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Brain That Wouldn't Die/Amazin

Brain That Wouldn't Die/Amazin

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Funny B-Movie!
Review: I first became aware of this film when it was featured on the show "Mystery Science Theater 3000". I figured that I would buy this film on it's own and check it out. While I can't say that the film is excellent, I do have to give it four stars for its ability to throw something different your way.

The story revolves around an experimental doctor who feels that he can either create new body parts and/or creatures. When his fiancee is tragically decapitated in an accident, the doctor is so distraught that he chooses to keep her head alive in some sort of pool of liquid and hooked up to numerous wires and things that buzz. He then sets out to find a "donor" body for his fiancee so they can be together again. However, his fiancee feels betrayed that he would keep her alive in this fashion. She plots with a creature the doctor has created and has kept hidden to destroy the horror she and many others have been involved in.

While the actual plot seems really far-fetched and a bit silly, I think this is a pretty decent film (according to B-movie standards). I think that if you are in the mood for an old horror movie that's not really scary or disturbing, but will give you a good laugh and make you think, "What was that," this is the film for you!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BEWARE THE THING IN THE CLOSET!!!!
Review: I loved this movie as a kid! Scared the be-jesus out of me! After his fiancee loses her head in an automobile accident, a mad scientist keeps it alive in a roasting pan, complete with succulent juices! In his search for the perfect body with which he hopes to re-attach the head, we are treated to a cat-fight by some pretty voluptuous strippers, and introduced to a "thing in a closet" that has a telepathic link with the head. Jan, as the head is known, conspires with the closet monster to exact revenge on hubby-to-be for keeping her alive as some sort of freak. ALL HELL breaks loose when the "thing" in the closet escapes, rips the arm off of the scientist's assistant, and bites a plug of flesh from the mad doctor! SYNAPSE has done a very good job in its presentation of this sci-fi "classic"! Buy today and enjoy!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Really Scary
Review: I never saw this one as a kid. I'm not sure how I missed it, but I'm glad I did. It's scary as hell. The photography quality is awfull, the acting is what you would expect, but it comes across as a cross between a film noir ,an old dracula flick, and the 1930's Blue Angel. Excellent for a dark night.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Scared stiff as a child!
Review: I was and still am a horror film buff and I saw this movie when I was about 10. It scared the living daylights out of me. I just ordered it and can hardly wait to see why I thought it was so scary! I vividly remember the talking head wrapped in what seemed like a nun's white headpiece, and also when a man's arm gets ripped off by the monster hidden in the locked room. The smeared bloody wall was really gory for those days! The Blind Dead & The Crawling Hand scared me even more as a child and I was laughing so hard recently when I purchased & watched them. I hope The Brain That Wouldn't Die isn't that bad from what I remember!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What Childhood Dreams Were Made Of
Review: I watched A LOT of horror flicks on TV as a kid growing up in the early 70s, and this one was always one of my favorites! This movie is what a cheap horror movie should be. The (unintentional) laughs never end. The sleaziness is wrought to perfection. The sets are as cheap as they come.
It's like I always say, there are two kinds of people in this world: people who hate movies like this and people who can't live without them. There's no in-between. At least not in my world.
I can't live without this movie and all the other 50s gems like it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the most important films of all time...
Review: If my opinion counts for anything, I found this to be an exceptional film. Intentional or not, the film's low quality production is quite ironic and has the effect of drawing the viewer into and analysis of content rather than form. The story, which other reviewers have described in good detail, is an allegory of the male seeking hopelessly to control and objectify the body of a female. The dark and unseen creature in the closet is the id, beyond suppression, always near escape. The semiotics are almost too self evident to be coincidence, and there is a lot more to this story that I can cover in a brief right-up. The jazz sound track is subtle and creepy, and reminiscent of David Lynch. The nihilistic ending is unlike any other film of this type, or any other film of this time period, for that matter. Far ahead of it's time, and unfortunately still too sophisticated for contemporary viewers, The Brain That Wouldn't Die is one of those rare gems that will only divulge it's secret genius to those who are willing listen.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I'm confused
Review: If the product is "Brain That Wouldn't Die/Amazin" why is there a cover for "Chained Heat 3: Hell Mountain"?

Anyway, as for the movie "Brain That Wouldn't Die," it's not even a particularly great MST3K episode (well, it's decent), let alone movie.

Never saw Amazin.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The movie that wouldn't end
Review: If you are into cult films - especially B flicks from the 50's and 60's this is a must see DVD. It's infamous among psychotronic film fans. Alternates between unintentionally surreal and hilarious. Very grisly for its time, especially an inexplicably long, rather sickening scene (even by today's standards) toward the end of the film. The film is quite competently made, given its $100,000(!) budget.

Shot a few years before the first successful heart transplant in 1967, the plot involves a doctor experimenting with organ transplant surgery who - darn the luck, just can't seem to get it right. Each attempt results in horrible mutations. (I wonder if Dr. Christiaan Barnard ran into these problems...) Along the way, two 50's era strippers catfight, there's a verbose silly severed head that was once attached to the good doctor's fiance, a campy "camera club" cheesecake scene (the lengths men would go to at that time...), and a grotesque mutant kept in a broom closet - all set in that strange bygone era of the late 50's.

Bizarro cult film fun. In some ways ahead of its time - a precursor, perhaps inspiration, for Reanimator. A true classic of its type. That "type" being extrordinarily nutty flicks.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful
Review: If you haven't seen this you can't call yourself a sci-fi B fan. The excentric scientist, the severed head, the mysterious 'thing' in the closet; all the elements neccessary for true camp. Even 7 minutes of a man running around with a bloody stump where his arm used to be without dying or going into shock. Simply beautiful.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BRAVO SYNAPSE....
Review: If you're in the right mood, this movie is sidesplitingly funny. Otherwise, it's still wonderfully weird. When his girlfriend dies in a car wreck that he caused, the guilt ridden plastic surgeon Dr.Cortner saves her head (her body burned up) and takes it to his secret lab. There he attaches tubes etc. to it and feeds it the secret formula he has made and keeps it alive much to the chagrin of his assistant who has a withered arm. The head (Virginia Leith) begins telepathically communicating with a "thing" kept locked in a closet (a failed experiment) also to the assistant's aggravation. Meanwhile, the doctor has promised her a new body so he sets out to find one. But Leith just wants to die so she plots revenge with the "thing". Dr.Cortner goes to a sleazy "body beautiful" contest, then an even sleazier strip club where two strippers get in a catfight over him (a memorable sequence) and finally to a figure model. She has the right bod but a scar on her face he promises to fix. Meanwhile, the assistant has had it so he begins taunting the "thing" until it reaches out and rips the good arm off of him! The doc brings the model home and drugs her. But before he can he can get started with the surgery, the head compels the "thing" to break out of the closet and chew the doc's neck apart (yes, we're talking b&w gore here as with the arm business) and it carries the model to safety when a fire breaks out. At last the head has found peace. Now, what we have here is a film with a budget so low a roach couldn't crawl under it. But, oddly enough, it works and is the textbook example of "guilty pleasure". The acting is nil however Leith gives her role an uncomfortable edge by actually being believable (as far as disembodied heads go) and her telecommunication with the "thing" is well done. It knocks back at her when it understands. Kind've creepy. This is a "sleaze" movie nonetheless but it has an endearing quality to it that makes it enjoyable. Much thanks to Synapse for restoring it so well on DVD. Leith was a rising starlet just three years before this was made having starred with Robert Wagner in "A Kiss Before Dying" and other films. How she ended up in "Brain" (and it ever got made in the first place) is anybody's guess. But I like it.


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