How to gross people out

WARNING: NOT SUITABLE FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS

The plot of the first The Human Centipede (2009) movie really is exactly as it sounds. An evil scientist decides to stitch a bunch of people together to create a giant, fleshy centipede. It’s never 100% what he hopes to achieve. But, you know, good on him for having a dream and going for it.

The high concept was enough to make the movie a part of pop culture, inspiring porn parodies and South Park episodes. A sequel was inevitable, and surprisingly clever – centering around an outcast obsessed with the first movie, determined to recreate it with kidnap victims. Special effects genius Dan Martin was responsible for many of the sick moments that caused The Human Centipede II (2011) to be banned by the BBFC on its first certification submission. And, as it turns out, he did it on purpose. Below, he explains how he put together one of the film’s most shocking sequences.

ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE

“I had been working on the second The Human Centipede film for about four weeks, and we were filming the big end scene, in which a heavily pregnant female character gives birth to the child during an escape. The director, Tom Six, wanted to see the baby being born, slipping out of the lady as she escapes. Throughout the production of that movie, I had taken it as a personal challenge to get the film banned. On the first day I said to Tom, ‘Is it sensible spending money on these effects when you’re going to have to cut them in order to get the film released?’ He laughed and said ‘Let them try and ban me.’ Challenge accepted.

“(Director Tom Six) laughed and said ‘Let them try and ban me.’ Challenge accepted” – Dan Martin

I just kept on suggesting more and more unpleasant things. Normally, I consider myself comparatively restrained, but that all went out the window on this one. In this instance I said to Tom, ‘When she gives birth to the child, why don’t we do it in such a way that its head is under the accelerator pedal (in the escape car) so that in order to escape, this new mother has to crush the child’s head in order to evade recapture?’ I think there’s a sound filmic logic there, because if she doesn’t kill the baby they both get killed by this portly maniac with a crowbar and a gun. Or she can sacrifice this newborn, who she hasn’t even met yet…”

DON’T WORRY ABOUT HOW PEOPLE MIGHT REACT 

“I suggested it to Tom, I went away and filmed a test on my phone (below), I showed it to him, he giggled like a schoolgirl, and it’s in the movie. And it’s one of the things that gets cut (laughs). It’s cut from the English version, and the normal American version. I think there’re only two countries in the world that have that shot in.

The first version of it involved taking one of the two soft rubber babies that we’d made, hollowing out its head so it was squashable, filling it with bloody matter, and then I crushed it underfoot on camera so that I could show it to Tom. We were a few weeks into production at this point, so crew members were used to me and the effects team being off in a corner doing something horrible at any given moment, but when I showed Tom the video there was a crew member around 10 metres away watching us, and we heard him exclaim ‘Oh god!’ 

Killing children is one of the great taboos, for some reason (laughs). It tends to upset people. Which isn’t really why I’m in this game, but it is a cheap emotive feedback – you know you've done well if you can horrify someone with an effect. The younger me was very much a horror fan, so that’s instant gratification. People can move away from horror if they have kids or whatever. There’s often a point in people’s lives where they reach a point when they say to themselves ‘I don’t need to see this anymore.’ But those people are wrong and they do.”

Don't eat lunch while you watch this, seriously

FIND OUT HOW BABIES ARE MADE

“I came on to the project to run the set; it was being taken care of by another special effects artist, John Schoonraad. I was in his workshop for a little while, and the babies had been made by him. So it was a case of me modifying them to run them out. The making of the baby is an industry standard, it’s just not so often you get to unmake it so horribly on camera.

In terms of making them, normally they’re sculpted. John’s forte is life-casting, he’s one of the few people I know who has done body life-casts of infants. Obviously not the heads, they’re sculpted. It’s very hard to explain to a child that it has to hold still for long enough to do a life-cast. But it’s like almost any other prop. You have a clay version that you generate first, then you make moulds from it either in silicon or in fibreglass, or plaster. Then from that mould you make the rubber or foam positives, the puppets, which have to be cleaned up, de-seamed, made neat, painted… It’s a long process. Anyone who isn’t involved in special effects who sees the process is always surprised by how long it takes. But most special effects companies have babies in stock. Once you’ve got the mould you can use it again and again, so there’s an economy of scale there. I’ve got ones I rent out.

I’ve done films overseas where I’ve had to take babies on carry-on luggage. I took a mid-autopsy baby to Nashville in my carry-on luggage, and had to mark the box very clearly ‘Not a real baby.’”

“I took a mid-autopsy baby to Nashville in my carry-on luggage, and had to mark the box very clearly ‘Not a real baby’” – Dan Martin

WHEN YOU’RE DONE KILLING BABIES, HAVE A FUN HALLOWEEN

“In terms of Halloween costume tips, no zip-faces. No giant mouths on your neck. I think a well-imagined but poorly executed costume is better than a lazy costume. People will give you extra points for sweeding a costume. Papier-mâché goes a long way. It’s the same reason The Evil Dead works – it’s not the best made film in the world, but you can tell there’s a lot of love there, and people respond well to that. What to watch this Halloween? The Borderlands (2013) is a really good horror film. It’s not so gory it’ll put off people who aren’t horror fans, but it is scary. Good acting, good comedy. Also, my wife produced it."