Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.
As a fan of Mystery Science Theater, I’ve at least seen a version of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. Any dedicated fan of the show will tell you that it was Mike Nelson’s first film in the theater, the first episode after the departure of Joel. That’s all well and good, but I’d never seen this without the silhouettes at the bottom of the screen. I also evidently own two copies of it, one on a large collection of mostly crappy horror movies and one on a two-disc set. Why I would need two copies of this is, honestly, beyond me.
I can save everyone a lot of time by just stating that The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is the original recipe version of Frankenhooker, but that doesn’t quite do justice to the insanity of this film. Young doctor Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) is assisting his father (Bruce Brighton) in surgery. The patient dies on the table, but Bill believes he can revive him using unorthodox methods that he has developed in his off-hours research. He does, and while his father disapproves of his methods and the fact that Bill has evidently been stealing body parts to experiment on doesn’t affect his pride in his son saving a life that would have otherwise been lost. It’s also worth noting that Bill’s fiancée Jan Compton (Virginia Leith) works in the ER as a nurse because of course she does.
