The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958), dir. Will Cowan, Universal Pictures
The writing was on the wall for the Universal Monsters, but sometimes you can find some freedom when it doesn't matter anymore.
Way out in the California countryside, a bed and breakfast is struggling. The owner, Flavia (Peggy Converse) needs a bunch of things, water being one of them. Thankfully her niece has second sight. Using her dowsing rod, she fails to find a drop of water.
She does find a creepy looking and locked box. Judging from the writing, it's been there since the 16th Century. Naturally she wants to pop that sucker open and start counting the loot. One of her guests, Gordon Hawthorne (William Reynolds), is against it, arguing that the untampered box could be worth intact than broken.
Her foreman Boyd (James Anderson), agrees with Flavia, at least that there could be treasure and he ain't waiting for some pencilneck geek to snatch that treasure away to some measum; so he gets the dim witted handyman Mike (Charles Horvath) to pop that sucker open.
Hey, never hurts to have a patsy in case things go wrong, right?
And go wrong they do, as it turns out the box contains not treasure but the severed head of Gideon Drew (Robin Hughes). He's still alive too and most put out. Seems his delving into devil worship rubbed Sir Francis Drake the wrong way and he was beheaded.
The head orders Mike to off Boyd and start looking for the rest of him. He also takes control of guest Linda (Andra Martin) and has her stash his head in her closet.
With the head's power increasing, can Gordon and co. stop the undead fiend?
Interesting; in a wonderful twist Gideon stays silent. Usually, evil head can't stop chatting but it's a nice bit of realism which helps highlight the horror of everything.
I'd still suggest the MST3K version but the original version is still keen.
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