christopher-underwood
From the very start this was much better than I had expected and despite an obvious low budget and some wooden acting, a very spirited piece with decent sets, spooky exterior shooting and very good soundtrack. Indeed there is much to enjoy here and it is just such a shame that all comes undone in the final reel. Oh how slowly this grinds to an end after so much has gone so right. A really strange film with some lovely ideas, indeed someone enterprising might consider a remake. We are talking mad scientists, of course, and the Germanic flavour here adds another dimension. Severed heads and transplants adds another, not to mention a hunchback nurse and a striptease club! So a little more of the 'lovely body', more focus on the central story and a decent finale would mean a film to shout about. Even in this state I enjoyed it, but for those interminable last fifteen/twenty minutes. Great shame but always worth a look.
Woodyanders
Professor Abel (a sturdy portrayal by Michel Simon) creates a serum that enables human heads to stay alive after the body dies. After Abel suffers a heart attack, his crazed assistant Dr. Brandt (expertly essayed with sinister aplomb by Horst Frank) uses the serum to keep Abel's head alive and plans to transplant the head of beautiful, but hunchbacked nurse Irene Sander (a sound and sympathetic performance by the lovely Karin Kernke) onto the sumptuous body of exotic dancer Stella (sexy blonde Christiane Maybach). Writer/director Victor Travis relates the compelling story at a steady pace and treats the potentially lurid subject matter with admirable taste and restraint. Moreover, this film is acted with praiseworthy conviction and sincerity by the able cast, with Kernke a touching stand-out throughout. While there isn't much in the way of action, this picture is nonetheless still worth seeing for several nifty visual flourishes, the brooding somber mood, and the complex relationships between the unusually well-etched characters.
ctomvelu1
One of the oddest German horror flicks of the 1950s, The Head has not one but two mad scientists. One of them has found a way to remove the head from a dog and keep it alive. The second nut job removes the first scientist's head after he dies and keeps it alive on a table. Then he murders a stripper and grafts the head of a crippled nurse onto the stripper's body. Understandably, the woman becomes confused about her identity. Expressionistic sets remind us we're watching a German film. The acting is all bug eyes and wide-open mouths. One intriguing element for us guys: The nurse with the stripper's body goes to bed with her artist friend and then beds down with the second mad scientist (it's a Svengali kind of thing). The film is dubbed, and it is ripe for MST3K type coverage, if in fact it wasn't already. Noting special here, but certainly gruesome enough without being outright gory.
lastliberal
I really don't know if this was supposed to be horror or sci-fi.In fact, I really don't know why I got it. There had to be some reason, but I forgot. Maybe I thought it was the nunsploitation angle as Karin Kernke is referred to as "Sister" Sanders. I have really forgotten.It came out three years before the cult favorite The Brain That Wouldn't Die, and it certainly featured much better acting, but it just didn't have anything to recommend it beyond that.Much of the action takes place in a strip club, but you don't get to see anything. You really can't compare the two bodies of the girls involved, even though Kernke in her first film was obviously larger in the chest than German sex symbol Christiane Maybach.Horst Frank, who has done some 150 films, including Argento's The Cat o' Nine Tails, really did a good and very creepy job as the mad doctor.There was a certain sensuality in the film, but it basically got lost in the constant fades that made it seem as if it was made for TV with spaces for commercials.Those who have seen The Brain That Wouldn't Die may want to check it out for comparison.
AD
