"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.

Not quite as awful as the 2.8 rating suggests but it's still not a good movie let alone a great one. There are moments certainly, there's a spooky music score, Andra Martin is an appealing enough female lead, Robin Hughes is appropriately menacing and the head effects are okay. Unfortunately that is pretty much it for the halfway decent moments. The rest of the effects are substandard at best, and the other production values don't fare that much better with spare settings and barely competent photography. The less said about the dialogue the better, a lot of it was very stilted and often difficult to understand in terms of clarity. There is a campiness to the goings on and to the rather thin and dully paced story. And sadly what was meant as a horror-thriller is lacking in any thrills or scares, it's all predictable, dull and unintentionally funny. Martin and Hughes are the only decent actors here too, the rest are terrible, the worst offenders being Carolyn Kearney who embarrassingly overacts and Peggy Converse who is just as obnoxious with a voice that really grates on the ears. Overall, pretty bad but not completely terrible, there's worse out there. 4/10 Bethany Cox

The Thing That Couldn't Die takes place on the California coast several centuries apart. The film concerns Satan worship and what Sir Francis Drake did about it on his round the world voyage which some have said made him the first European to see the coast of California.

Where today Andra Martin resides on Aunt Peggy Converse's ranch with plans to marry boyfriend William Reynolds. She's a girl with psychic gifts and feels something evil on the ranch.

The evil is a head and body buried in separate places some 300 years earlier by Sir Francis Drake who discovered one of his crew Robin Hughes in league with the Devil and worshiping him on the ship. Besides being a daring sailor and privateer without peer, Sir Francis Drake was a thoroughgoing Protestant and champion of the Reformation. He has Hughes executed by decapitation and as they do in these movies say if head and body are joined Hughes will rise again and lead the forces of darkness.

Well the skull is found and the head of Hughes is intact and forcing several people on the ranch to his will once they see him. Two deaths occur before Good does triumph over Evil.

This is a decent horror film although the Seventies spawned a slew devil worship films and compared to those bloody things this one is mild. But the atmosphere created is good and murky. I only wish Robin Hughes had a bit more to do. His character was a rich one and I'll bet that since this film only runs 69 minutes a lot of him was left on the cutting room floor.

Fans of the spooky horror genre will like The Thing That Couldn't Die.