Customer Reviews

The Brain That Wouldn't Die/Amazing Transparent Man

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

"The Brain That Wouldn't Die" has a very special place in my heart. I first saw photos from it in "Mad Monsters" magazine back in the early 1960s, and was fascinated by the image of a woman's head kept alive in a pan. To an eight year old boy hooked on trashy horror movies, this was "it"! I finally saw "Brain" a few years later on late-night TV, and was hooked! Flash-forward to the 1980s, where, to my delight, I had discovered that this sleazy little film had an enormous cult following. Is it the preposterous story? The cheesy lab set? (it looks like an empty rumpus room in a suburban home) The poker-faced performances? The battling strippers? The sleazy and infectious music "The Web"? (of which I am the proud owner of on a 45 single), or the pizza-faced, hunchbacked, cone-headed giant locked in the closet? It's ALL of these things! This EC comic-like film is irrestible, a VERY guilty pleasure, like eating a 5-pound box of very cheap candy that makes your teeth ache. But just try and look away! It even dawned on me recently that the role of "Doris", the disfigured and bitter cheesecake model, is rather like a grouchy Bettie Page, posing, in the words of mad doctor Bill Cortner, "for a bunch of neurotics". I had the pleasure of talking to the late director Joseph Green on the telephone in 1989. I told him that "Brain" was one of my all-time favorite trash films, and he graciously said that he was pleased that I had such fond memories of it. "Fond" is an understatement! The picture quality on this DVD is brutally crisp, so you can enjoy all of the tacky sets, bad makeup jobs, and tawdry costumes. I may add that the long-missing footage, i.e. the bickering and battling strippers, and Leslie Daniel's long, drawn out and VERY bloody death scene have been restored. You can KEEP "Dances With Wolves-the Director's Cut". Give me the restored "Brain That Wouldn't Die", which is MUCH shorter, better budgeted, and FAR more fun!

The rating isn't for quality. This movie is one of the cheapest productions ever put on film. It literally defines schlock. The performances are so uneven, they come off as amateur night at the community theater. The cinematography is so bad, the day-for-night shooting slips in and out. Several scenes sound as if they were recorded in a tin can - and probably were. It's more padded than Dolly Parton, and not as delightfully.

On the other hand, once you get past all that, this is one of the most unsettling movies ever made. If it were any more demented or disturbing, it would have to be directed by Tobe Hooper and rated "X".

Psychopathic surgeon Jason Evers gets in a car accident speeding home to check on one of his failed experiments, and ends up decapitating fiancee Virginia Leith. He carries her head to the lab, and keeps it alive in a pan of his special serum, which he uses in limb-grafting experiments of so-far unsatisfactory results. Leith is extremely unhappy with being kept alive in her present condition, and even more so when she discovers Evers intends to murder the most beautiful woman he can find so he can put Leith's head onto a new body. The serum Evers keeps Leith's head alive with gives her telepathic power, and she develops an unsettling friendship with the failed experiment Evers was running home to check on in the first place - a hideously deformed giant golem in a locked closet, constructed of badly grafted-together tissues. The longer Leith is kept unnaturally alive, the more twisted and hateful she becomes, until she and the deformed monstrosity create an insidious alliance to kill Evers and his criminal assistant.

What makes this unbelievably cheap p.o.s. work is the conviction of the performers - Leith, especially - and the pervasive dementia, throughout. The soundtrack is incredibly effective, eerie beyond belief, often creeping up and down your spine. The visuals are genuinely unsettling in their very simplicity, to the point that you don't even notice the rubber bald-cap on the hideous golem until repeat viewings. The violence is shuddery-awful, voyeuristically lingering on some of the most gruesome things imaginable - like a man's arm being ripped out of its socket, and the camera's following him through the house while he bleeds to death, the demonic head in the pan cackling delightedly throughout.

In short: cheap beyond belief, but more often than not incredibly effective. A must for all schlock horror afficionados.

If you're in the right mood, this movie is sidesplitingly funny. Otherwise, it's still wonderfully weird. When his girlfriend dies in a car wreck that he caused, the guilt ridden plastic surgeon Dr.Cortner saves her head (her body burned up) and takes it to his secret lab. There he attaches tubes etc. to it and feeds it the secret formula he has made and keeps it alive much to the chagrin of his assistant who has a withered arm. The head (Virginia Leith) begins telepathically communicating with a "thing" kept locked in a closet (a failed experiment) also to the assistant's aggravation. Meanwhile, the doctor has promised her a new body so he sets out to find one. But Leith just wants to die so she plots revenge with the "thing". Dr.Cortner goes to a sleazy "body beautiful" contest, then an even sleazier strip club where two strippers get in a catfight over him (a memorable sequence) and finally to a figure model. She has the right bod but a scar on her face he promises to fix. Meanwhile, the assistant has had it so he begins taunting the "thing" until it reaches out and rips the good arm off of him! The doc brings the model home and drugs her. But before he can he can get started with the surgery, the head compels the "thing" to break out of the closet and chew the doc's neck apart (yes, we're talking b&w gore here as with the arm business) and it carries the model to safety when a fire breaks out. At last the head has found peace. Now, what we have here is a film with a budget so low a roach couldn't crawl under it. But, oddly enough, it works and is the textbook example of "guilty pleasure". The acting is nil however Leith gives her role an uncomfortable edge by actually being believable (as far as disembodied heads go) and her telecommunication with the "thing" is well done. It knocks back at her when it understands. Kind've creepy. This is a "sleaze" movie nonetheless but it has an endearing quality to it that makes it enjoyable. Much thanks to Synapse for restoring it so well on DVD. Leith was a rising starlet just three years before this was made having starred with Robert Wagner in "A Kiss Before Dying" and other films. How she ended up in "Brain" (and it ever got made in the first place) is anybody's guess. But I like it.

If you haven't seen this you can't call yourself a sci-fi B fan. The excentric scientist, the severed head, the mysterious 'thing' in the closet; all the elements neccessary for true camp. Even 7 minutes of a man running around with a bloody stump where his arm used to be without dying or going into shock. Simply beautiful.

This was a GREAT "B" movie! Not only does it contain some cheesy special effects, bad acting, and a script that is just laughable, it's one of the WORST movies I've ever seen! Low-budget has never been this bad! I LOVE IT!!! Herb Evers plays the role of mad doctor Cortner who is illegally experimenting with transplant surgery. But when his girlfriend (Virginia Leith) is killed in a gruesome car accident, Cortner takes her disembodied head and keeps it alive with a special serum which he made himself. Unfortunately, the head takes a mind of it's own and forms a special bond with a hideous monster, another failed experiment of the doctor, while he's out searching for a new body for her. Plenty of shocking blood and gore which was edited out of the television version, this 1962 B&W horror flick is good for it's time and gore buffs of today will still not be disapointed. If you're looking for an award-winner though, this is NOT the movie for you! This turkey will probably only please the average "B" movie buff. IT'S SO BAD, IT'S ACTUALLY GOOD!

A few technical notes about this "Special Edition" DVD of THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. The box states the length to be 85 minutes, yet the DVD timer on the DVD player reads 82. Intermittantly during play, the timer would pause for minutes at a time (an error in the writing of the disk or not?). This was especially noted during the gory scene of the lab assistant's death. Hence, the time was not accurately displayed. This DVD was 85 minutes however, regardless of the hour and 22 minutes the movie ended on. Another noted inaccuracy was the ratio. On my TV, the movie did not seem "windowboxed" at all as the package states. This was not a concern, however.

Now for the film itself. THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE is an alternately creepy, hilarious, quirky and campy little picture. The "Brain" is the loved one of the mad scientist, whom was decapitated in a car accident. The creepy doctor takes the head to his laboratory and brings it back to life in order to transplant it on a curvier, sexier body. This is all and good, 'cept the brain WANT'S to be dead and plots a course of revenge against her former beau. Hmmm, pretty impressive for a gal who is sustained in a lab tray! Nothing about this film could ever be taken seriously, and that is the fun! I saw this weird film as a kid during the "Creature Freature" on the local T.V. It made a huge impact on me and I am happy to own a copy on DVD.

As for the quality of this DVD, minus the minor techincal flaws mentioned above, its a real treasure. Also contained are the original trailer and some odd publicity materials. The "extra footage" is what gave this old movie new life to me. Its not difficult to see why these scenes were removed for TV audiences. Seeing this film uncut for the first time was an eye-opener. The film's print is a mostly clean one, with some age defects. The sound sometimes comes through as tinny, but it is certainly more than adequate.

Enjoy THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, if its few flaws don't give you a headache!

THE BRAIN THAT WOULD'NT DIE is an all-time trash favourite; an it deserves to be. It has all the sleaze and slime that is not all that in exploitation films made before 1960. If you havn't seen this classic, then its about time!

A surgeon's girlfriend's head is decapitated during a car crash. He takes the head, brings it back to life and hunts down a sexy new body for it. At one point, a monster suddenly comes out of the cupboard (for no particular reason) and tears a piece of flesh off the doctor.

This is the Rhino version which has been cut by about 21 mins. Other versions (except for the Warner video as well as this) go up to 92 mins and include a fight between two strippers and a scene where the monster rips the doctor's assistant's arm off. Theres even a terrific jazz soundtrack which may have been lifted from another film.

There are some movies that are gloriously bad and "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" (a.k.a. "The Head That Wouldn't Die", which is the better title because we are talking an entire head not just a brain) is one of the classics in that particular category. You can get a hold of this film hosted by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, or skewered by the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" crew, but you will have no problem appreciating this example of bad science fiction cinema. This is a movie that should be on every fan's list of the 10 Worst Science Fiction Movies Ever Made.

Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason call me Herb Evers) is unhappy with the outdated surgery practice by his father, Dr. Cortner (Bruce Brighton), who warns him about higher laws and other nonsense. Bill has a fiancé, Jan Compton (Virginia Leith), who keeps talking about how she cannot wait for them to get married. So when they are in a car accident he rescues Jan's head and takes it back to his private laboratory. There his assistant, Kurt (Leslie Daniels), who has a transplanted arm that has not exactly taken from one of Bill's earlier experiments and who also rails against the doctor's plan to find his fiancé (now the infamous "Jan in a Pan") the perfect body. Bill only has 48-50 hours (you have to love the specificity) to come up with a new body and heads for the nearest strip club. When that does not pan out (hehehehe) he starts stalking women on the street and finds his way to a Beautiful Body contest. But Bill will accept nothing less than the best for Jan and that ends up being Playboy Playmate of the Month for June 1959, Marilyn Hanold.

Meanwhile, Jan would rather be dead than be a detached head; besides, she has some questions about the soundness of the whole procedure, which she discusses with Kurt. The rest of the time she carries on a one sided conversation with whatever is on the other side of the bolted door in the basement (Kurt will not let the cat out of the bag, but we know it is pretty bad and that it is another result of Bill's insane desire to play god). In the bloody climax of this film, the situation comes to a head...

Oh, you just cannot have too much fun at the expense of this film. Director Joseph Green and producer Rex Carlton came up with the story, and you have to admit that any movie that combines a talking disembodied head, a monster behind a locked door, and exotic dancers is a movie that is going to be made. Green even gets a bit creative with the camera in the car accident sequence. However, the dialogue and the strong sexual subtext are what really stand out for me in this film. It is amazing that the actors could say some of these lines with straight faces, but it is rather surprising that the sexuality of the film could be so overt. It is very easy to read this film being all about lust: Jan is ready to make Bill very happy and when he is left with just her head he insists on getting what is clearly an even better body so that they can consummate their destiny.

I will go out on a limb...and say that "The Head That Wouldn't Die" is one of the two worst Science Fiction movies that you have to see, along with "Plan 9 From Outer Space." Certainly they are the only 5 star ratings I have ever given to "bad" films.

This film was definatly a classic. the story goes the dr. carries his girl freinds head to his laboritory up in a mountain house. Later on in the movie the head goes mad with some kind of indiscribable power from being just a head.In the laboritory's closet lies a giant mutant made out of old body parts witch becomes a servent to the head later on in the film. If your a classic sci-fi collecter like me, this is a great movie to watch at home when you have nothing else to do. Its definatly a 5 star film!

Most viewers expect a monster movie to frighten them, but when the quality of that film is sufficiently low then there are but two results. The first is that it becomes a tedious chore to wade through or it becomes a fascinating exercise in the guilty pleasures of trolling through wretched but fun bottom feeders. In THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, the viewer tends to see it in the second category. The plot is your standard B-fare of a mad doctor seeking a suitably sexy female body to house the head of his fiance who lost hers in a car accident. The actors are the usual nameless lot except for Marylin Hanold, the June 1959 Playboy Playmate who had a bit part as a beauty contest contestant. Adele Lamont has the thankless role as Doris, who plays the beautifully bodied but facially scarred nude model whose body the doctor (Herb Evers) wants to attach to the debodied but loquacious fiance (Virginia Leith). Then there is the monster behind the door played by the real life acromegalic Eddie Carmel. One is not supposed to nitpick over the plot holes that are wide enough to drive a tank through. One sits back and watches in a weirdly fascinating stupor how camp and horror fuse into a cinematic mess that is no less fun for that. The highlight is not the predictable fire that burns down the mad doctor's lab but the catfight between a pair of busty strippers about who will win the favors of the good doctor. THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE is the textbook example of how a director can use a shoestring budget to shoot a film that has a great deal more to say about the inanity of mixing deep rooted horror with farce than many other higher budgeted movies that flopped miserably on every level imaginable. Films like this serve to remind us that movies--even bottom feeders like this one--are supposed to be fun. In this case, it was.