Red rivers

The famous Parisian detective Superintendent Pierre Nyemans (actor Jean Reno ) arrives in the small town of Guernon in the French Alps in order to investigate the brutal murder. High on the side of the mountain, a body was found in the fetal position, without eyes and hands. Nyemans learns that the victim was a professor and librarian at the local university, Remy Kelua, and turns to the local ophthalmologist Dr. Shernez with a question - why were his eyes removed. The doctor says that the isolated location of the university led to a large number of inter-family ties, which caused the appearance of genetic diseases. But recently, the trend has changed: the villagers began to get sick more than the children of employees. Shernez tells Nyemans that the killer left a clue by removing his eyes and hands - parts of the body that are unique to each person. Nyemans asks the dean, and also examines the apartment of the murdered man, in which he finds images of an athletic “superman,” and a text about genetic deformities next to the images. The assistant and son of the dean Herbert translates the name of the work of the murdered: “We are the masters. We are slaves. We are everywhere. We are nowhere. We control the crimson rivers. ”

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Max Kerkeryan ( Vincent Cassel ) in the nearby town of Sarzak is investigating the desecration of the grave of Judit Ero, the girl who died in 1982, and finds out that her photographs have disappeared in the school’s archive. The girl became a victim of an accident on the highway, witnessed by her mother, who was so shocked that she became a nun and took the oath of being in the dark. Mother told Kerkeryan that at 10 years old the girl fell ill, and they went to where the girl was born - in Guernon, to get help. According to the mother, they were attacked by demons, and when they tried to escape, the girl was hit by a car; the photographs were stolen to erase the girl from the story, because her face began to threaten the demons who returned to finish the job.

Nyemans interviews Fanny Ferreira (Nadia Fares), a student with a specialization in natural ice, who immediately became a suspect because she knows how to climb mountains and was the first to find a body. Despite her dislike of the university and her arrogant professions, she works for the university, but is furious when Nyemans says she is hiding evidence in order to protect the university. She says that anyone with equipment could bring a body onto a rock. Soon the pathologist reports that acid rain was found in the victim’s eye sockets, but such rains have not been in these places since the 1980s. Nyemans together with Fanny climb the glacier in order to obtain ice samples and compare them with water from the victim's eye sockets. On a glacier, on a hunch, Nyemans delves into an ice cave, where he finds a second body frozen in ice.

Kerkeryan, in search of a car lit up in the cemetery, goes onto the trail of Philip Surtees from Gernon and tries to open his apartment - at this moment Nyemann finds him - because this body of Surtees was found in ice. Certificate was a doctor who worked in the maternity ward of the university hospital. Detectives find stolen photos of Judith in the doctor’s apartment, as well as evidence that the doctor bred and trained fighting dogs. When they find dogs, the "super-policeman" Nyemans becomes literally paralyzed from fear.

The pathologist discovers that Certis was disfigured after death - both of his eyes were replaced by eye prostheses. “The same as the eye doctor on the shelf,” the pathologist says, and with these words Nyemans rushes into the office of the ophthalmologist Shernez. Nyemans and Kerkeryan find the doctor dead, and they almost manage to grab the killer who fights with Nyemans and takes possession of his pistol, but does not kill him, but only discharges the gun into the wall above him. Kerkeryan pursues the killer, but cannot catch up with him. At the crime scene, detectives find the inscription in the doctor’s blood over his body, "I will reach the source of the crimson rivers." Fingerprints on the gun belong to Judith Ero.

Kerkeryan returns to the desecrated crypt in Sarzak, which turns out to be empty - only photos of the girl can be found inside the coffin. At this time, Nyemans visits Fanny in her house. He says that although she is physically strong enough to commit a crime, he does not believe in her guilt. When Nyemans returns to university, the local police captain tells him that he has read Kelua’s work, and it is full of Nazi-style eugenic ideas - it offers perfection through raising athletically and mentally gifted children.

Kerkeryan returns with a photo of Judith, in which Nyemans recognizes Fanny. Together they go by car to her house, but along the way they are trying to throw a large car with armored glass from the road, the rector’s son is driving. Detectives begin to collect puzzle pieces together. Due to the isolation of the university, genetic abnormalities arose and the doctors at the university hospital exchanged university babies for healthy babies from the village. Apparently, Certiz replaced Fanny with Judith, and Quelois organized this exchange, in accordance with the eugenic program of the university. In the basement of Fanny’s house, detectives find the eyes and hands of the first victim, but Fanny herself disappeared somewhere with climbing equipment. Nyemans gives the order to evacuate the university, and together with Kerkeryan he rises into the mountains in order to find Fanny.

Detectives stop Fanny and keep her in sight, but Judith appears from the back, who turns out to be her twin sister. Judith orders Fanny to kill Nyemans, but she refuses, and instead sends weapons to her sister. At this time, Kerkeryan shoots at Judith, but the shot hits Fanny in the shoulder, and the sound of a shot starts an avalanche. Judith sweeps an avalanche, while Fanny, Nyemans and Kerkeryan escape under an overturned tractor. A rescue team with dogs digging them out from under the snow, Fanny is loaded onto a helicopter and, while he takes off, Kerkeryan asks Nyemans if he is only afraid of dogs, but his answer is drowning in the noise of technology.

The ending of the film is changed compared to the novel.

• Crimson Rivers on the Internet Movie Database