Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Now here’s a movie that never seems to get old, no matter how many times I see it.
Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) is a brilliant man, experimenting with limb and organ transplants (something I’ll assume wasn’t possible in 1959 when this movie was made). He and his fiance Jan (Virginia Leith) are on their way out for the weekend when Bill gets a call from his assistant at his family’s weekend home. Something’s going on, so Bill, with Jan in tow, speeds for the estate, but loses control of the car on the way, and the resulting accident decapitates his beloved.
And this is where things get funny. Bill wraps her severed head in his jacket and carries her to the estate where he is able to keep her alive in a pan until he can find her a new body. Jan isn’t happy with this development and wishes Bill had let her die. Then, while he’s out scouting suitable replacements, she discovers that whatever technique he’s used on her has not only kept her disembodied head alive, but that she’s now got mental powers and is able to communicate with a deformed brute Bill and his assistant Kurt keep locked in a closet in the lab. She and the monster (Eddie Carmel) then plan their revenge on the evil genius who’s destroyed their lives.
Written and directed by Rex Carlton and Joseph Green (story by Carlton, screenplay and direction by Green), THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE is the best of everything that makes “classic horror” so awesome. The plot? Ridiculous. The dialogue? Shameful. The acting? Lifeless. The special effects? Shoddy. The movie? Friggin’ awesome!
It’s not often so many cheap and horrible elements combine so perfectly to create a whole as beautiful as this.
The science had to have been made up on the spot. It’s never questioned how Jan, only a head from the neck up, is able to breathe when she’s resting in a pan of liquid, even though when she laughs heartily at Kurt’s terror of the monster, she’s obviously taking deep breaths to do it, we hear the intake.
When Bill goes out searching for a new body for her, the first place he looks is a strip club. When that fails, he tries to pick up an old friend, then considers a beauty pageant, and finally a model he knew from school. I mean, come on, how funny is that? So much for inner beauty!!!
I can only begin to imagine the hangover that resulted in whatever meeting spawned this idea. Luckily I get to enjoy the fruits of it anyway.
It’s not all sunshine and flowers, though. There are parts of the movie where things begin to drag, mostly while Bill is on the prowl. The score turns to this sultry jazz sax intended to be charming and seductive, but when we remember just why Bill is out there trying to pick up chicks, the music just seems so out of place and inappropriate. Plus, those scenes seem like they’re never going to end. Jan in the Pan definitely gets short-changed when it comes to screen time.
But still, it’s a severed head, kept alive in a pan. You just can’t beat that. On idea alone, this movie beats most of the other “classic horrors” I’ve watched recently.
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