Mount Pleasant Magazine Sept/Oct 2016

have to give my mother credit

for having a nose for the delightfully macabre.

This delight led her – and, eventually, me – to

“The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” a low-budget

film from 1961 about a mad doctor/scientist

who, following a car accident, takes his fiancee’s

decapitated head and keeps it alive, with sinister

consequences. Although the film didn’t receive the best re-

views in its day, it did gain a cult

following of people like me and

my mom who love it for its sheer weirdness. Now, writer

and Mount Pleasant resident Bruce Bernhard, who recently

bought the rights to the film, is retelling the story in a darkly

comedic musical that we’re all sure to lose our heads over.

Bernhard, who has worked on Hollywood horror

scripts for the last 15 years and recently relocated to the

Lowcountry, said the film appealed to him and “begged to

be re-imagined.”

“The film had no empathetic characters, so we had to

create one,” he mused. “We did that by establishing a love

story. We also established new characters.”

Bernhard explained that the musical, unlike its film

predecessor, will be decidedly more lighthearted and have

a happy ending. One of the new characters, for example,

is the doctor’s best friend, Morty, a “skirt chaser” in the

words of Bernhard, who wants to put the head on a

cheerleader’s body.

Although Bernhard purchased the rights to the origi-

MindGames

East Cooper Residents Launch

a Landmark Musical

Artwork courtesy of Linda Eisen.

By DEnisE K. JaMEs