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.

ferbs54 No, this isn't the psychedelic Monkees movie from 1968; that one's just called "Head." Rather, "The Head" is a West German horror production from 1959--and a very good one, as it turns out--that tells a freaky story of a wholly different kind. As "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film" so astutely reminds us, the film was released in the same year as the similarly themed American film "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," and is just as way-out an experience. In it, Michel Simon--French star of such classic '30s films as "La Chienne," "Boudu Saved From Drowning" and "L'Atalante"--plays a scientist, Dr. Abel, who has devised something called Serum Z, which will allow human and animal tissue to survive independently of their donors' bodies, thus making possible organ transplants and other innovations (this, eight years before the first actual successful heart transplant on Louis Washkansky in 1967). When his new assistant, Dr. Ood, attempts to transplant the healthy heart of a recently deceased hobo into Abel's failing body, the operation goes badly. Good thing that Ood can then decapitate Abel's titular noggin and keep it alive and healthy with the new wonder serum! And as if that weren't enough for one film, Ood--wonderfully played by Horst Frank--soon decides to operate on his pretty hunchbacked nurse, and attach her head onto the hottie body of a local stripper! Holy mix and match!Anyway, "The Head" is a surprisingly interesting and involving film. It features better than adequate acting (Karen Kernke as Irene the hunchback and Christiane Maybach as the obnoxious stripper are both memorable), especially by Frank as the insane, ultimately pathetic and moon-raving Ood (Dr. Odd would be more like it!). Writer/director Victor Trivas brings in his film with a good deal of seedy style, and the look of the picture, with its Expressionistic sets, is often startling. Indeed, I was not surprised to learn that the set decorator here was Hermann Warm, who had earlier worked on such classic films as "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and "Vampyr." Although my "Psychotronic" bible maintains that the FX are "pathetic" here, I must respectfully disagree. Actually, the sight of Simon's homely noggin, resting in a dish and connected to wires and bubbling chemical tanks, is most impressive. Throw in some moody B&W photography and a musical score by Willy Mattes and Jacque Lasry that sounds like the "Space" segment of a Grateful Dead concert and you've got quite a striking little film indeed. Even this typically crummy-looking DVD from those indolent underachievers at Alpha Video cannot ruin this experience.

classicsoncall Here's a perfectly creepy little bump in the night flick that should appeal to most fans of the decapitated head genre. One's first thought if you've been around the block with these films is "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", and the plot of both appear remarkably similar. "The Head" is certainly more atmospheric and brooding, no doubt owing to it's German origins, while 'Brain' has a much more camp flavor. Which leads me to consider that if the star of 'Brain' was Jan in the Pan, this one features what you might call Abel on the Table.Here's something a bit odd, the opening scene has the picture's protagonist Dr. Ood (Horst Frank) slinking around in the shadows of Dr. Abel's laboratory home, and he stops to pick up a turtle walking on the pavement! Where in the world did that come from? Very strange, and I kept looking for that turtle the rest of the way, but he never showed up.I wonder why the film makers decided the story needed a one hundred seventeen day interlude before Irene Sanders (Karin Kernke) came out of her coma with a new body. On screen, it played out like she awoke the very next day after the operation. Ood's explanation had to do with reshaping her organs and a lot of other such nonsense, when all he did was take stripper Lilly's body for the experiment. At least they came up with some kind of explanation for the missing stripper, but gee, throwing her under a train was kind of gruesome, don't you think?Anyway with all that said, you should have some fun with this one, even if it's played much more seriously than it needs to be. It's just the ticket for the proverbial dark and stormy night, huddled up on the couch with all the lights off. The picture provides all the remaining atmosphere you'll need.