Rating: 
Summary: Classic horror camp
Review: "Alive... without a body... fed by an unspeakable horror from hell!"
So reads the tagline for this laughter-inducing horror film.
Dr. Bill Cortner is an egotistical and arrogant physician who likes to experiment with bodies in his spare time. In the first scene, after exclaiming, "He's dead! I can't do any harm!" and "Sure! I've made a few mistakes, but I've learned from them! Learned!" he is allowed by his physician father to take over in the operating room when a patient dies on the table.
Good Dr. Bill is next seen recklessly driving himself and his sweet, horny fiance Jan out to his country house; the car crashes, he salvages Jan's head from the burning wreckage, wraps his prize in his jacket, and runs the rest of the way with it like he's going for a touchdown during a football game. Once he gets to his lab, he sets her all up and presto! It's "Jan in a pan!" as I have heard this film referred to in the past.
Almost immediately his once-sweet lady (well, her head anyway) becomes a screeching shrew hoarsely calling out such lines as "Revenge! I hate him for what he's done to me!" as the desperate doctor goes on the hunt for a suitable body to use for restoring his girl back into something more, uhm, fully functional. His search takes him to strip joints and a beauty contest, to name two avenues he tries before he finds someone he believes to be a suitable candidate, telling her, "I'm going to cut your face off and give away your body, ah ha ha!" as she innocently laughs along.
To add to the fun, there is of course the wretched assistant with a mangled arm; one of the doctor's earlier "mistakes", and the "thing" locked in a closet in the lab. There's also the continual soundtrack of horns and sleazy stripper-like music. As far as the gore factor, this movie is actually pretty gruesome for its time, although the blood seems to be rather conveniently spilled (downstairs, but not upstairs, for instance), and "Jan in a Pan" laughs more maniacally as the movie progresses.
It's never explained how the head can speak without lungs or a body, although it must be the *new and improved* "Adreno-serum" as it's called that's being pumped into Jan's head, but then again who cares? Continuity flubs abound and serve to add to the camp factor. And look for the ending credits, which list the movie as "The Head That Wouldn't Die".
You can find this movie on Amazon.com in a DVD version that has the original film by itself, and also the film as part of an episode of Mystery Science Fiction Theatre 3000, the now-defunct hit TV show. Well, all I had to review this film with was my raggedy old videotape that appears to be degrading, so after watching it again, I gave into temptation and ordered the Amazon DVD of it. It'll be worth having a really good version of this so-bad-it's-funny bomb.
Rating: 
Summary: I Ain't Got No Body
Review: "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!
Rating:
Summary: I Ain't Got No Body
Review: "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!
Rating:
Summary: "I'm just a head and you're...whatever you are ...
Review: ...but together we are strong!" If these words give you goosebumps, then this movie is for you. How fortunate for our protagonist, that just when he's searching for a nice body to attach to his fiance's head, they're holding a Body Beautiful pageant in his town. But just like a woman, his fiance actually gets angry at him for keeping her head alive in a tray. Sometimes you just can't win. While this film has everything you could expect from a so-bad-its-good movie, there are also flashes of intelligence, halfway-decent acting and nice camerawork. Not enough to keep it from being fun, though. A classic of its tiny genre.
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Combination of Horror, SciFi, Humor, and High Camp
Review: A brilliant exercise in ultra-low-budget -- and very campy -- filmmaking, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" is well worth a second look in these days of computer-generated special effects. Deranged surgeon Dr. Bill Cortner (Herb Evers, who would turn up a few years later in an episode of "Star Trek") keeps his decapitated fiancée Jan's head alive in a tray fed by a serum ("an unspeakable horror from hell," the posters say) that gives her telepathic powers. Desperate to stop the doctor from murdering nubile young women so he can transplant her head onto one of their bodies, the titular Brain begins to communicate with a pinheaded creature (kept securely locked in a closet until the last reel) whom the doctor has stitched together from amputated limbs and animated with injections of the same serum. While the increasingly insane doctor prowls the sleazy strip clubs and shady side streets of Tarrytown, New York, in search of women who won't be missed if they disappear suddenly, Jan convinces the creature to kill both the doctor and his assistant so she can die the natural death she longs for. The movie cost only $62,000 to produce, and looks it every step of the way, but the budget strangely doesn't compromise either the film's originality or its uncanny appeal. The VHS Rhino edition, hosted by Elvira, is the full-length version, which runs only 82 minutes. The digitally remastered DVD edition includes the original trailer plus several rare behind-the-scenes photos, one of them featuring a topless stripper. It's funny enough even without the MST3K treatment! Someone, somewhere is surely planning a remake of this weird gem!
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Combination of Horror, SciFi, Humor, and High Camp
Review: A brilliant exercise in ultra-low-budget -- and very campy -- filmmaking, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" is well worth a second look in these days of computer-generated special effects. Deranged surgeon Dr. Bill Cortner (Herb Evers, who would turn up a few years later in an episode of "Star Trek") keeps his decapitated fiancée Jan's head alive in a tray fed by a serum ("an unspeakable horror from hell," the posters say) that gives her telepathic powers. Desperate to stop the doctor from murdering nubile young women so he can transplant her head onto one of their bodies, the titular Brain begins to communicate with a pinheaded creature (kept securely locked in a closet until the last reel) whom the doctor has stitched together from amputated limbs and animated with injections of the same serum. While the increasingly insane doctor prowls the sleazy strip clubs and shady side streets of Tarrytown, New York, in search of women who won't be missed if they disappear suddenly, Jan convinces the creature to kill both the doctor and his assistant so she can die the natural death she longs for. The movie cost only $62,000 to produce, and looks it every step of the way, but the budget strangely doesn't compromise either the film's originality or its uncanny appeal. The VHS Rhino edition, hosted by Elvira, is the full-length version, which runs only 82 minutes. The digitally remastered DVD edition includes the original trailer plus several rare behind-the-scenes photos, one of them featuring a topless stripper. It's funny enough even without the MST3K treatment! Someone, somewhere is surely planning a remake of this weird gem!
Rating:
Summary: "I've got a headache this big...."
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: IM DA ONLY ONE
Review: GOOD MOVIE.A GREAT MOVIE IF YOU LOVE OLD MOVIES IN BLACK IN WHOTE (FRANKIENSTIEN,THE WOLF MAN, THE MUMMY.ECT.) P.S I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO REVIEWED DIS MOVIE BECUSE I AM AWSOME!!!
Rating: 
Summary: The movie that wouldn't end
Review: I bought this dvd expecting something hilariously awful. I got something that was just awful. Parts of this movie were funny, but the movie really could have been 15 minutes long. All the scenes just dragged on forever. Then just when the movie was actually getting interesting it ended. I recommend getting Plan 9 from Outer Space if you're looking for a really bad funny movie. That movie was great all the way through. Don't waste your money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: hillarious!
Review: I can't believe the guy who just criticized this movie becuase of the awful acting and ad writing. Well, duh! It's a B-movie! really funny, and a bit spooky too. Get the MST3K version as well.
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