The crimson Rivers () is a 2000 French psychological thriller film starring Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel. The film, which was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, is based on the novel Blood-red Rivers by Jean-Christophe Grangé. The screenplay was written by Grangé and Mathieu Kassovitz. The film is about two detectives who investigate a series of grisly murders in and around an isolated university campus in a deep valley of the French Alps. With a $14 million budget, the movie went on to gross $60 million from a worldwide theatrical release. Despite its box office success, one of its stars, Vincent Cassel, admitted, "I can't help explain the film because I didn't understand it! We cut out everything in the film that was explanatory, therefore 'boring' [according to the director]. You end up with a film that's not boring but you don't understand it [at] all". A sequel, Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse (Les Rivières pourpres II: Les Anges de l'apocalypse), was released in 2004. Plot Detective Superintendent (Commissaire Principal) Pierre Niemans (Jean Reno), a well-known Parisian police investigator, is sent to the small university town of Guernon in the French Alps to investigate a brutal murder. The victim's body was found bound in a foetal position and suspended high on a cliff face, his eyes removed and his hands cut off. Niemans learns that the victim was a professor and the university's librarian, Remy Callois, and he seeks out a local ophthalmologist for an explanation regarding the removal of the eyes. Dr Cherneze (Jean-Pierre Cassel), once on the university staff, explains that the school's isolation led to inbreeding amongst the professors, with increasingly serious genetic disorders. Recently the trend has reversed, with the local village children becoming ill and the college babies remaining healthy, something that the local villagers somehow blame on the unpopular and arrogant faculty members. Cherneze hints that the killer is leaving Niemans clues to their motive by removing the body parts that are unique to each individual – the eyes and hands. Niemans questions the Dean (Didier Flamand) and examines the librarian's apartment, where he finds images of athletic "supermen" juxtaposed with texts on genetic deformities. The Dean's assistant (and son) Hubert (Laurent Lafitte) translates the title of Callois's Ph.D. thesis as, "We are the masters. We are the slaves. We are everywhere. We are nowhere. We control the crimson rivers." Coincidentally Detective Inspector