The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

Directed by Joseph Green
Written by Rex Carlton and Joseph Green

Unrated


"White Zombie" is one of the many old films that are now public domain. Anyone with a print of this movie can duplicate and sell it with no copyright consequences. So go burn a copy today! It has also been made available to watch or download for free online.

"The Brain That Wouldn't Die" is an awful b-horror film about science gone awry. The film focuses on Dr. Cortner, a medical doctor whose controversial methods of experimentation have made him a bit of a rebel in the scientific community. He has done extensive experiments on humans, even grafting a grotesquely large arm onto his lab assistant.

When his fiancee is decapitated in the fakest car wreck in the history of cinema, Dr. Cortner uses his weird science to keep her head alive. It remains awake and alive on a table, hooked up to bubbling tubes and wires, begging to be allowed to die.

Dr. Cortner hits the strip clubs, looking for the perfect body to graft onto his fiancee's head. This segment of the film lasts so long, one might suspect he's forgotten all about his fiancee and is merely enjoying the show. Eventually, Cortner finds a girl he deems suitable and tricks her into coming back to his reclusive cabin in the woods.

But by this time, Cortner's headless fiancee Jan has discovered that the serum keeping her head alive has also given her some minor telepathy, allowing her to exercise mind control over one of Cortner's earlier experiments, a Frankenstein-esque monster he keeps locked in a closet. When Cortner returns to the cabin with his stripper friend, his headless wife psychically commands the monster to attack Cortner, biting a chunk of flesh out of his neck. The monster carries the stripper away and the lab burns, taking Cortner and his headless fiancee with it.

I'd give "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" a 3/10. And that might be being generous. The pacing was snail-slow. Large portions of the film were completely unnecessary in terms of advancing the plot. The special effects were worse than most modern youtube videos. The acting was worse than daytime soaps. In general, a bad time was had by all. My friend Nick fell asleep for most of it, and he was probably the lucky one. The title was also completely misleading. They call it "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" as though they've tried to kill it and failed, but Cortner spends the whole movie trying to keep it alive instead. They should have called this "The Head That Wouldn't Shut Up", or maybe just "The Movie That Wouldn't End". Now THAT'S scary! All that trash talk having been said, there are some of you who will watch this movie anyway. For those brave souls, here's a way to watch it right here for free:



The only other way I could possibly recommend this movie is in it's "Mystery Science Theater 3000" incarnation, which includes a joke track so that at least you can laugh at this horrible movie.













I recommend these similarly-themed movies that are actually good: