Review: The Brain That Wouldn’t Die

Jason Evers (credited as Herb Evers) plays a brilliant but unethical surgeon who gets into a car wreck with his girlfriend (Virginia Leith). She’s decapitated, so naturally Evers decides to walk away with her disembodied head to use in his experiments back at his lab. He’s got the head…now where to find the other body parts? Answer: the sleazy underbelly of society, of course! Did I mention that Evers has some of his previous experiments hidden away in his lab? Actually, one failed experiment isn’t hidden away: His assistant, who has a deformed arm due to a botched experiment.

 

Written and directed by Joseph Green, this 1962 sci-fi film is often considered one of the tent poles of the ‘so bad it’s good/funny’ realm of bad cinema. It’s miscast in that field in my view. I honestly believe that this is pretty much the film Green (who strangely only directed one other film in 1986!) set out to make and he has mostly executed it to that design. It’s clearly not a film that is trying to take itself too seriously, and unlike “Plan 9 From Outer Space”, I don’t believe the humour here is unintentional. I’m also pretty sure director Stuart Gordon took some inspiration from this film for “Re-Animator” with its talking disembodied head and amoral scientist. This film is on that same silly, bizarre, bad taste wavelength, albeit not quite as good. It doesn’t have the budget or directorial skill behind it to be as good as “Re-Animator”, of course. I enjoyed this film – and not unintentionally. This film is too silly not to be intentional, and it’s really amusing and entertaining stuff. I’m not saying Green has deliberately made a bad film – that’s a fool’s errand to try – I’m saying it’s actually pretty good.

 

10 seconds into the film we have a patient die on the operating table and someone says ‘Very well, the corpse is yours. Do whatever you want’. That’s too hilarious not to be a legitimate joke, the film does not come close to operating (no pun intended) with any real ideas of science or ethics. The plot itself is just too outrageous for Green not to be aware of it: A mad scientist gets into a car wreck with his girlfriend, and flees the scene with her decapitated head for use in his experiments. Come on. That’s just bonkers and bloody marvellous if you ask me. The fact that Green’s other directorial effort was a comedy also has me feeling secure that he’s no mere incompetent Ed Wood-ite. Lead actress Virginia Leith got her start in Stanley Kubrick’s first film and had big roles in the likes of “Violent Saturday”. Here she plays a disembodied head. The kicker? When she died in 2019, her body was donated to medical science. Yep. Silly or not it’s hard not to sympathise with her character here, she didn’t ask to have her disembodied head revived.

 

It’s quite a grisly film for something made in 1959 and released in 1962, and the scientist character is an absolutely diabolical, amoral bastard. He makes Dr. Frankenstein look like an altruistic cancer researcher. For starters, the experiment on his girlfriend isn’t even the first time he’s experimented on an acquaintance. Failed experiments, I might add. This guy has zero shame, zero moral compass, and had me grinning from ear to ear because of it. What a bastard. Him, not me. I’m delightful and would never operate on someone’s disembodied head. Unlike even some of the best ‘bad’ movies, there’s no dead spots in this one. It’s entertaining from start to finish. Just look at the cat fight breaking out of nowhere while two painted cats on a wall watch on and we hear a ‘meow!’ on the soundtrack. Rather than something like “Plan 9 From Outer Space” or “Troll 2”, this goofy sci-fi film is more like prime AIP cheese. I believe it was made with if not great skill, at least a knowing wink and nudge. It’s so crazy you can’t help but be entertained and I don’t think it’s unintentional entertainment.

 

I’m legitimately recommending this…to a limited audience of weirdos like me. Give it a watch and tell me it’s not meant to be this silly. Green’s screenplay is based on a story by Green and producer Rex Carlton (who committed suicide in 1968 when he was unable to pay back the mob who lent him money on a film project!), with an assist from Doris Brent (who plays a nurse, and in 1999 also turned up in “8MM” as Machine’s mother!).

 

Rating: B-