L'homme à la tête coupée

¨Las ratas no duermen de noche¨ is starred by Spanish legend Paul Naschy. A group of thieves, led by Jack Surnett (Paul Naschy) and his henchmen Henry (Olivier Mathot), Karl (Victor Israel) and Paul (Yul Sanders), are pursued by the police after a failed attempt. Of stealing a safe with jewelry. While fleeing, Surnett is shot in the head. To try to prevent his certain death, his criminal cronies take him to the drunken doctor Dr. Ritter (Carlos Otero), who owes the gang favors. Unable to help him due to the severity of the injury, he turns to a scientist friend, Professor Teets (Richard Palmer), who works on scientific research on brain transplants, with the help of his wife Ana (Sylvia Solar). But the experiment making Surnett even more dangerous and murderous than before. To carry out the strange transplant surgery, the criminals, with the help of Surnett's girlfriend, Ingrid (Gilda Anderson), decide to pursue a rival enemy known as "El Sádico" (Roberto Mauri), to eliminate him and use his brain. However, they will have to face the vengeful fury of the rival gang formed, among others, by second-in-command Willy and the sadist's girlfriend, Barbara (Evelyne Scott). The transplanted mobster boss begins to experience side effects with mental instability, now becoming even more violent, dangerous and unpredictable.

Typical crime thriller with suspense, intrigue, red herrings, shootouts and in which a delinquent is undergone a weird surgical operation. This is more of a thriller than your typical Paul Naschy horror film. It's a routine movie basically about two gangs at war and the leader of one of them who suffers a brain transplant with fatal consequences. Crimson - The Color of Terror is a police thriller with a dispute between rival gangs of criminals with a basic idea of horror and messy science fiction only as a backdrop, through the element of the "mad scientist" and the brain transplant experiences for the supposed good of humanity. A mad doctor performs a head transplant on an injured criminal, but the already fearsome aggressor Surnett, after being transplanted with the enemy's brain. It has little violence and no blood , which does not justify the choice of the title, which emphasizes the color of blood, and the deaths occur almost exclusively in shootouts. The atmosphere of horror is discreet and limited to the moments in the scientist's strange laboratory and Surnett's transformation into an even more ruthless killer. There is an unnecessary scene, which contributes nothing to the story, with a dance number by a woman and two men in a nightclub, which seems more like a way to complete the film's footage. As a trivia, the film's story is similar to and was certainly inspired by "Black Friday" (1940), a black-and-white "Universal" production starring horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Here Paul Naschy has little presence, appearing on the scene only at first in the failed robbery attempt, and then is undergone a surgery resulting in a huge psychopathic behavior provoked by the influence of the brain of his enemy. There'are some attractives faces in the cast, most of them regulars in the 60s, 70s, 80s co-productiones (Terror, Spaghetti, Euro-spy, softcore), such as : Silvia Solar, Olivier Mathot, Evelyne Scott, Víctor Israel, Cesar Ojinága, Carlos Otero, actor/director Robert Mauri and Ricardo Palmerola who he played for director Fortuny: Palmer ha muerto, Las aventuras de Taxi Key, El pobrecito Draculin.

This mediocre flick results to be a low budget co-production between Merqueriz (Juan Fortuny's production company) and Eurociné of Marius Lesoeur. Among the different alternative titles, it is known in Spain as ¨Las ratas no duermen de noche¨and other titles: Le viol et l'enfer des X (France) L'homme à la tête coupée (France) Crimson, the Color of Blood (World-wide, English title) The Man with the Severed Head (Canada, English title) Crimson (United States), "Rats don't sleep at night" (international title). The motion picture was regularly directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Fortuny . This Catalonia director was an artisan who wrote/produced/directed some so-so films. He directed and photographed various movies in all kinds of genres , some of them co-producing with other countries as France and Panama , such as : El pobrecito Draculín , Marchands de femmes , Huyendo de sí mismo, Palmer ha muerto , Las aventuras de Taxi Key , Delincuentes , La melodía misteriosa, El rey de la carretera , Huyendo de sí mismo , Unas páginas en negro , Legión de héroes . Rating: 4.5/10 . Only for the satisfaction of collectors and connoisseurs of European fantasy cinema. Very mediocre.

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

I am a Paul Naschy fan and he is always worth watching.

No, this will not garner any awards, but I bet it is on Quentin Tarantino's shelf. A perfect combination of crime and horror and a bit of Frankenstein thrown in, this is the perfect film to sit around and get drunk to with a group of friends.

Silvia Solar, Euro-trash veteran, and remembered for her role in at least one video nasty, is the wife of a mad scientist (Ricardo Palmerola), called upon to save Naschy, who was injured in a botched robbery.

They have to find a brain for a transplant. These hardened killers don't want to cut the head off the person they found, so they put him on train tracks to let the train do it. LOL Gilda Arancio (Zombie Lake) plays Naschy's girl, and plays a crucial part in getting the head they need, as she used to be the girlfriend of The Sadist (Roberto Mauri), the man who's brain they took.

Things don't turn out as planned - do they ever? The Sadist brain turns Naschy into a madman.

Just pure fun.

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.

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.