The Thing with Two Heads

“They Share the Same Body …  But Hate Each Other’s Guts!!”

What happens when a rich white racist has his head surgically transplanted onto the body of a burly Black convict and they proceed to terrorize the world on a dirt bike? So glad you asked! In The Thing with Two Heads, Blaxploitation meets “Extra Head Horror” when a racist brain surgeon (played by screen legend Ray Milland) discovers he’s dying and cooks up what is surely one of the dumbest ideas ever imagined – he’ll transplant his head onto the body of a healthy donor, which will allow him to continue his ridiculous head transplant experiments unabated. Unfortunately, when he wakes up after the surgery, he’s horrified to discover that his cranky, bigoted, white man head has been stitched onto the body of a large Black man (played by football star Rosey Grier), who has agreed to be the guinea pig for this highly ridiculous experiment in exchange for a full release from prison. Naturally, hijinks ensue as the double-headed monster runs amuck battling the cops, debating racial politics and even participating in an impromptu dirt bike race!  Can the two heads learn to live in perfect harmony, or is one of the heads destined for the dustbin? While there have been many silly sights in the history of bad movies, the image of Academy Award-wining thespian Ray Milland’s head bickering with Rosey Grier about race relations is a true jaw-dropper. Add to that an over-abundance of Dukes of Hazzard-style car crashes and hillbilly sheriffs, some unsubtle sexual innuendo about two men sharing the same body and some highly unconvincing “mannequin head” SFX, and you’ve got yourself a bad movie tsunami of epic proportions! (Dir. by Lee Frost, 1972, USA, 93 mins., Rated PG)