A few weeks ago, I saw the film noir classic, Laura for the first time. It is probably the film that Dana Andrews is best known for but I know him better for a handful of science fiction and horror films he made in the 1960’s. My favorite of these is a British film called The Frozen Dead.
The Frozen Dead is, in my opinion, the greatest severed head movie ever made. Yes, it has Nazis and a mad scientist but the severed head is the real reason to watch this movie. I was in high school when I saw it for the first time. A local channel ran a Creature Feature late on Friday nights and this was one of the films in their collection. I saw it for the first time and was hooked. It tells the story of a German scientist who has frozen Nazis with the intent of bringing them back to life. His niece and a female friend from school come to visit. The scientist’s mad assistant chops of the friend’s head because they need a brain for their experiments. They keep the whole head alive in a box on a table in the lab. The head on the table is the whole reason to watch this movie. The brain of the head is exposed and there are tubes with liquid connected to the head. In most of the scenes where they show the head, it is dimly lit giving each scene an eerie feel. The head communicates telepathically with the niece but it also speaks the words in a near whisper. The laboratory also has a wall of severed arms that the head can control. Of course, the Nazis get beat at the end and the niece hooks up with the young scientist who saves the day. The film ends with the couple trying to figure out what to do with the head as it speaks the most memorable line, “Bury me!”
Dana Andrews plays the German scientist. He is about a scary as any mad scientist in most movies with mad scientists. Now the head in the box is scary. Don’t confuse it with the head on the table in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. That’s another fun scary film but the head isn’t nearly as scary.
