The Brain That Wouldn't Die

Science-Fiction, Horror

Dr. Bill Cortner saves a patient who had been pronounced dead, but the senior surgeon, Bill's father, condemns his son's unorthodox methods and theories of transplanting.

While driving to his family's country house, Bill and his beautiful fiancée Jan Compton become involved in a car accident that decapitates her. Bill recovers her severed head and rushes to his country house basement laboratory.

He and his crippled assistant Kurt revive the head in a liquid-filled tray. But Jan's new existence is agony, and she begs Bill to let her die. He ignores her pleas, and she grows to resent him.

Bill decides to commit murder to obtain a body for Jan. He hunts for a suitable specimen at a burlesque nightclub, on the streets, and at a beauty-contest. Jan begins communicating telepathically with a hideous mutant, an experiment gone wrong, locked in a laboratory cell.

When Kurt leaves a hatch in the cell door unlocked, the monster grabs and tears off Kurt's arm. Kurt dies from his injuries.

Bill lures an old girlfriend, figure-model Doris Powell, to his house, promising to study her scarred face for plastic surgery. He drugs her and carries her to the laboratory. Jan protests Bill's plan to transplant her head onto Doris's body. He tapes Jan's mouth shut.

When Bill goes to quiet the monster, it grabs Bill through the hatch and breaks the door from its hinges. Their struggles set the laboratory ablaze.

The monster, a seven-foot giant with a horribly deformed head, bites a chunk from Bill's neck. Bill dies, and the monster carries the unconscious Doris to safety.

As the lab goes up in flames, Jan says "I told you to let me die". The screen goes black, followed by Jan's maniacal cackle, welcoming her long-awaited death. (Wikipedia)

Movie Info

Starring: Jason Evers, Virginia Leith, Bruce Brighton, Adele Lamont, Eddie Carmel
Directed by: Joseph Green
Written by: Rex Carlton, Joseph Green

Produced by: Rex Carlton, Mort Landberg
Cinematography: Stephen Hajnal
Edited by: Leonard Anderson, Marc Anderson
Music by: Abe Baker, Tony Restaino

Production company: Rex Carlton Productions
Distributed by: American International Pictures
Release date: May 3, 1962

Running time: 71 minutes (theatrical), 82 minutes (uncut)
Country: United States
Language: English