hospital beds and intravenous drips were rented from a local hospital.
- #008
The actors playing the centipede characters were given massages at the end of each day's shooting because they spent the whole day on their hands and knees.
- #009
(At about the 36th minute) When Lindsay falls into the swimming pool, Winter Williams's shivering was real because the heating system was not working, so the water really was cold.
- #010
Feces is what remains of food after most of it has been processed, although it usually retains some water and not all nutrients have been absorbed by the body. Therefore, the only person who could hypothetically survive for more than a few weeks as part of a human centipede would be the person at the front. The other members of the centipede would eventually die of thirst unless given intravenous fluids, in which case they would most likely die of nutritional deficiency. If, rarely, that does not kill them, ingesting the bacteria in the feces could cause serious lung and stomach infections.
- #011
(At about 1 hour 17 minutes) Dieter Laser came up with the idea of both smelling the pus and licking the blood on the stairs.
- #012
(At about the 57th minute) The defecation-into-the-mouth scene was shot in a single take.
- #013
The actors forming the centipede wore stiffened underwear, which Ashlynn Yennie likened to shorts, with a rubber grip for the actor behind to bite, creating the illusion of a mouth-to-anus connection. Tom Six kept how the centipede would be assembled as secret as possible, and Yennie claimed that even the makeup artist did not know, asking Yennie what kind of "suit" the actors would wear.
- #014
At around the 21-minute mark, when Heiter roughly grabs and injects Lindsay, Dieter Laser actually hurt Winter Williams, which caused filming to stop.
- #015
The special effects team was headed by father and son Rob Hillenbrink and Erik Hillenbrink. They designed the centipede's final composition from sketches provided by the consulting surgeon.
- #016
The cage in which the human centipede is kept was a real dog cage.
- #017
At around the 21-minute mark, Dieter Laser came up with the idea of Dr. Heiter eating fruit from a can.
- #018
At around the 6-minute mark, the license plate number on the car the girls rent is DO-HC 6700. DO stands for Dortmund, a city in Germany near the Dutch border, and HC most likely stands for Human Centipede.
- #019
In 2011, Paul Lynch, director of Prom Night (1980) and other classic horror films, called these films sick and grotesque, saying: "Even at 18 you can't find this entertaining, and if they have to resort to something this despicable, then what's the point? I don't think it has any value. It's not an audience I personally want to deal with." He added that, unlike most horror films, films like The Human Centipede could cause unstable people to go out, buy needle and thread, and get to work.
Production Story (1)
- #020
While Heiter operates on his victims, Jenny's teeth were digitally removed in post-production. Other effects, however, were relatively simple to create. Heiter's "three dog" was created by digitally editing three images of Rottweilers together to form a single image of the dogs joined together. Color grading was widely used throughout the making of The Human Centipede. For example, at the end of the film, when Lindsay is left among the bodies of Jenny and Katsuro, their skin tones were lightened to further emphasize that they are dead and Lindsay is still alive. The rain that falls when Jenny and Lindsay's car breaks down was added digitally in post-production. The producers had not been granted permission to shoot on the roadside, but Tom Six went against the authorities' wishes because he thought the forest setting was ideal for the scene. When Heiter's window is repaired after Lindsay's escape attempt, the tracking shot through the window glass required the crew's reflection to be digitally removed from the glass. The film contains numerous long tracking shots; Six cited the influence of Takashi Miike, who uses many sliding shots in his films.
Characters & Cast (1)
- #021
Dieter Laser was director Tom Six's first choice to play the mad doctor Heiter. Laser provided most of Heiter's wardrobe and stayed in character throughout the shoot, deliberately keeping himself as distant as possible from the other actors and the crew.
Easter Eggs & References (2)
- #022
Because The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009) was marketed as "100% medically accurate," the Herkese Merhaba! Kötü Bir İlaç Podcast (2019) uses the film as a baseline for rating the medical accuracy of other films and TV shows. For example, they determined that Saw II (2005) is "500% medically accurate," meaning it is five times more medically accurate than The Human Centipede (First Sequence).
- #023
Josef Heiter's first name is a reference to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who conducted torture experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The surname Heiter, which literally means "cheerful" in German, is a reference to the lesser-known Nazi war criminals, the doctors Fetter and Richter.
Deeper Meaning (2)
- #024
The opening scene, featuring only Dieter Laser and Rene de Wit, was shot on the last day of filming. In the scene, Laser wore director Tom Six's mirrored sunglasses.
- #025
In some copies of the film, the German and Japanese dialogue is left unsubtitled, making parts of the film difficult to interpret. Early on, the German man in his car says he recognizes one of the girls from a 'tape' at his home before making sexual remarks. The two detectives visit Dr. Heiter because they are responding to a call from someone who claims to have heard a girl screaming with an American accent. Heiter offers them a drink, saying he only has water to offer. When one of the officers refuses the drugged drink and the glass breaks, Heiter apologizes, saying he has been overworked. The detectives search Heiter's basement; Heiter reacts defensively and tells them it could be a laboratory, a study, or a torture room. The detectives insist on a tour, but Heiter first wants to see the search warrant, which they claim they can obtain in 20 minutes. Finally, Katsuro's long Japanese monologue goes: "Dear God. Are you God? I am just a lowly insect. I shut out my mother and father, abandoned my child, rejected their love, and lived a selfish life. Just like an insect. No, my existence is even lower than insects, but… but dear God… that is how I lived, and this is my punishment. I still want to believe I am a human being… Hey girls! Hey sir! What a crazy world we live in. Before committing suicide."
Related pages
- Knives Out — The Human Centipede (First Sequence) comes up in the facts on that page
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
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