L'homme à la tête coupée

Euro-cult icon Paul Naschy plays Jack Surnett, leader of a criminal gang. After a botched heist, the gang heads for the hills, and Surnett is seriously wounded by police during the getaway. Only a brain transplant can save Surnett now, and, as fate would have it, there is a professor (Ricardo Palmerola) out there specializing in that sort of thing. Surnetts' gang goes out and steals a donor brain, from none other than Surnetts' biggest rival, a goon dubbed The Sadist (Roberto Mauri). Naturally, as Surnett revives, he comes under the influence of The Sadists' brain, becoming even more depraved & violent.

This sounded like it had the makings of a solid exploitation-crime flick (with a touch of horror), but alas it's all rather flat and unexciting. Director Juan Fortuny relates the story at a snails' pace, with too many unnecessary detours. Worst of all, this is a Paul Naschy film in which Naschy BARELY APPEARS, at least until the final 20 or so minutes as Surnett begins to unravel.

There is *some* decent gore, and there are certainly *some* amusing moments (such as two henchmen, Paul (Claude Boisson) and Karl (Victor Israel) getting squeamish in regards to severing The Sadists' head. So they wait for a train to do the job for them!

The cast is good, although the English dubbing is pretty cheesy as it is for so many of these types of movies. Carlos Otero is especially effective as the pathetic Doc Ritter, while Israel, sporting glasses and a bushy mustache, amuses as the weaselly Karl.

This likely won't appeal to Naschy fans across the board, although I *will* say that, yes, it is indeed an atypical effort for the Spanish genre star. People bemoaning the dearth of sex & nudity should be aware that there IS an alternate cut running about 10 minutes longer that has more of what they want.

Six out of 10.

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!...

I have been a great fan of the late Spanish Horror/Exploitation legend Paul Naschy for a long time now. While not all of his films can be described as great (though some can), they are entirely entertaining. Juan Fortuny's "Las Ratas No Duermen De Noche" aka. "Crimson, the Color of Blood" (I bought it under the title "The Man With The Severed Head") of 1976 is doubtlessly one of the cheesier and more confused flicks in Naschy's wide repertoire, and yet it is an amusing little film that my fellow fans of the man might enjoy.

During a heist, a gangster (Naschy) is shot in the head. In order to safe the man's life, the members of his gang force an obsessed doctor to perform an operation which requires parts of another human being's brain. Not so cleverly, they choose to take the brain of their biggest rival, a criminal aptly named 'The Sadist'...

The film, which starts like a heist-flick, is, more or less, a Spanish 70s take on a concept popular in the classic Horror era. Films such as Karl Freund's fantastic "Mad Love" of 1935 (starring Peter Lorre) or "Black Friday" of 1940 (starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi) had topics about body parts being replaced with those of brutal criminals, which inevitably lead to fatal results. Unfortunately, "Crimson" is an overall rather messy, yet very predictable film that features no surprises and a regrettably short screen-time for its star Paul Naschy. The film still guarantees a fun time, however. There are some moments of gore as well as some sleaze and female nudity (depending on which version you see). Naschy is cool as always, though his screen time is limited. One should try and get hold of the Spanish version, since the English dubbing is one of the most horrendous I have ever heard (which, then again, contributes to the 'camp' factor of the film). Overall, "Las Ratas No Duermen De Noche" is cheesy fun that is mildly recommended to my fellow Naschy-fans.

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.

I remember stumbling upon this film a couple of years ago on a cheap looking DVD edition under the appealing title "The Man with the Severed Head", but without any type of additional info like cast members, year of release or plot synopsis. Since I couldn't trace the film around here on this website, or any other website for that matter, I didn't want to risk a blind purchase. Now I found this film with the exact same cover image, released under the acclaimed "Euroshock Collection" label and with the box proudly exclaiming Paul Naschy's name as the lead star, so this time there weren't any more excuses not to watch it! I consider myself to be a big fan of Paul Naschy, in spite of his gigantic ego and his often terribly inept and gratuitously sleazy Spanish film productions. In case you are just even slightly familiar with Naschy's usual repertoire, you will notice straight away that "Crimson" is an extremely atypical film for him. Naschy literally loves himself and he's always profiled as a powerful, strong and womanizing type of anti-hero. Here in this film "Naschy" hardly has anything to do or say, as his character lies half-dead in bed most of the time because most of his brains were blown out by the police during a failed jewelery theft. I honestly wonder why Naschy even accepted this type of inferior role in a movie he didn't even co-wrote or directed himself.

"Crimson" isn't necessarily a bad film, but horror and Euro-sleaze fans should definitely beware as there are hardly any gore elements and absolutely no nudity. Yeah, I have no idea what that's all about neither. This was mid 70's and European exploitation production, right? Instead of all this, writer/director Juan Fortuny attempts to come up with an ambitious and extremely convoluted mixture of heist movie, revenge thriller and mad scientist shlock. Following the heist gone wrong mentioned here above, Jack Surnett's gang members don't want their leader to die and force a drunken doctor to come up with a solution. He brings the whole posse to a secluded place in the countryside, where a brilliant scientist and his wife are on the verge of accomplishing a breakthrough in their brain transplant experiments. As the involuntary brain donor, the gangsters select Surnett's arch enemy – a guy named "The Sadist" and acting like one too – and hope that a happy ending will ensue. Needless to say the operation doesn't go as planned and Surnett doesn't wake up as the man he once was. "Crimson" is an odd and difficult to categorize exploitation effort. It's reasonably fast-paced and mildly compelling, but still there's a lot of redundant footage and unnecessary dull sub plots (like the love history between the scientist and his wife, the distrust and hostility between the gang members mutually, etc…). The absence of actual horror aspect and bloody killing sequences is a huge disappointment, especially since the DVD cover showcases some promisingly bloody tableaux. The delirious jazzy soundtrack is great and some of the supportive cast members deliver splendid performances, like The Sadist and the double-crossing dude with the sleazy mustache. Worth a look if you're into curious and offbeat European exploitation cinema, but nothing really special.