The Brain That Wouldn't Die

source: The Brain That Wouldn't Die

I just loved watching it though and having fun with it's total badness of a film. I saw this film through the helpful sarcasm of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I have the DVD. If you flip the to the other side of the DVD, they show the actual movie, so I gave it a chance. Seriously, folks this is grilled cheese. The acting, special effects, and plot in general is very cheesy and unrealistic. "Doesn't she need lungs" said Crow noticing how the head can still talk while it doesn't have a body, and Tom Servo just wistfully remarks "No, she's got neck juice!". The ending is just classic and no one can touch this soundtrack with K-Porn! I loved the "cat fight" between the two strippers. That "Meow" after the fight or scene, whatever, was classic. So, in some ways this was a fun movie. I think for horror fans, you'll probably enjoy it. For a good time, watch the MSTK3 version, you'll get a great laugh. MST3K version: 10/10 The Brain that would die: 1/10

I would have enjoyed this movie slightly more had not been for Jason (Herb) Evers constant harping on experiment. Many early reviewers of The Seven Samurai accused Toshiro Mifune of overacting. Yet, as more and more critics viewed that film they saw it as being purposefully done. Jason Evers is obviously not Toshiro Mifune, and his overacting is exactly that. Most of the actors in this B classic were rather good actors, minus Evers and the showgirls. If you watch this movie, you would have noticed Evers shouting almost every line, that is until he is smoking and blowing the smoke coolly out his nose. The special effects were par for the course in a B movie such as this one. In hindsight, there isn't much that stands out in my mind as fantastically good or bad for this movie.

This is one of those movies that puzzles today's audiences. They're so jaded with mega-million dollar budgeted, hyperactive action films, they have no idea what movies were like before "Star Wars" ruined the market for drive-ins and one-screen sidewalk theaters. "Brain That Wouldn't Die" is a personal favorite of mine. I grew up seeing it occasionally on Detroit's WKBD-TV50 Saturday night Chiller Movie Double Feature during the 1970s. It was the perfect thriller to watch late at night (in those days stores closed and people went to bed early), after a long sunny week in school and playing outside. There were no computers, cellphones, video games, cable TV or videos back then. You had three or four channels and they signed off after the news. If you were still up after 11:30pm, you felt like the last person on earth; the perfect setting in which to watch this type of picture. The film sets a nightmarish tone immediately with its moody, creepy score and grim B&W cinematography. Yes, it's a low-budget independent film produced by people mostly just starting out. Given that it was most of the production's first screen credit, it is outstanding. Despite the comedy relief * scenes, the film was one of the more violent, gory and shocking at the time and for years that followed. Everyone's stomach turned over at the arm tearing out scene and my mother used to excuse herself from the room at that point, she found it so disturbing. Like Abbott & Costello before them--and MST3K after them--the Medved brothers ruined films like this by burlesquing them in their 1980 book, "The Golden Turkey Awards." This and the post- "Star Wars" culture have doomed these movies to an eternity of sneering contempt from a younger audience weened on endless laser blasts, propane explosions and hyperactive CGI effects. Happily, I got to see and enjoy "Brain That Wouldn't Die" while it was still considered relevant. Every kid on the block used to know and love this movie--and I was one of them.

This film is an absolute classic for camp. That is why it was an Elvira and MST3000 classic. Everyone knows the story. Scientist keeps his girlfriend's head alive in a lasagna pan in his basement while he cruises town and tries to find her a body by checking out the local chicks. Finally he finds a real hourglass body with a scar-faced chick's head on top. The severed head makes friends with the failed experiment in the closet and the conehead comes out of the closet and rips off the assistant's remaining "good" arm (his other is not right from a scientist's earlier failure), and the whole place burns down. The movie scared us so much as kids that my friend wouldn't go into his basement for a year after seeing it. As kids we ranked the scariest movies of all time and this one was number four. Only one of those scary movies was really any good (the Original "The Haunting".) I had to give this movie a seven rating for the tremendous amount of entertainment value it offers. Its eerie effect because of the crappy production and the weird sexual angle when the scientist looks for the bodies (complete with porno sound track) scares the hell out of innocent children, while the ridiculous aspects make it prime material for watching talking and laughing. I could watch this film tonight and enjoy it while I'd rather go to the Dentist than watch "Chicago" again. Seven is the most I can give it, because its entertainment value is mere luck. The film , as cinema, is a disaster.

A scientist and his girl friend are out driving when his speeding causes a car crash. He escapes unharmed but she is decapitated. He saves her head, brings it to his house and keeps it alive (!!!!). He then proceeds to search out models and strippers for the perfect body for the head. His crippled assistant watches over the head which starts talking and has a telepathic (or telepathetic) link to a deformed monster kept in the closet.... As you can see, this is pretty stupid stuff, but I had a certain fondness for it. When I grew up in the late 1970s, a local TV station showed this movie about 20 times each year (no exaggeration). They showed it always on Saturday afternoon TV--uncut. Seeing this on TV back then was great! Explicit blood and gore along with a gruesome monster and sleazy sexploitation--who cares if it was good? Seeing it now I realize how lousy this really is. The acting is perfectly wretched, the production values are nonexistent, the script is pretty dumb and (aside from the still pretty disgusting gore) this is dull stuff. There's also a mild cat fight between two women and the admittedly great monster at the end. Also add in an ending which leaves tons of loose ends. On one hand this is an interesting example of a 1960s exploitation film. On the other its utter trash. Either way, it's not a good movie but is a must-see (for one time only) for horror and gore fans. Also the head's laugh is pretty creepy. Note the end credits which gets the TITLE wrong (calling it "The HEAD That Wouldn't Die")!

The unethical surgeon Dr. Bill Cortner (Herb Evers) is developing a technique of transplantation of organs and members using a serum against rejection. When he has a car accident with his girlfriend Jan Compton (Virginia Leith), he saves her head only, and tries to find a woman with a beautiful body to transplant Jan's head against her will. I found the low budget movie "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" very underrated in IMDb. The story is not so bad, and certainly inspired "Frankenhooker" and "The Man with Two Brains". The acting and the direction are very reasonable, and there are some mistakes of edition (for example, when Dr. Bill Cortner is having a conversation in the car with his friend on the sidewalk), but these errors just contribute to make the movie funnier. The make-up of the creature is great. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): "O Cérebro Que Não Queria Morrer" ("The Brain That Did not Want to Die")

This is wonderful over-the-top entertainment for fans of sleaze cinema. Some people apparently don't like this film because everyone in it is evil. Thankfully, that is true. There's nothing more boring than all those nice, bland heroes and heroines. Yecchh!! Our cast here is totally over-the-top "bad". Leslie Daniels in particular as the doctor's Igor-like sidekick puts on his best (or should I say worst?) Richard III impression, complete with withered hand and drawn out Shakespearean rant. A classic ham! And there's cheesecake for everyone with busty babes bursting out from every corner (as long as the doctor has to find a new body to crown his girlfriend's head on... well, who wouldn't pick the creme de la creme?). There's even a fabulous (meee-owww!) cat fight between two strippers that probably levitated a lot of audiences back in 1960. And ... RE-ANIMATOR fans will love the similarities of the angst-ridden head in the tray trying to seize a little power. So, how can anyone say this film is bad in a bad way? You want "good", go watch DONOVAN's BRAIN, a very competent but forgettable little film made several years earlier. This film is a like a mad, campy Halloween party. Leave your attitude behind, and try to enjoy it!

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE was considered so distasteful in 1959 that several cuts and the passage of three years was required before it was released in 1962. Today it is difficult to imagine how anyone could have taken the thing seriously even in 1959; the thing is both lurid and lewd, but it is also incredibly ludicrous in a profoundly bumptious sort of way. The story, of course, concerns a doctor who is an eager experimenter in transplanting limbs--and when his girl friend is killed in a car crash he rushes her head to his secret lab. With the aid of a few telephone cords, a couple of clamps, and what looks very like a shallow baking pan, he brings her head back to life. But is she grateful? Not hardly. In fact, she seems mightily ticked off about the whole thing, particularly when it transpires that the doctor plans to attach her head to another body. As it happens, the doctor is picky about this new body: he wants one built for speed, and he takes to cruising disconcerted women on city sidewalks, haunting strip joints, visiting body beautiful contests, and hunting down cheesecake models in search of endowments that will raise his eyebrow. But back at the lab, the head has developed a chemically-induced psychic link with another one of the doctor's experiments, this one so hideous that it is kept locked out of sight in a handy laboratory closet. Can they work together to get rid of the bitter and malicious lab assistance, wreck revenge upon the doctor, and save the woman whose body he hankers for? Could be! Leading man Jason Evers plays the roguish doctor as if he's been given a massive dose of Spanish fly; Virginia Leith, the unhappy head, screeches and cackles in spite of the fact that she has no lungs and maybe not even any vocal chords. Busty babes gyrate to incredibly tawdry music, actors make irrational character changes from line to line, the dialogue is even more nonsensical than the plot, and you'll need a calculator to add up the continuity goofs. On the whole THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE comes off as even more unintentionally funny than an Ed Wood movie. Director Joseph Green actually manages to keep the whole thing moving at pretty good clip, and looking at the film today it is easy to pick out scenes that influenced later directors, who no doubt saw the thing when they were young and impressionable and never quite got over it. The cuts made before the film went into release are forever lost, but the cuts made for television have been restored in the Alpha release, and while the film and sound quality aren't particularly great it's just as well to recall that they probably weren't all that good to begin with. Now, this is one of those movies that you'll either find incredibly dull or wildly hilarious, depending on your point of view, so it is very hard to give a recommendation. But I'll say this: if your tastes run to the likes of Ed Wood or Russ Meyers, you need to snap this one up and now! Four stars for its cheesy-bizarreness alone! GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This movie scared heck out of me when I was just a kid. It's no "Citizen Kane" but it has its moments. The arm ripping scene is good. The plot is good even if characters aren't - could have something to do with the acting. Put some top name people in the roles and then see what you get. This was one of those shoot, edit (what little there was) and distribute in a couple of months type of movies. This is classic low budget sci-fi and deserves it just due. I rated it a 9 based other films of this genre and age.