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Brain That Wouldn't Die (1963)

The Head That Wouldn't Die


Cast:

Jason Evers is Dr. Bill Cortner
Virginia Leith is Jan Compton
Leslie Daniels is Kurt
Adele Lamont is Doris Powell
Bonnie Sharie is Blonde Stripper
Paula Maurice is Brunet Stripper
Bruce Brighton is Dr. Cortner


What the box says:

A crazed surgeon accidently decapitates his attractive fiancee. He takes her head to his lab to keep it alive while he searches for a replacement body. But, the resurrected head plots revenge - telepathically!


Plot:

The movie opens as we hear a woman begging to die as the credits roll.

In the operating room, the doctors have lost their patient. Dr. Bill gets permission to work on the corpse. He’s got some ideas to test on the body. While his father massages the heart, Bill is fiddling with the brain. Somehow, the patient is revived.

Bill has been doing many experiments. His father is afraid of experimenting on humans, must keep testing before using humans. . Bill is close to transplanting pretty much anything. They argue until Bill’s fiancé arrives. We learn Bill has been taking limbs from the hospital to test. Dr. Dad has to go to a medical conference. He warns Bill not to go to far with his experiments before leaving.

Jan wants to get married. Oh no the long suffering girlfriend, what catastrophe can befall her? Bill promises in a few more weeks. He gets a message to go to the country store, emergency. That’s where Bill experiments. He takes Jan with him.

Bill ignores her questions, keeps speeding up over the curving and windy road. Somehow, the car runs straight into a guardrail. Bill rolls down the hill. He rushes back to the car and wraps something in his sports jacket. Leaving the scene of the accident, he hobbles away from the car into the woods and makes it to the house.

Kurt lets him in. Bill has to save her, not worried about the thing in the closet. SCIENCE!!!


SCIENCE will cure man's ails...
Bubbling beakers, Kurt watches as Bill toils away. Various chemicals filter through the tubing. Jan’s head is in cake pan.

In 1963, Jan Compton will KILL BILL!!!
Kurt sees her head move.

Jan awakens remembering the accident. Bill plans to get her a new body. Kurt tries to convince Bill she’ll be different than before. However, Bill ignores Kurt’s objections. Thinking after, Jan gets a new body; she’ll be the same as before. Apparently, Bill can only keep her alive for 50 hours as a head. After Jan is transplanted, Kurt could have his deformed arm transplanted.

Kurt convinces him to check the closet. Hear something inside it. Bill looks as the monstrous noises continue. Kurt is to keep it locked in the closet. Bill needs to get a body for Jan and leaves to begin his search. Jan is still in the lab.

Bill goes where every body searching mad scientist would go: cheezy bump and grind strip club. He oogles the display art before entering. Bill watches the bumpin’ grindin’ floorshow. We see various couples leave. The off-duty stripper is hitting on Bill. They go to her dressing room. Bill is now Rico Greasy. This guy couldn’t pick up an inflatable doll.

Back in the lab, Jan awakens.

Back at the club, she is about to throw her back at for throwing herself at this slimy guy. Sucking face would continue until Brunette stripper arrives. Brunette hits on Bill, too. Bill leaves as both strippers are hitting on him. They argue before slapping each other and getting into a catfight. A catfight that would even impress Jerry “The King” Lawler.

The next shot cuts to a picture of 2 cats meowing. Jan is awake, begins trying to talk with whatever is in the closet. It can only pound on the door. Kurt is upstairs. Jan wants to die and hates Bill for what he’s done to her. She knows the creature hurts, too. United, they can have vengeance. Somehow, Jan has the ability to control the creature in the closet.

Kurt heads into the lab, checking on the closet door. Jan fakes unconsciousness. The Monster pounds on the door, scaring Kurt. She starts laughing like a maniac. She asks Kurt what is in there. Apparently, whatever the thing in the closet is it is worse than her. A pile of tissue that grew together; Bill treated with his previous serum.

Kurt reveals Bill experimented on him. Several grafted arms never took and withered. Bill has been learning from every experiment. Kurt has stayed because of his arm. He used to be a surgeon until losing an arm. Bill is his only hope.

Jan realizes that Bill will transplant her head onto another body. She thinks the body will reject the foreign tissue, mainly her head. Kurt talks about Bill’s miracle serum. She realizes the serum has given her the power to communicate with the creature. Kurt can’t believe she can communicate with it. Jan demonstrates her power. That freaks Kurt out. Bill returns. Kurt neglects to mention how Jan wants to kill Bill, etc…

Bill hasn’t got the body yet. He can’t be the last person seen with them. Bill hits the hay for being hit on by strippers is the most strenuous activity known to man.

Next day, Bill is cruising the streets. He finds an old girlfriend, Donna who is going to a beauty contest. Bill will have to stop by his place first. Oh, he’s going to use her body. Donna’s friend walks by and jumps in the car. Bill’s plan is foiled.

At the beauty contest, Bill oogles the finalists. Donna mentions a disfigured model, Doris. Bill has found his body for her.

Jan talks with the monster more. She hates Bill. They must stop him from any more inhuman experiments.

Bill drives to the model’s studio. Several photographers are shooting her. Bill has found a new ooglee. Photographers leave. Doris remembers Bill from college. She seems to be completely jaded against men oriented to women’s golfers perhaps.

We see the scar on the side of her face a man caused. Bill looks at it, claims it can be fixed. Doris starts thinking Bill isn’t after her for nefarious purposes. Doris couldn’t afford an operation. Bill plays the concerned doctor. His father can help but at the country place. She could see him tonight, leaves a note for her friend which Bill disposes.

Monster beating at the door. Jan is trying to get him fired up to break free. She believes herself to be the most terrible. By the way, she hates Bill. Creature stops beating before Kurt comes downstairs. He is going to feed it. Apparently, Kurt is now all angry and spiteful because her hatred of Bill. Kurt claims to not be afraid of the creature. It is kept in the closet for its safety. Jan has it grab Bill trough the spy-hole. She orders Kurt killed. The creature rips off Kurt’s good arm. He hobbles away. Jan is laughing more maniacally than ever. Kurt gets upstairs before going back into the lab before dying. He took almost as long as Sue Shiomi in Legend of the 8 Samurai.

Bill and Doris reach the house. Doris gets worried when she learns Dr. Dad isn’t there. Bill fools her into thinking everything is fine. He goes to get her a drink finds Kurt’s body on the floor. Shocked by it, but hides the body. HE spikes her drink and heads upstairs.

Jumpy Doris takes the drink. We get woozy cam. She realizes the drink was spiked before passing out. Bill carries her to the lab.

Bill does the traditional medical breakthroughs my work will provide speech. He is about to take off Doris’s head.

A piece of tape quiets Jan.


How do you keep a severed head from talking? Aren't vocal chords in the throat?
Bill readies his scalpel. Creature is pounding on the door. Bill checks the door. Jan works the tape loose. Creature grabs Bill by the neck. It breaks out of the closet.

Ladies look out, time to feed my Frankenstein..
Lab catches on fire. Jan ungags herself. Creature bites part of Bill’s neck. Creature takes the unconscious Doris to safety. We hear maniacal laughter as the movie ends with the wrong title displayed.


Love the Wrong Title on the End credits...


What I say:

More than exploitation cinema, this is one of the greatest of the Brain genre from the 50s and 60s. One of the more widely known recognized B-movie laws is the Body Politic Corollary. This is sleazier than you'd think they could get away with back then. It is nowhere near what can be done today.

There are several movies that seem to have been inspired by this one. I know Re-Animator was based on several of Herbert West H.P. Lovecraft short stories. But, the dark humor with the severed head seems more likely from something like the Brain that Wouldn’t Die. Even more than it, Frankenhooker seems to be a direct descendant of this movie. Tragic accident decapitates scientist’s girlfriend. He keeps the head alive as he searches for a body which he builds a body from the pieces of various hookers that have exploded after smoking “super-crack.” I’m leaving a lot out of it. But, it isn’t the review this week.

I've not seen the misted version of this movie. I’ve seen several of the un-misted movies. I can see why some of them were considered bad enough to mock. And, I could see how some people would think this is an awful film. But, I think it is just a little entertaining little b-movie.

First thing, a man needs to do after reviving his dead fiancée’s head is to go to the strip club. I think the movie was more interested in showing as much female flesh as they could get away with instead of a severed head craving revenge.

The gore is hard to even consider as gore. But, with Kurt leaving bloody stump marks on the wall, that is about as gory as the late 50s could get. But, it was made in 1959 and was unable to be released until 1963. This doesn't have the unintentional humor of Ed Wood's ineptitude. This is a low-budget movie. I would be curious to see what other movie this would be double-billed with at a drive-inn.

The monster in the closet. Words don’t do this mask justice. I think the screen capture of him does more justice than saying a hideously disfigured Conehead with a misplaced eye. Eddie Carmel was 6'7" good enough size for a monster.

The truth is stranger than fiction. Rex Carlton, the writer for this movie, committed suicide a few years after this movie unable to repay the mob he borrowed from to finance a movie.

The disfigured assistant couldn’t be hunchbacked like the famous Igors of the past. Equal rights for the club-handed surgeons have nearly wiped out the employment for hunchbacks in mad scientists’ laboratories worldwide. What would be nice is a reason why Kurt goes from nice to Jan’s head to downright rude for no apparent reason. But, watching him run all over the house flailing about leaving blood trails. I've never seen a dying person travel as much as he does. Could you imagine a victim of Michael Meyers running the 200 meter dash after being impaled in the chest with scissors? Well, our hateful assistant Kurt could.

How do you describe a woman who’s entire role is having her head in a cake pan and talks to a closet door? You’d think at some point she’d be asked if she wanted a new body. We never see anywhere in the movie that Bill wants to get a body for Jan because of love. It seems more this will prove his work to the world. The universal scientific motivation is ego. My work is great and the world will realize that fact finally. Maybe, it is the universal mad scientist credo, instead. But, then we wouldn’t have the great scenes of her repeating how much she hates Bill.

This is actually surprisingly better than you’d think for being shown on MST3K. We get probably one of the raunchier and graphic movies of its day. And has some of the funnier things in it like the catfight scene ended with a picture of 2 cats and hearing them meow!?!



3 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

“He’s dead. I can’t do any harm.”
“You, lousy tramp!!!”
"Who's to tell me to blow if I don't want to?"
“He may produce results he never asked for.”
“I’m only a head and you’re whatever you are…”
“You’re nothing but a freak of life and a freak of death.”
“Do I look like maniac going around killing girls?”


Morals of the Story

Dubbing in braking noises as you go around a curve adds tension.
Cars automatically explode after an accident.
Skulls disappear all the time from charred bodies.
Severed heads can talk.
Best to keep you booze in your mad scientist lab near the severed heads.