Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Brain That Wouldn't Die, The
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Brain That Wouldn't Die, The
Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: December 15th, 2015.
Director: Joseph Green
Cast: Jason Evers, Virginia Leith, Anthony La Penna
Year: 1962
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Cat fights! Cleavage! Decapitations and severed heads! A mad scientist and a creature locked behind a door in a secret lab! All this and more awaits you in… The Brain That Wouldn't Die! The subject of more 'public domain' releases than you can shake a stick at gets a proper, restored special edition Blu-ray release courtesy of Shout! Factory and really, it's a doozy.
When the movie begins, we meet Bill Cortner (Jason Evers), a handsome young doctor who, with some help from his surgeon father (Bruce Brighton), finishes up some successful brain surgery. He's ready to call it a day - his dad is splitting off to a medical conference and his fiancé, Jan Compton (Virginia Leath), is ready for fun. Unfortunately for Jan, Bill's idea of fun involves speeding up a tight, winding road and driving his car over a fence and down a steep hill. Bill comes out of it okay but Jan? She's decapitated in the accident.
Regardless, Bill is fairly nonplussed by all of this. He simply scoops up Jan's head and wraps it in his coat and walks the rest of the way to his secret cabin laboratory in the woods. Here he puts Jan's head in a pan and hooks it up to some goofy looking 'medical equipment' so that he can keep her head and brain alive until he can find a suitable replacement body. He does this by scoping out some cat fighting strippers, judging a bathing beauties competition and then eventually finding an old college friend of his who now makes her living as a studio model (watch for Sammy Petrillo, who played opposite the mighty Duke Mitchell in Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla to pop up in this scene!). But is Bill's science as mad as his lab assistant/human guinea pig Kurt (Anthony La Penna) believes it to be? With some help from the 'thing' kept locked behind a heavy door at the other end of the lab, Jan is going to find out.
Featuring some fast paced direction from Joseph Green, The Brain That Wouldn't Die (also known as The Head That Wouldn't Die) is pretty zany stuff and it also takes things into considerably more graphic territory than you might expect for a film shot in 1959 (it wasn't released until 1962 for that reason). We get some catty strippers with fantastic cleavage, some primitive gore, and heavy doses of both violence and lecherous behavior all in the name of science! It's pretty great stuff, there's never a dull moment here. Sure, the effects are creaky - it's obvious in more than one shot when a fake head is being used in place of Leath's actual head - but that doesn't take away from the movie's entertainment value in the least. The whole thing is delightfully lurid!
We get a pretty fun cast here too. Jason Evers, the doctor with 'a face a girl doesn't mind looking at' is obviously having a good time chasing the girls about here and if maybe he's a little tough to buy as a brilliant surgeon, he does the playboy thing well. Anthony La Penna is awesome as Kurt, the doctor's assistant who was also the recipient of a hand transplant gone wrong - he's all gimped out here and has some great, tortured dialogue. The real star, however, is Virginia Leath as 'Jan In The Pan.' When she tells Kurt “No, my deformed friend, like all quantities, horror has its ultimate, and I am that†she means it! Granted, she doesn't have much to do here outside of look annoyed by everything but she does it well and when she becomes increasingly unhinged as the movie progresses, her performance amps up accordingly.
Note that this version of the movie includes the brain surgery scene that was omitted from the last DVD release that Shout! Factory put out through Timeless Media (one their Movies 4 You collection).
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Brain That Wouldn't Die is presented on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory framed at 1.66.1 widescreen in AVC encoded 1080p high definition and while some of the compositions do look a little tight in spots, overall this is a really strong transfer. Contrast looks great, black levels are nice and strong and detail is consistently impressive. There is the occasional vertical scratch here and there but they're never particularly intrusive or distracting, while print damage is more or less held in check. Grain looks nice and natural here and there's good texture throughout.
The English language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono audio, which comes with optional English subtitles, is also quite good. Dialogue is always clean, clear and easy to understand and the levels are nicely balanced. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion here either.
The main extra on this disc is the inclusion of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that skewers The Brain That Wouldn't Die. Considered one of the series' more infamous episodes, it's a pretty fun extra if you don't need to take things too seriously. Lots of quality riffing on the movie here, it's quick witted and well-paced and generally just pretty funny stuff. This is in SD, as it was originally broadcast back in 1993. Here Mike Nelson enters the theater for the first time where he's subjected to the horror that is… The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
Additionally we get an audio commentary from Steve Haberman and Tony Sasso who do a pretty fine job of detailing the history of this particular film and offering up some critical thought and insight into what works and what doesn't. This hits the right mix of humor and legitimately interesting trivia and it's a well-paced, worthwhile commentary.
Rounding out the extras are a trailer for the feature, a still gallery, and maybe most important of all, some bonus nudity (just shy of ninety seconds worth of footage from a topless model shoot that was for the international cut of the movie)! Menus and chapter selection are also included on the disc.
The Final Word:
The Brain That Wouldn't Die is total B-movie bliss and Shout! Factory has done a fine job of rolling out the red carpet for this cult classic. The presentation is top notch, the extras plentiful and fun and the movie itself is still a kick more than a half a century since it was made.
-
#1paul h.woly bolyFind all postsView Profile01-07-2016, 10:02 AMEditing a commentThanks for the review! I'll probably pick this one up, but I wish shout products were a little cheaper. They have a bunch of releases that I want, but not at the price that they are charging.
-
#2Matt H.Senior MemberFind all postsView Profile01-07-2016, 12:20 PMEditing a commentDoes anyone know if the brain surgery scene was included on the Synapse DVD?
-
#3John BernhardSenior MemberFind all postsView Profile01-08-2016, 06:02 PMEditing a commentYes, Synapse had a complete source, and the Shout BD is the same content wise ( unlike the slightly shorter Timeless DVD from a couple years ago ).
Posting comments is disabled. -
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (271)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4162)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2512)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (298)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Film Masters
Released on: April 23rd, 2024.
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Richard Carlson, Juli Reding, Lugene Sanders, Susan Gordon
Year: 1963
Purchase From Amazon
Tormented – Movie Review:
The late Bert I. Gordon’s 1963 horror film, ‘Tormented,’ is an effectively spooky ghost story made with an obviously low budget but no less effective for it.
The story revolves around a professional piano player...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:19 AM -
-
Released by: Grindhouse Releasing
Released on: March 12th, 2024.
Director: William Grefé
Cast: William Shatner, Jennifer Bishop, Ruth Roman, Harold Sakata
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Impulse – Movie Review:
Directed by the one and only William Grefé, 1974’s Impulse is one of those rare films that allows you to witness what it would be like if a really sweaty William Shatner got mad at a lady carrying balloons. Before that...-
Channel: Movies
04-15-2024, 01:20 PM -
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Andrew Legge
Cast: Emma Appleton, Stefanie Martini, Rory Fleck Byrne
Year: 2022
Purchase From Amazon
Lola – Movie Review:
Irish filmmakers Andrew Legge’s 2022 movie, ‘Lola’, which was made during Covid-19 lockdowns, is a wildly creative movie made in the found footage style that defies expectations, provides plenty of food for thought and manages to make...-
Channel: Movies
04-10-2024, 04:09 PM -
-
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jess Franco, Jorge Grau, Pedro L. Ramírez
Cast: Alberto Dalbés, Evelyne Scott, Fernando Rey, Marisa Mell, Wal Davis, Norma Kastel
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Spanish Blood Bath – Movie Review:
Vinegar Syndrome brings a triple feature of Spanish horror films of the in this new three-disc Blu-ray boxed set. Here’s what lies inside…
Night Of The...-
Channel: Movies
04-10-2024, 04:02 PM -
-
Released by: Universal Studios
Released on: April 9th, 2024.
Director: Zelda Williams
Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Carla Gugino, Joe Chrest, Henry Eikenberry
Year: 2024
Purchase From Amazon
Lisa Frankenstein – Movie Review:
The feature-length directorial debut of Zelda Williams, 20214’s Lisa Frankenstein takes place in 1989 and follows a teenaged girl named Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) who, two years ago, lost her mother...-
Channel: Movies
04-03-2024, 03:40 PM -
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Gianfranco Giagni
Cast: Roland Wybenga, William Berger, Stéphane Audran
Year: 1988
Purchase From Amazon
Spider Labyrinth – Movie Review:
Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) is an American who works as a Professor of languages studies and has a fascination bordering on obsession with translating pre-Christian religious texts. He was also locked in a closet...-
Channel: Movies
04-03-2024, 03:37 PM -