Even more terrible news is coming in today as veteran German actor Dieter Laser has sadly passed away. A screen actor for decades, Laser is perhaps best known for portraying villains in the controversial horror trilogy The Human Centipede. News of his passing comes from a post on the actor's Facebook page, relaying to his followers Laser died in February. "We are very sorry to have to inform you that Dieter Laser passed away on February 29, 2020," the post states in both German and English. He was 78 years old.

Fans and others who knew Laser have been expressing their sadness over the news on social media. This includes Tom Six, who directed Dieter Laser in The Human Centipede, as the filmmaker also spoke about Laser's death on Twitter. "I'm totally shocked Dieter passed away," Six says in the tweet, adding several photos of the two of them together. Of Laser, Six adds: "He was a force of nature, an unique human being and an iconic actor. I'm so damn proud we created pop culture together. Wished we could have made many more movies. RIP my friend, you will live forever on screen!" You can look at the photos below.

Born in Kiel in 1942, Six began appearing in German TV movies in the late '60s and early '70s, beginning what would become an acting career spanning nearly five decades. He earned a Best Actor German Film Award in Gold in 1975 for his role in the movie John Glückstadt. In 1978, he appeared in the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee The Glass Cell as David Reinald and took on another of his most well-known roles as Prof. Otto Blaettchen in the 1996 horror movie The Ogre.

Of course, The Human Centipede would be the movie to bring about worldwide fame to the German actor. In the 2009 movie, Laser played Dr. Josef Heiter, a sinister surgeon who sews three tourists together in a horrific way to essentially create a "human centipede." Though the movie is as wild as you'd expect, Laser shines in his performance, winning Best Actor for the role at the Austin Fantastic Fest. In one of his final roles, Laser would return to the series when he appeared in The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence as Bill Boss, a demented prison warden looking to give his inmates the same treatment as the tourists from the original movie.

The details of Laser's passing aren't apparent, so it remains unclear how the Human Centipede star died. Our thoughts go out to his family and those who knew him best at this time. While the subject matter of the Human Centipede movies is enough to turn the stomachs of many of the viewers who dared to watch them, something everyone can agree on is that Laser always added so much more with his excellent acting, helping to add some believability to a rather unbelievable story. A true talent and a legend of the screen, Laser will always be missed. Rest in peace. This news comes to us from Facebook.