The Thing That Couldn't Die

Yes,the movie is not a piece of art but the first time I watched it I was 10 years old,my parents were out and I stayed home with my two brothers.It was May 1970(I know that because I found a note about the cycle of horror movies that one network had).It's one of the most vivid memories I have with the guys.We ended all in one bed and covered up to the head! Our very first horror movie! We kept talking about it for years and laughing about the moment.Those were horror movies.Nowadays horror movies are always the same.Or was it better when we were kids enjoying without analyzing the plot and the cast and the dialogs? Most sure it was that.But for me this is a great movie!

Pretty scary to me when I saw it as a kid, and then I thought it was quite interesting when seen on AMC (yes, on AMC) a couple of years ago. The premise is a good one, disembodied living head of centuries old warlock is dug up and exerts mind control over all, while looking for it's body. It has quite a nice, sudden ending that reminded me of Hitchcock (not in style, only in the fact that it ended rather unexpectedly - for an example, see Family Plot again) but with a neat anticlimax, one that predates the typical anticlimax of modern fright films. I won't spoil it by telling it, but if you can see this film and remember that it was made in 1958, then you'll enjoy it. If your idea of what's scary is Alien, or anything after that, then forget it, you'll probably be bored or laugh inappropriately. Not that Alien isn't scary, but that's a whole different generation of horror.

This 1950's B-flick falls under the "it's so bad that it's good" movie category.

I watched this picture numerous times as a kid on t.v. and hadn't seen it in years when I lucked out and caught it on American Movie Classics a few years back.

Time had not changed the cheesiness of the plot, or the terrible acting by most of the lead actors, but who cares? This movie was made in the 1950's, when cheesy horror and sci-fi movies were all the rage.

The plot revolves around a psychic young woman, Jessica, (portrayed by Carolyn Kearney, who wildly over acts in every scene she's in) who discovers an ancient chest buried on her Aunt's ranch. The chest contains the severed head of Gideon Drew (Robin Hughes), who was put to death several centuries earlier for satanism. Drew wants his head to be reunited with his body, and hey, who can blame him? There are several hilarious scenes of Drew's head being carried all over the ranch by the ranch's imbecile ranch hand Mike, as well as the head being hid in a hat box, etc. Can you stand it? They just don't make movies like this anymore.

I love everything about this movie, from start to finish! It's not scary, just fun.

Jessica (Carolyn Kearney) has the power of divination, the young woman using a dowsing rod to locate water and long lost objects, such as the still-living severed head of Gideon Drew (Robin Hughes), a man executed for sorcery 400 years earlier. Unearthed, the head uses its 'evil eye' to control people to try and find its missing body.

To be honest, The Thing That Couldn't Die is a fairly bad film, too uneventful and sluggish for the most part to be an effective horror. That said, the basic premise is wonderfully inventive and suitably ghoulish, and those scenes that do feature the severed head, silently mouthing his commands, are actually very creepy. Kearney is also a good reason to watch the film - she's very appealing and it's a wonder why I haven't sought out more of her work (so far, the only other thing I've seen her in has been an episode of The Twilight Zone).

The head is finally reunited with its body, but, within minutes, the film ends, Gideon Drew quickly reduced to a pile of bones by an ancient amulet. Just as it was getting good...

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

"The Thing that Couldn't Die" actually turned out to be a very pleasant surprise! I was expecting a totally cheap, insignificant and rather silly Z-grade horror flick, but what I got was … Well, I got a totally cheap, insignificant and rather silly Z-grade horror flick, but one that was vastly more entertaining than I thought! The film has a compelling plot, albeit familiar and simplistic, and the atmosphere and special effects are far more unsettling and spooky that I expected for a camp 50's flick like this. Jessica is a shy but beautiful young girl with psychic powers who lives on the Californian guest ranch of her aunt. With her dowsing rod she discovers an antique chest buried deep underneath a tree. Jessica feels that the content of the chest is evil, but her aunt and all the guests at the ranch insist on opening it anyway. The chest contains the bodiless head of a medieval Satanist, and it promptly possesses some of the guest with his penetrating eyes and hypnotizing powers. The head naturally wants to recover its body, which is buried elsewhere on the premises, in order to continue his evil Satan-worshiping activities. Particularly the scenes with the head are effectively creepy and atmosphere. Whether carried by a minion or stored in a hat-box, the head is scary! The actor depicting the head also looks a lot like Vincent Price. The makers of this cheap flick perhaps couldn't afford to hire Vincent Price, but at least they understood that the role required loads of evil charisma and thus opted for the Argentinian born lookalike Robin Hughes. Furthermore the film contains a couple of admirable footnotes, like for example a link with the famous naval commander Sir Francis Drake, and a reasonably good pacing. And, oh yeah, the ending is downright hilarious! This film has the biggest "What … that's it?!?" climax in the history of cinema. Turns out "the thing that couldn't die" dies pretty easily after all.