The Brain That Wouldn't Die

It's late night b-movie fun all the way with Joseph Green's vintage shocker 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die'. The story begins when the dubious Doctor Cortner crashes his car while speeding, while he is thrown free his passenger/fiance Jan is killed. As the car goes up in flames the good doctor grabs what he can, in this case his fiance's decapitated head, and legs it to his secret laboratory for some experimental fun.

A classic example of midnight movie, Brain will delight not only fans of this era but newcomers to the old school horror scene - in particular fans of the Re-Animator films will be pleasantly surprised to see where the series roots came from (And it's also very apt to note that Brain's DVD release like Re-Animator's DVD debut were both lovingly handled by Don May Jr).

The film moves along at a nice pace and like most films from this era is packed with loads of unintentional laughs throughout the movie. My own personal favorite being when one characters demise has them gurgling their bloody swan song death through several rooms for several minutes of the film (classic over the top performance!) and the cornball dialogue throughout is priceless also.

The real star of the show however is the performance by Virginia Leith as the disembodied head of Jan. Even with the restrictions of her role (jeez - a head on a table!!) she performs admirably and with conviction (which is helped by the great dialogue also).

The print used here is as good as you'll get, there are speckles and scratches throughout but this is purely down to the age and scarcity of a complete uncut print of this film. Oh yeah, did I forget to say, there is indeed some great restored bloody footage for all you completists viewing pleasure - nice one ! But apart from the occasional scratch and speckle the image is nice and clear with strong contrast throughout.

The extras are very limited, but that's not really a problem. You get a nice trailer for the flick and an even nicer photo gallery which has some really cool promo shots in it which would have had the punters queing down the street to see this oldie but goodie gem. And Bryan Senn provides some very informative liner notes that provide interesting background detail to the production itself.

So, fans of the old horror/fantasy films and curious Re-Animator groupies really shouldn't pass this one up. A nice slice of 50's midnight movie and a welcome bloody restoration by Synapse - check it out !!