The Brain That Wouldn't Die -- a sleazy search for the perfect body

By Steve D. Stones

The first question I always ask myself every time I watch this drive-in schlock masterpiece from 1959 is: “Would any man want a girlfriend with a sewn-on head?”

It’s such a simple question with a simple answer, yet the main character in "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," played by Jason “Herb” Evers, is determined to keep Jan Compton (Virginia Leith), his fiancé’s head alive after it is severed from her body in a terrible car crash.

Evers spends most of the film desperately looking for a beautiful young body to attach to his fiancé’s head. He hangs out at bathing beauty contests and a figure model class drooling over curvy cuties to replace his fiancé’s body. He finds just the right body of a brunette named Doris (Adele Lamont) at the figure model class. She conveniently has deep scars on her face, but her body is to die for (no pun intended).

As for me, if I lost my girlfriend in a car accident, instead of keeping her head alive, I think I would be looking for a new girlfriend. Why go through the trouble of looking for a new body when you can just find the entire package, right? This is a large part of the unintentional humor of the film. What’s even funnier is when the severed head argues with the lab assistant as to whether or not it is right and ethical for them to be keeping her alive. Why be half dead when you can die a full death?

Perhaps the film is trying to make a statement about unconditional, unyielding love? Evers loves his fiancé deeply, and the loss of her body is not going to change his love for her. Even if it means he has to commit murder to keep her alive.

The film has many of the clichés in horror films that we’ve all come to identify. A monster is kept locked away in a closet and patched together by a mad doctor, much like Frankenstein’s monster. A loyal, yet deformed laboratory assistant stands by the mad doctor, despite his fear of the monster in the closet and his determination to suggest that their experiments are ethically wrong. The mad doctor is a playboy at heart who may love his fiancé, but deep down has a lust for other women too. We’ve seen this formula before.

Although The Brain That Wouldn’t Die began production in 1959, it was not released until 1962. The ending of the film shows the title as: The Head That Wouldn’t Die. It is the first film that I’m aware of that brings graphic violence to the screen, even pre-dating Herschell Gordon Lewis’ graphically violent Blood Feast.

The lab assistant has his right arm torn off by the monster in the closet. He drags the right side of his body up against the lab walls, smearing blood everywhere. The monster bites off a large section of Herb Evers’ neck, and then spits it on the lab floor as the camera zooms in on it closely. This was graphic stuff for the early 1960s. Television prints of the film had to cut out these two scenes in order to be able to show the film on TV.

One unique aspect of the film is its unconventional ending. Normally the good-looking guy, in this case the mad doctor played by Evers, gets the girl and a happy ending occurs. In The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, it’s the monster that gets away with the girl, while the handsome man lies bleeding and dying in his laboratory. This is a bit more original than most conventional low-budget horror films.

If you ever find yourself in the same situation as the mad doctor in this film, I think it would be best just to go out and find yourself a new girlfriend. After all, why go through the trouble of sawing off the head of another woman just to use the body for your girlfriend’s head? Nature didn’t intend for heads to be replaced with different bodies, so why waste your time improving on nature? This is what makes the plot of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die so absurd, yet fun to watch. Keep the popcorn close by.

(This film can be viewed for free on Tubi, Amazon Prime, and other locations, including YouTube.

Review: Die, Monster Die!, with Boris Karloff

1964, 80 minutes, color, American International Pictures. Directed by Daniel Haller. Starring Boris Karloff as Nahum Witley, Nick Adams as Stephen Reinhart, Freda Jackson as Letitia Witley, Suzan Farmer as Susan Witley, Terrence De Marney as Merwyn and Patrick Magee as Dr. Henderson. Schlock-Meter rating: 4 stars out of 10.

Die, Monster, Die! is one of the more lackluster of AIP’s 1960s Poe/Lovecraft adaptations. The film is supposed to be based on a H.P. Lovecraft’s story Color of Our Space, but really bears no resemblance. There’s virtually no suspense in this slow-moving clinker, but a lot of unintentional laughs as mumbling Nick Adams arrives in England from America to visit his English girlfriend (Farmer) at her forbidding castle with her creepy parents (Karloff and Jackson). It seems that Father Witley (Karloff) has been conducting experiments with radioactive stones, with disastrous results.

The movie starts out with promise. Adams arrives in a small town and can find no one in a tiny English village who will take him to the Witley house. In fact, these villagers are downright rude to old Nick! So, he takes a long walk to the house, and there’s some good atmospheric scenes as Adams passes decayed forests, creepy fences, gates, and is watched by a specter in black. 

At the house, he’s greeted coldly by a forbidding Karloff, playing his role in a wheelchair. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, appears the bubbly Farmer, looking like she just stepped out of an AIP beach movie. She’s totally wrong for the part (there’s no way this vivacious blonde would be the daughter of the dour Karloff) and her presence kills the atmosphere and hope of sustained suspense. 

Director Haller, who does a competent if uninspired job, tries to substitute shocks for suspense, but even those are weak. Viewers are treated to a black, homicidal specter, hanging objects in the castle that are supposed to be scary, lots of fog, mutant plants, and radiation-mutated humans, including Mother Witley (Jackson) who for no reason turns maniac late in the film.

The best scene in the film shows a mutated tree attempting to encircle a surprised Farmer in his branches, but even that was done a lot better two decades later in Evil Dead.

Adams is also wrong for the part. He reminds me of a Marlon Brando wannabe. He would seem more comfortable battling Johnny Friendly on a loading dock than matching wits with mad scientist Boris Karloff. Karloff is fine, but isn’t really given much to do. He’s in a lot less scenes than Adams and he mostly whines, threatens or talks of his need to see his wife.

The final scene, where a green, ringing, radioactive Karloff character rises from his wheelchair and goes after Adams and Farmer is pure camp and will inspire a lot of chuckles from viewers. I imagine they used a double for the elderly Karloff in that scene.

Be forewarned: There’s no scares in Die, Monster, Die!, but if you are a fan of AIP horrors or Karloff, it will hold your interest, barely. You can watch it, as of April 10, 2021, on Amazon Prime and at Daily Motion. A trailer is on YouTube.

-- Doug Gibson