My take: Just a terrible film. I recommend only watching the MST3K version of this movie.

Rating: 1 out of 4 stars

Was schlock a word that was commonly used in the early sixties? Regardless, I am attributing that word to this film: it was pure schlock.

The film is about a doctor who is driven to experiment with transplants, even if he must experiment on patients and with discarded limbs from the hospital where he works. When driving to check on one of his “experiments” with his doting fiancé, he careens off the road and his girl is severely injured.

So what does he do? He somehow chops off her head and carries it back to his countryside laboratory. He hooks some wires to it and places it in pan of liquid, and lo and behold! Her head lives and somehow speaks despite the lack of lungs.

brain that wouldn't die

It’s not just a brain that won’t die, it’s a whole head. I guess that wasn’t as good of a title.

The young doctor then must go out in search of a body, which is truthfully my favorite part of the film. Cheesy, porn-style music plays as he goes to questionable establishments as he looks for a replacement body for his fiancé. It so bad and so over-the-top, it is downright funny.

This film is bad enough, in fact, that it has its own Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) episode. I recommend watching the MST3K episode instead of watching the Brain That Wouldn’t Die without the witty commentary.

If you insist on watching it, I found it on Amazon Prime’s instant video service. Also, here is the trailer so you can see how terrible it really is: