Crimson

After being shot in the head by police, a criminal (Paul Naschy) winds up in the hands of a mad doctor experimenting with transplants.

Oh no!

The drunken doctor's hands have been damaged, leaving the surgery to his wife! Through a chain of absurd events, the brain transplant is completed. This leads to the inevitable, blood-soaked finale.

CRIMSON, THE COLOR OF BLOOD is a fantastically cheeezy mix of horror and crime drama. Lovers of mad science, gore, and / or Paul Naschy should be in ecstasy over this movie!...

What we have here is an example of what happens when a crime film meets horror - it's a bungled heist, and the result is not jail time or dead gang members, but a transplanted head! Yep, that's the premise of Juan Fortuny's weird little horror film that features the talents of the ever-popular Paul Naschy as the lucky recipient of a radical new operation. Obviously the major inspiration for this film is Mary Shelly's all-time classic horror story 'Frankenstein' as we've got a mad scientist, a 'monster' and some new medical breakthrough. The main story focuses on the fortune of Jack Surnett, played by Paul Naschy. He and his gang decide to pull a jewel heist, but when one of them cocks up, the alarms start ringing and the cops turn up. This is bad news for Jack as he gets shot in the head and it looks like his time may be up. However, his gang aren't ready to just sit back and watch him die so they take him to their own doctor and soon it transpires that the only way to save him is a brain transplant, and the only brain available used to belong to "The Sadist"...

It's probably obvious from the plot summary, but Crimson really is a bizarre film. Quite how anyone thought these elements could come together well is beyond me, but actually the result isn't as bad as thought it might be; although it's not really as fun either. It's clear that this film was never really meant to be taken seriously and it's a good job it doesn't take itself seriously. The best thing about most of Paul Naschy's films is Paul Naschy, although that's not really the case here as he spends most of the film lying in bed. However, when he finally does get up the film really takes a turn for the better as we get to watch Naschy with a bandage round his head running all over the countryside getting up to no good. The film isn't especially gory, but there's a fair bit of that cheap looking bright crimson blood to keep horror fans happy. It's clear that the film is never really going to go anywhere, and it really doesn't...but I only saw this for a fun time and it just about delivers that much. I wont call this brilliant or a must see, but its decent stuff and I can recommend it.

A robbery goes wrong and one of the gang, Jack (Paul Naschy), is shot in the head by the police but is taken to a doctor for some experimental brain surgery, this involves obtaining the fresh brain of a rival criminal known as The Sadist. Jack inherits his sadistic ways. French/Spanish crime thriller/horror, shot in France, it also packs in plenty of sex and nudity. Spanish barrel chested horror legend Naschy is billed under the name Paul Nash but that won't fool any fan of Euro-horror! I watched the English language version and the dubbing is hilariously bad, plus it has some very poor continuity and editing, for example a police car pulls up, the cops all jump out and open fire. Then seconds later the we see it repeated. What's more a man is shot multiple times yet not a single bullet hole can be seen! As for the sex we get this at 7, 34, 74 and 89 minutes. As is usual for the time the women get completely naked but the men (with one exception) keeps their clothes on, one man says "Don't be deceived by appearance and certainly not by women", pretty much sums up the sexism of the time. For fans of trashy Euro movies this is an enjoyable film that is in all honesty rather bad.

This is the finest bizarro Euro-exploitation piece that I have seen in a long time.

Certainly, Quentin Tarantino is a fan of this wild 1973 Franco-Spanish co-production starring horror legend Paul Naschy. Few films can successfully combine a botched jewel heist, a brain transplant and a mysterious character known only as "The Sadist." Naschy's role, though pivotal, is actually minimal, with few lines and only a few key scenes. The real story is played out by a gang of motley character types, of which the females are especially malicious and memorable.

Crimson has the right combination of impossibly contrived storyline and dazzling color visuals that one looks for in this kind of movie.

The Image Entertainment DVD (for sale on Amazon, though not linked to this page) is a sharp widescreen print, with a few nifty extras, including the alternate "erotic scenes" (not featuring Naschy, but the switch over to the bad body double is hilarious!).

Highly recommended

Crimson (1973)

** (out of 4)

Paul Naschy would often borrow elements from the Universal monster movies and he does so again, although with this film it borrows from BLACK Friday. In the movie Naschy plays a gangster who is shot in the head during a heist. His crew manages to find a doctor that could save his life but he's going to need to brain from another human. The crew decide to get the brain of a rival gangster known as The Sadist and while this transplant saves their bosses life, it also causes him to be even more dangerous to those around him. CRIMSON is also known as several other titles including THE MAN WITH THE SEVERED HEAD as well as THE RATS COME OUT AT NIGHT. Those expecting a straight horror film are going to be disappointed as will those coming into the picture expecting to see a lot of Naschy. The Euro legend gets top billing but sadly he appears in very little of the actual picture and it almost seems like his scenes weren't a part of the original screenplay and were just added to try and cash-in on his appeal at the time. CRIMSON isn't a bad movie but it is a rather needless one that doesn't add up to much in the end. I think the biggest problem is the screenplay that just doesn't know what it wants to do. The Euro-Crime genre is certainly on full display here but all of the elements are rather weak here. The stuff dealing with the gangsters really isn't interesting and you certainly never fear these guys. The horror elements are also incredibly weak because very little is done with them. Naschy has a bandage on his head, screams about his brain not working right and every once in a while he briefly acts out. He certainly doesn't get much to work with performance wise and that's true for the rest of the cast. To be fair, the English dubbing certainly doesn't help because it makes all of these tough gangsters sound like school girls. When the film was released in France it contained some more graphic sex scenes but this wasn't the version I watched but I'm going to guess that these scenes certainly livened up the picture a bit, which is something it certainly needed.