The Brain That Wouldn't Die

1962 "Alive... without a body... fed by an unspeakable horror from hell!"
4.5| 1h22m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 10 August 1962 Released
Producted By: American International Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Dr. Bill Cortner and his fiancée, Jan Compton, are driving to his lab when they get into a horrible car accident. Compton is decapitated. But Cortner is not fazed by this seemingly insurmountable hurdle. His expertise is in transplants, and he is excited to perform the first head transplant. Keeping Compton's head alive in his lab, Cortner plans the groundbreaking yet unorthodox surgery. First, however, he needs a body.

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Director

Joseph Green

Production Companies

American International Pictures

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The Brain That Wouldn't Die Audience Reviews

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
Sherparsa and this one is even below Z if there were more letters in the English alphabet that i could use!OK, agreed the story is certainly good, maybe very good and Virginia Leith is such a beaut' indeed ... the cast acceptable but the acting terrible!to be fair though, either the copy i saw was edited and missed some small yet important parts, or if it was the whole movie in its entirety, then it's lacking a lot in the plot as well as in the execution of that plot ...maybe since the budget was too low or something but this could have been a much better movie even with that low budget if made and acted in a more proper way ...fine for seeing once to see a little failed piece of cinema history but not more than that ... i'd be certainly interested in watching the new version of the same story that's reportedly a comedy and due coming out in 2018 though ...'til then ...
Leofwine_draca This outrageous, no-budget shocker might as well be the '60s equivalent of RE-ANIMATOR, what with its graphic carnage, mad scientists, fantastic serums and monsters assembled from the body parts of the dead. It's quite an eye opener and a definitive so-bad-it's-good viewing experience, somehow turning a downbeat and sadistic plot into upbeat, often funny viewing pleasure. It's another of the films in the living-severed-head canon, which feature disembodied bonces still managing to speak although they have nothing below the neck. The film begins on a high with a surgery scene featuring a graphic shot of a patient's exposed brain, so you know straight off that you're in for something different from the normally tame early '60s fare that most people watch.The rest of the film is deceptively simple, but blessed with a script with high aspirations featuring hilarious philosophical discussions over life and death and the ethical implications involved. Our scientist anti-hero crashes his car and decapitates his girlfriend, but carries her head back to his secret countryside laboratory and keeps it alive in a pan. Virginia Leith plays the head and magnificently manages to retain her dignity and character even though she spends the film kneeling beneath a table with only her head visible. Our old friend the mad scientist decides to find her a new body, which means travelling to the nearest burlesque club and checking out the well-proportioned strippers on view.The plot slows down as the cameraman lingers on the lingerie-clad dancers strutting their stuff, and there's even time for a saucy cat fight too. Unfortunately the scientist gets the cold shoulder and is forced to flee. Meanwhile, back at the lab, the assistant (with a withered arm no less) is engaging in aforementioned debates with the severed head, which is very opinionated and just wants to be put out of its misery. A great addition to the plot is a unseen monster kept in a closet in the corner of the room which keeps on banging on its door repeatedly before escaping at the end - Paul Naschy borrowed it for his gore flick THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE, so it must be decent. The unseen monster actually works very well, building up the suspense and the viewers expectations throughout as it makes horrific noises and causes the door to judder all the while, biding its time before it escapes.The gory highlight of the film sees the goofy lab assistant getting too close to the beastie, at which it promptly rips off his arm. He then goes on an incredibly extended death stagger around the entire house before making back to the lab again, smearing his bloody stump all over the walls as he does so. I couldn't believe I was watching a film first made in 1959/60 when I saw this moment, its so over-the-top! The climax involves the scientist preparing to behead an innocent victim when the monster escapes. Turns out its an incredibly tall and well-built bloke with a cheesy rubber mask on, which is fine by me. The creature tears a strip of flesh from the scientist's face, bloodily killing him, before chucking it on the floor in disgust! Meanwhile the severed head burns as the lab goes up in flames and the monster and the female victim live happily ever after.Well, what can I say? This film is an exploitation classic and never lets up for a second. Although the story and plot elements are in bad taste the campy script and performances give it an enjoyable edge. Herb Evers in particular is good as the slimy scientist and there are plenty of pretty girls around for the viewer to ogle. The living head and the cheesy monster make for fine horror elements and the climax is worth the wait. Chills, thrills, laughs and gore combine to make THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE a sleazy dream come true for fans of the schlocky B-movie.
calvinnme ... but it wouldn't hurt if you had a stripper's body! That is, if Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) has his way. Almost everybody in the world has seen this one, but I'll go over the set-up anyways. Dr. Cortner has just finished an operation in which he saved a patient that his dad lost. He actually brought the guy back from the dead, but just a few minutes had transpired. One of the nurses assisting is Jan, Bill's fiancé. They are on their way to a relaxing retreat but hark! Bill gets an urgent call from his assistant, Kurt. They must go up to his dad's old cabin - where Bill is doing his research - before they can be on their way. But then tragedy - and bad driving - strike. Bill is in a hurry, he doesn't slow down for a curve and the car crashes. Bill is thrown from the wreckage and is OK, but his fiancée's body is burning. Her head, severed from its body, is alright and unburned. He covers the head in a coat and heads towards the cabin. Question #1- If the cabin is so close that he can walk to it in a few minutes, why was he speeding in the first place? Bill has been experimenting with transplants, so he decides to try the biggest transplant of them all - He stabilizes Jan's head with some configuration of tubes and fluids and takes off to find her a new body - in every strip joint in town. This was NOT the kind of figure Jan had when she was alive and whole! Meanwhile Jan wakes up, evaluates her situation, and all I can say is "The Big Giant Head is very unhappy!"(Third Rock from the Sun). She wants revenge on her fiancé for turning her into a freak and not letting her die. Yet who does she turn on? Bill's assistant Kurt of course, who in many ways is as much a victim of Bill's Frankenstein like experiments as she. He was a surgeon whose arm was blown off, and Bill transplanted a new arm on. However, it has not taken and has become warped, deformed, and useless. Kurt is hanging around and assisting the doc, hoping he will perfect his methods, give him a new arm, and then he can go back to the operating room. Why is she venting and arguing at this guy? And furthermore, why doesn't Kurt just tape her mouth shut, go upstairs to the living quarters, and read Life Magazine? Meanwhile, Bill has gone from strip club to strip club, used some of the most obvious juvenile male come ons in the history of the world, YET he is having success with the ladies, as their come backs are just as juvenile as his. I can really believe Rex Carlton wrote the dialogue for this one folks, it is very laughable. Now Bill doesn't seem to notice that some of the ladies seem as turned on by the strippers as he, which begs the question, would his honeymoon be all that he hoped if he grafted a gay woman's body to a straight woman's head? In the end, Bill chooses a woman with a knockout body and a scar on her face, which doesn't matter because he plans to discard the head anyways. But meanwhile, Jan grows more and more evil and makes a telepathic connection with the beast in the closet, one that was created entirely out of grafted body parts and has also become physically deformed as time grows on, but you don't see that until the finale.I guess in summary I disagree with this film's current low assessment. It is not boring, it is definitely unique, and though most of the dialogue is very wooden, there are some good ideas here. For example, where is Jan's soul? Just because you kept her brain alive, is that where the essence of a person actually resides? I'm giving it a six just based on uniqueness and the fact that it keeps the viewer engaged. At least it kept me engaged.
ccthemovieman-1 Actually, for a "B" sci-fi flick from the early '60s, on a $62,000 budget, it wasn't that bad. There was something about the goofiness of it that kept my attention for most of the 80 minutes. I was hoping it would be one of those so-bad-it's-good movies, but it really wasn't. Oh, if you try to explain the story it sounds like one of those ludicrous stories - and maybe it is - but it's a fairly straight combination of a Dr. Frankenstein-wannabe and the Steve Martin vehicle, The Man With Two Brains.A pretty woman's head sitting on baking pan on a table while her doctor-boyfriend goes looking for a good body to go with it. She lost it while the two were driving up to his cabin/lab. They had a car accident and he plucked her head out of the car fire.....really! She will stay alive for about two days in his newly-discovered solution so he goes to strip clubs to find a body for her. Meanwhile, she is not happy. She knows there is some hideous creature locked away in a closet nearby and uses some new-found psychic power to communicate and rule over him. Her plan is to get revenge on the deranged doctor. I won't say what happens in case someone reading this wants to see the film.Yes, it's very stupid but there is something likable and entertaining about this cheapie film. I saw it as part of a "Four More MGM Sci-Fi Classics" DVD which is inexpensive.