Usually I use the Saturday Night Movie reviews as a good reason to branch out and see hilarious bad films that I have not yet seen. Occasionally though, if there is a bad film that I love enough, I will do a write up on a film that I have seen. I always watch it again before I write the entry, so I can refresh my mind enough to actually write something of interest about the movie. The Brain that Wouldn’t Die is one of the latter. I have seen this movie countless times, and just adore it. The first time I watched it was back in the 90’s on Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Like Teenagers from Outer Space, this one is public domain, and you can watch it in it’s entirety here on Indulgences.
Dr. Bill Cortner and his fiancee Jan are in a terrible accident after some reckless driving on Bill’s part. Bill is thrown from the car, but survives pretty much scratch free. Jan, on the other hand, is not so lucky-she was decapitated. Naturally Bill is mortified, so he wraps her head up in a blanket and flees the scene, hoping to somehow keep Jan alive. Once he arrives in the lab he hooks up her head to a helmet with wires coming out of it, and places it in a tray of liquid. In no time at all Jan is alive again and furious that Bill would not let her die. Since Dr. Cortner had been experimenting with transplant surgery, he quickly concludes that he must find a ‘doner’ body for Jan’s head. He goes out on the town, looking for pretty girls, with even prettier bodies to bring home and attach to Jan’s head. As if things weren’t scary enough already, locked behind the door in the laboratory is a monster that growls, grunts, and rattles the door. Jan has some sort of telepathic communication with the monster, and she continually talks about getting even with the doctor for what he did to them. As you can imagine, it only gets more intense as the doctor narrows in on the perfect body for his lovely head…
This movie is such fun, and a very quick watch. It is among the favorites of many B-film fanatics that I know or have talked to. With lines such as “Keep your g-string on” and “Who’s to tell me to blow if I don’t want to. This is my dressing room too, remember?” this movie is an instant classic in the low budget genre. This film is full of amusing bloopers and mess-ups that are so obvious, you really get a sense of how low of a budget they were working with. The Brain that Wouldn’t Die is B-film gold, and a must see!
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Lidian says:
How I love old movies, especially really bad ones…and I love the title of this one - perfect description of me with too much coffee keeping me wide awake at 3 am!
April 20th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
MissCedar says:
April 21st, 2008 at 10:00 am