Villain(s)  Undead sorcerer's head

Actor(s):  William Reynolds, Andra Martin, Jeffrey Stone, Carolyn Kearney

Brief Description  The Thing That Couldn't Die is a 1958 low-budget American horror film directed and produced by Will Cowan. It tells the story of a 400-year-old, living severed head of an executed 16th-century devil worshiper named Gideon Drew, who uses hypnotic powers over a psychic young woman to help unearth his body and terrorize the modern world.

Plot:
The narrative takes place on a remote California ranch operating as a guest house, owned by the greedy Flavia McIntyre. Flavia's teenage niece, Jessica Burns, possesses genuine psychic dowsing abilities. While using a dowsing rod to find a new water well site for the ranch's irrigation lines, Jessica's powers guide her instead to a deeply buried, centuries-old metal chest. The chest bears an explicit, ominous warning: "If ye valuest thy immortal soul, open not this accursed chest." Despite warnings from a visiting archaeologist, Gordon Hawthorne, two greedy ranch hands break open the container, expecting to find Spanish gold or historical treasure. Instead, they discover the fully animated, speaking, and perfectly preserved head of Gideon Drew.

Through historical context provided by the characters, it is revealed that Gideon Drew was an evil 16th-century Englishman and devil worshiper who sailed with Sir Francis Drake. During the expedition, Drew was discovered practicing sorcery. As punishment, Drake ordered him beheaded and his remains buried in separate locations on the California coast. Because of his dark pacts, Drew was cursed to a state of living death, unable to fully pass on until his head and torso were reunited.

Once freed from the chest, Drew utilizes powerful hypnosis and telepathy to control the minds of those around him. He quickly hypnotizes the ranch hands and targets the psychically vulnerable Jessica. Under his thrall, they are driven to find and dig up his buried torso so he can resurrect his full body and feast on the blood of the living. The film climaxes when the hypnotized servants successfully locate the body. As Drew's head is about to be physically rejoined to the neck of his torso, Gordon Hawthorne and the remaining un-hypnotized ranch guests intervene. They use a sacred amulet or cross—the very item originally used by Drake's men to bind the sorcerer—to break Drew's psychic hold. The head and body are cast into a deep pit or destroyed, causing the ancient evil to rapidly wither away into dust.