I remember seeing this as a child and get pretty darned scared by it. Watching it as an adult, I found it a lot better than it should be. It's certainly no classic, but it is an effective exercise in horror. For such a sleazy '50s horror film, some of the acting is surprisingly good, especially the talking head sitting in a tray of blood. I mean, yech! The doctor, who's obviously lost his marbles, although it's not obvious at first, is one of those totally rational but also totally insane Mad Scientist types. Throw in some catfights, some burlesque, a Monster in a Closet, and you've got a film that every horror buff should see.

The plot, the mad scientist, the fiance, the "cool,daddyo" apartments and clubs, the cheap strippers, the catfights, the convoluted plot, the predictable script, the "secret" lab and of course, the thing all combine in Perfect Storm fashion for an enjoyably bad sci-fi/horror film. Well worth owning, beyond simply seeing!
PS: Be aware that several reviewers,apparently ignorant of what "review" means, give away the entire 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.

"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.

I never saw this one as a kid. I'm not sure how I missed it, but I'm glad I did. It's scary as hell. The photography quality is awfull, the acting is what you would expect, but it comes across as a cross between a film noir ,an old dracula flick, and the 1930's Blue Angel. Excellent for a dark night.