everything you have heard about this movie is true.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

When a group of people farming on their land stumble upon a mysterious crate buried in the ground, the removal of the object causes them to stumble onto the terrifying truth about it's contents when a body-less head starts running around the estate.This was a pretty entertaining effort that has some good things to it that make it feel a lot better than it really should. The main thing here is the fact that the killer head is the main villain in this one, but rather than have him be the bloodthirsty creature he should be this one has him hypnotize those around him to do his dirty work so he can get his body back, and the film's decision to feature the hypnotized interacting with the unaffected others makes for some creepy scenes they attempt to manipulate them even further unwittingly towards the goal, and it's quite tense and creepy during these scenes. Also quite creepy are the scenes out in the cemetery where they unearth the crate in the darkness which feel quite like typical Gothic set-pieces that drive the creepiness up some, as well as the finale which generate some rather intense action scenes with the reanimated body running around make for some great thrills. It does take a while to start up here as the head doesn't get loose until quite late in the film for a quickie of this type, and some of the effects themselves look quite cheap, but the main problem is a rather disjointed storyline that never really makes a lot of sense overall as it careens between several different plot points that are interconnected through quite thin margins, making this somewhat flawed but overall enjoyable.Today's Rating-PG: Violence.

I love this movie. Even though I rated it a "4", that's because the acting, the plot and the budget were all slated to the "B" universe even before this movie was released. But that's OK! It is an entertaining film that has a lot to offer! I remember what Leonard Maltin said about "Plan 9 From Outer Space": a film so bad that it's great! Lacking the UFO - alien plot, The Thing the Couldn't Die relies on the supernatural (divination, a buried head looking for it's body, hypnosis, etc) to tell it's story. The acting is stilted, the camera work second class and the settings are limited, but boy! what a movie! This film is available in the bootleg market. If you find a copy, buy it!

If you ever visited Shenandoah Acres as a child and wondered, could there be a worse vacation spot in the world? Well, you could have watched this movie and had your answer. Flavia (a.k.a. Fistula) Macintyre's dude ranch is often frequented by business casual Gordon, at least since resident water witch, Jessica, was 13. But Jessica can find much more than fresh spring water with that divining rod – buried "tray-shure," lost jewelry, dead bodies, even a talisman that will keep her from dressing like a slut and raising drinks with a phony beat and a Suzanne Pleshette look-alike while hypnotized by a disembodied head. Evil, evil evil.

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.