Whilst backpacking through Germany two American girls find themselves stranded in remote woodlands at night. At a nearby villa, they are wooed into the clutches of Dr Josef Heiter, a deranged surgeon with explains his mad scientific vision to their utter horror. They are to be the subjects of his sick lifetime fantasy: to be the first surgeon to going people, one to the next, via their gastric system and in doing so, bring to life The Human Centipede.