The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

directed by Joseph Green

USA

82 minutes

3 stars out of 5

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A note - there apparently is an "uncut" version of this that differs from the more readily available release only in the inclusion of a single scene, and I'm not sure whether the version I watched was cut or uncut. Either way, a single non-plot-relevant scene cut only for gore doesn't really change the impression the whole film makes, and while I always go out of my way to ensure completeness when I watch something, in this case I don't think it was too big of a deal.

So this is a bit of a cult classic that's typically associated with the ranks of cheesy sci-fi/horror films from the 1950s and '60s, but it has a weird stoicism to it that made it feel a little different from the lurid, bombastic titles of the era. Every character seems to practically be sleepwalking through the story, and for some reason that feels vaguely unsettling. The plot concerns a pioneering and super morally gross doctor who manages to save his wife Jan's head - and only her head - after a would-be fatal car wreck. It's most likely the fault of a mixture of bad acting with a sub-par script that we don't get a real picture of the doctor's personality, so he's not developed in a way that would make us feel sympathy or even revulsion towards him. He never shows any emotional depth, he's just always 100% committed to doing whatever he plans to do with no show of actually desiring or not desiring to do it. Obviously he's driven by a motive - getting his wife a new hot bod - but it just doesn't feel like he is. Him, and everyone around him, carry out their lot in life as if there never existed any other thing to do. This is why the movie has some very slightly off vibe to it.

It also feels somehow very sleazy and very tame at the same time. The main character doesn't just want a new body for his wife's severed head - he wants the best one, which seems to him to mean the sexiest one. Despite this, as a character he feels deeply sexless and disinterested. He attends strip clubs and stalks women who pose in lingerie for photographers, but does so with neither desire nor disdain. This all comes off as arrogance, really; in addition to the sheer hubris that he demonstrates by messing around with the touted "natural order of things", his assumption that he can go out and shop for women like picking up and squeezing avocados in a supermarket, and then manipulate them into coming back to his lab and detaching their heads from their bodies, speaks to a deep and somewhat terrifying center-of-the-universe mindset. Another review pointed out that Jan is absolutely caked in makeup, which Dr. Cortner would have had to apply himself - this is of course explained in reality by nothing more than the filmmakers abhorring the possibility of a woman onscreen with no makeup, but in-universe, it's a great example of how Cortner's real focus is on making sure his wife's appearance is preserved for him.

Far and away the best thing about The Brain That Wouldn't Die is the brain that wouldn't die. When you think about it, it should really be the head that wouldn't die, as said brain remains inside its native skull for the whole film. (But then, when you think about it, all any of us are is a brain.) This is my favorite part of the movie because this is where a kind of cosmic horror comes in that is only there because the film seems wholly unconcerned with explaining literally anything. For reasons never elaborated upon, detaching Jan's head from her body and hooking it up to various burbling test tubes and liquids grants her inhuman powers. Separated from her body, and in spite of a lack of appendages or even the ability to turn around on her own, Jan is able to communicate telepathically with the film's second horror, a mangled, barely-living failed experiment that got shoved in a closet because what else do you do with science experiments that are both A. horrible failures, and B. equipped with the ability to rend you apart. They share a common interest, which is a strong wish for revenge on the scientists who caused them to remain alive after they should have died. The idea that a brain untethered from a body could have some kind of latent, super-powerful psychic ability is downright Lovecraftian; a "forbidden knowledge" kind of concept that I really love despite it residing in a sub-par movie such as this.

I think medical horror surrounding the removal of one's agency against one's will is inherently more real and uncomfortable than a lot of other horror because it is a reality for a lot of people. Anybody who's ever had to go to a doctor is left without a choice other than to put your whole life in the hands of someone who is, at the end of the day, just some guy. We hope they'll be upstanding people with a genuine desire to help you, but often they have their own ideas of how your body should work that don't fit with your own lived experiences. Nobody's ever gotten their head cut off and reanimated for hubris reasons by a shady doctor in real life, but movies like this are only a slight fantasy - an extension of a valid and palpable real-life fear.