Product Description

Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 04/25/2000

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8747 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-04-25
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
Mystery Science Theater 3000 experienced a changing of the guard with this fifth-season episode. Departed series creator and lead Joel Hodgson was replaced by head writer Mike Nelson, playing a hapless temp named... Mike Nelson, who was sent into space to cover for Hodgson's escape. The opening credit sequence and title theme (warbled by Nelson) were also new, but the show's basic premise--poking fun at atrocious B movies--remained the same.

Nelson's debut "experiment" is the delirious 1960 head-transplant horror The Brain That Wouldn't Die. And while Nelson is occasionally stiff, particularly during the invention exchange (a longtime Hodgson staple, and soon to be excised), he and robot pals Crow and Tom Servo rise to the occasion during the film, which is filled with memorable zingers (Crow: "He's keeping her alive with Grey Poupon!"). Rhino's DVD presents the uncut, slightly gory version of Brain with and without the MST3K treatment. --Paul Gaita

From the Back Cover
It's Mystery Science Theater 3000, America's only show that makes fun of really bad B movies from the comfort of a spaceship floating above Earth. Mike Nelson, along with his mechanical companions, wisecracking Crow and well-read chick magnet Tom Servo, make suffering through Hollywood's worst films a breeze. Adding their own dialogue, barrage of witty remarks, and an occasional colorful skit, they next hour and a half will fly by like it were only 90 minutes. There's no ushers with flashlights, crying babies, or women with big hair to spoil the fun. It's Mike Nelson's voyage on The Satellite of Love, and boy does his crew have a girl for him in The Brain that Wouldn't Die. Unfortunately, she's only a head, but you know what they say, sometimes you have to do things just to get "a head" in this world (har, har). This story finds a young doctor climbing back to his wrecked car only to discover his fiancie has been decapitated. Scooping up her noggin like a linebacker and running off, Crow blurts out "He's at the 20. He's at the 10. No one will catch him." Then later in this flick, as our leading lady floats in a tray of magical life-sustaining liquid, Tom Servo remarks, "Look. She makes her own gravy." If that wasn't enough, don't miss the onboard interview between our three pals and the decapitated diva. It's a hoot!

Customer Reviews

We've got Movie Sign...for *two* versions of "The Brain"!
[This is a review of the DVD version] If you love old bad SF movies but haven't ever seen them given the Mystery Science Theater treatment, you owe it to yourself to pick up this DVD! Mike Nelson and his robot pals Crow and Tom Servo watch this relentlessly silly turkey of a movie (a scientist saves the severed head of his girlfriend and puts her in a pan, where she pleads with him to let her die. How sloppily-put-together is this film? The filmmakers apparently forgot their own title and call it "The Head That Wouldn't Die" in the end credits.)--and throughout the entire film, Tom and the `bots mercilessly riff on the film with funny comments and jokes that'll have you rolling in your seats. Long a staple of Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel, this is one of the first DVDs of this classic comedy series (many others are available on VHS). In addition to the pristine and clear picture you get with DVD, Rhino has also included the full *original* version of "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" on the flip-side of the disc so you can see it without Mike and the `bots (to riff on your own, perhaps?). The DVD menus are innovative and worth checking out just for the clever swish-pan of the bridge of the Satellite of Love (Crow, Servo, and Gypsy flash past us). If I had any quibble at all it's a minor one... why is the DVD chapter that begins the film entitled "It's Movie Time!" when every MSTie knows it should be "We've got Movie Sign!"? But I'll put up with minor problems like that as long as Rhino continues to give us these great reissues of classic MST3K episodes. Now if they'd only release "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and "Outlaw"... (Also recommended in this series: the DVD version of "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Eegah.")

So bad it's great!
I first saw this movie when I was in the 4th grade or thereabouts, and it scared the living bejesus out of me.

But what do you know when you're in the 4th grade?

Now that MST3K has reissued this movie and I've watched it perhaps 10 times, I laugh all the way through it. The dialogue is awful. The basic plot recalls countless puns about folks who lose their heads and flash-in-the-pan actresses. Mad Scientist Bill Courtner's girlfriend has lost hers in a fiery car crash ("Honey roasted," comments one of Mike's companions). Obsessed scientist that he is, he keeps her head alive in a lasagna pan full of "adreno-serum" in the basement laboratory of his country place. She says, "Let me die!" enough times that you're ready to oblige her, then strikes up a liaison, sort of, with the thing that lives in Bill's closet--the product of an earlier experiment that went awry. (When Bill looks in the closet, you're dying to hear, "Omygawd, it's Rosanne!" but Mike's pals missed that one.) The scene in the seedy strip club sends me into hysterics. Best line here, robot Crow observing one of the girls: "I must have blood before the night is done!"

There are some godawful blunders. For example, the scene in which Bill enters the country place with a new girlfriend follows very closely after his assistant Curt's having stumbled around the same room bleeding profusedly from ... shall we say, a farewell-to-arms type encounter with the thing in the closet. So where's all the blood?

The ending is a bit gory (though tame by today's standards). The thing in the closet certainly wins the ugly award for that year. But when he/it turns away toward the stairwell after making mayhem starting a fire in the lab and taking a bite out of poor Bill's throat, we see another ghastly flaw: you can actually see where the mask is tied on at the back of the actor's head! Now THAT's funny!

Not to mention how Bill's old girlfriend, still in her pan at the end, manages to laugh without the benefit of chest, diaphragm or lungs. (I forgot, she has neck juice.)

Incidentally, in my version the end credits also screw up the title, calling it The HEAD That Wouldn't Die.

Mike and his robots' running commentary, though, offers nonstop comedy you can enjoy over and over again. I haven't been panning this movie. (Sorry!) Four stars for amusement value.

Steven Yates

Mike's maiden voyage on MST3K left me in tears
The usual tale of the mad scientist, or in this case doctor attempting to revive the dead. He proves that he has the technology to do the deed. Despite the warning of his famous neurosurgeon father, Dr. Evil decides to finally introduce his girlfriend to his project. On the drive there, he speeds...gets in a wreck...she is decapitated...he retrives her head and runs through the woods to his workshop, head in hand. He keeps her head alive in some "neck juice", until he can find a body to attach her to. Dr. Evil cases the strip clubs and eventually finds the right body. He brings a babe back to his hideout, drugs her, and if it were not for his failed experiment in the closet, which amazingly resembles "Chunk" from the Goonies....well, you get the idea.

This was Mike Nelson's first MST3K and everybody kept calling him everything but his name. At first it was annoying, but as these shows usually go, I eventually laughed until I cried. This was one of the funniest MST's I have ever seen. Mike and the robots were right on cue with their insults and there were no low or slow points, which is unusual for this show.

The DVD offered the movie without the gang, a cool MST3K sticker, and the bonus material is Rhino's usual worthless promotions...no real bonus. Despite the lack of cool stuff on the DVD, it is worth buying for the sheer hilarity.