"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.
Review of The Thing That Couldn't Die
