The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

HIS NAME WAS DENNIS, and he was my best friend in 3rd grade.

One Monday morning, Dennis couldn’t wait to tell me about a movie he saw over the weekend: a horror flick called The Incredible Melting Man, about an astronaut named Steve West (Alex Rebar) who comes back from space after flying through the rings of Saturn, causing his body and mind to disintegrate, making him kill.

I had seen ads for The Incredible Melting Man in the paper, and the shot of the man’s decomposing face terrified me. But Dennis proceeded to tell me all the details about the film, from the melting man’s goriest kills to his ooey, gooey demise.

It sounded like the greatest film ever made.

Over the years, I began to hear just how wrong I was. The Incredible Melting Man is panned in virtually every review you read. It even got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in 1996. But it still gnawed at me that I hadn’t seen this film for myself. So recently I decided to try and watch it through the eyes of a third grader, and see if it would have been cool to my inner 9-year-old.


Dennis better pray I never see him at a high school reunion.

The Incredible Melting Man is excruciatingly bad. Less than ten minutes in, the cheesiness envelops you, much like the gelatinous goo swallowing up West, our tragic hero turned mindless monster. When he’s not busy ripping people apart, West spends a lot of time wandering across hillsides, sometimes with a beautiful sunset behind him.

The acting in The Incredible Melting Man alternates between wooden and melodramatic. As Dr. Ted Nelson, the man trying to track down West, Burr DeBenning is dreadful. He looks clammy and emaciated, and delivers every line like he was told his dog died just before writer/director William Sachs yelled “Action!”

Sachs’ script doesn’t help matters. Here are a few doozies from the dialogue:

“Steve escaped.”
“He what?”
“Did you get some crackers?”

“You mean he’s radioactive?”
“Just a little bit.”

“Don’t call me baby.”
“Ok, sorry, honey.”

The Incredible Melting Man’s score by Arlon Ober sounds like something from a ‘70s cop drama – right down to the dramatic “DUM-dum-dummm” when something “shocking” happens. The only reason, if any, to sit through the film is to witness the early work of Oscar-winning special effects legend Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).


Contrary to what I thought of Dennis’ word-of-mouth review, The Incredible Melting Man is not great. It’s not good. It’s just bad. It’s not even “so bad it’s good.” There are no scares. No suspense. Like the melting man himself, the film aimlessly lumbers from one scene to the next until it mercifully ends.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Incredible Melting Man is rated R, and for good reason:
Violence/Scariness: A nurse’s mutilated face is shown. The melting man tears off a victim’s head off-screen, then we see it tossed into a river, where it cracks open on a rock like a melon (the victim’s bloody, headless corpse appears in a later shot). The melting man rips apart and dines on an elderly couple. There are several scenes of the melting man, well, melting – all gooey with random body parts falling off. A potential victim chops off the melting man’s arm with a meat cleaver. A sheriff repeatedly shoots the melting man, who shows his appreciation by tossing the sheriff onto high voltage power lines, frying him. A major character is shot in the head. The melting man’s final demise is a gooey, crunchy mess.
Sex/Nudity: A model gets topless at a photo shoot in the woods.
Smoking: Three kids share a cigarette behind a house.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s got a soft spot for low-budget horror cheese, highly unlikely. The Incredible Melting Man is a bloody, gooey affair with little redeeming value.

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The Incredible Melting Man
* Director: William Sachs
* Screenwriter: William Sachs
* Stars: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Michael Alldredge
* MPAA Rating: R


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The Green Slime (1969)

WATCHING BAD MOVIES CAN BE FUN. If a movie has the right combination of poor elements, it can be a blast to sit through. (I taught Dash about this with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.)

So when I saw that the long-heralded bad movie The Green Slime was airing on Turner Classic Movies (on the heels of a remastered DVD last year), I decided to see if it was possible to have a good time with this supposedly horrible flick.

Plot:
With a giant asteroid heading toward Earth, a group of astronauts led by Commanders Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) and Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel) disembark from a nearby space station to blow it up (sound familiar?). The mission is successful, but they return to the station unknowingly bringing back a gooey green substance that mutates into one-eyed tentacled monsters that feed off electricity. Soon the station is crawling with them, and members of the station’s staff are being zapped by the giant creatures.

Critique:

The Green Slime opens with an effective, mysterious shot of space – one that’s immediately marred as an obviously miniature space station comes into frame, orbiting in fits and starts as if the effects person who's spinning it is getting a wrist cramp.

Things don’t get any better from there. The film’s first 30 minutes, focusing on the destruction of the asteroid threatening Earth, features long stretches of dead silence as our heroes make their journey. No dialogue, no sound effects, not even a musical score. This is probably why I fell asleep three different times trying to get past this opening sequence.

Things go from painfully dull to laughably bad once the asteroid is destroyed. The biggest offender is the film’s special effects, including:

• Set pieces that often make The Green Slime feel like a Godzilla movie without Godzilla
• Rocket ships that look like something from a kid’s backyard launcher, or maybe the old Thunderbirds show
• Our heroes “floating” in space, obviously suspended by wires
• The titular green slime – gooey blobs brought to life by air bladders and the type of reverse film effect usually reserved for such high art as the Purina Cat Chow commercials

When we finally see the creatures that are spawned by the green slime, they’re revealed to be rubber-suited, hulking green beings who walk upright, have wavy tentacles and a giant red eye, and sound like baby ducklings stuck in an echo chamber.

If the effects aren’t bad enough to torpedo The Green Slime, other aspects of the film provide additional ammo to sink it:

• A ridiculous script with lines like, “Since that’s the way it is, let’s be sure that’s the way it is.”
• Random goofs, such as a gaping wound in Jack’s arm that mysteriously disappears (or rapidly heals) by the next scene later in the day
• Realizing they can’t shoot the aliens for fear of their spilled blood turning into more aliens, the crew resorts to – I’m not making this up – shoving hospital beds at the creatures and throwing helmets at them. (After that, they break out the heavy artillery: flashlights and flood lamps.)

The Green Slime was shot in Tokyo by Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku, who knew very little English and relied on a translator to give direction (many of the extras were American GIs from local military bases). It’s hard to believe he would go from directing this debacle to helming the Japanese sequences of the highly acclaimed Pearl Harbor film Tora! Tora! Tora! the very next year, after legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was fired. Fukasaku also went on to direct the cult classic (and precursor to The Hunger Games) Battle Royale.

There are good bad movies, and there are bad bad movies. Despite occasional moments of cheese-tastic hilarity, The Green Slime lands largely in the latter category.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Green Slime is rated G, but it’s a “’60s G” in that the newly created MPAA was less scrutinous about questionable content in its all-ages G rating. Several men are electrocuted to death by the alien creatures; one man falls to his demise, his head splatting blood on impact; and we see the tattered, electrocuted body of one victim. There are also a few profanities, including several “hells” and “bitch” (as in “complain”). Tweens and older is probably the appropriate age.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Highly doubtful. Even if she’s into watching bad movies for fun, there are better choices than The Green Slime.

Fall in love with the groovy, out-of-place, deliciously awful theme song:

The Green Slime
* Director: Kinji Fukasaku
* Screenwriters: Bill Finger, Tom Rowe, Charles Sinclair
* Stars: Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel, Luciana Paluzzi, Bud Widom, Ted Gunther
* MPAA Rating: G

Son of Godzilla (1967)

TO MY DELIGHT, Dash showed an interest in Godzilla last year when he discovered the Saturday morning animated series from the late ‘70s, which was a childhood favorite of mine during its brief run.

But for Dash and Jack-Jack’s first exposure to the classic Godzilla movies, I needed something just as age-appropriate. That may sound silly, since the Godzilla flicks are essentially men fighting in rubber suits as they demolish models of Japanese cities and villages. But in many of these films, the humans are more violent than the monsters. (In Destroy All Monsters, people are shot in the head and throw themselves off cliffs.)

So after checking the “parents guide” pages of many of the Godzilla flicks at the IMDb, I landed on Son of Godzilla.

Plot:
Scientists experimenting with changes in weather on a tropical island get more than they bargained for when Godzilla shows up to battle humongous insects and protect his newborn child, Minilla.

Critique:

Purists of the Godzilla franchise largely disown Son of Godzilla, calling it pandering and childish compared to other entries in the series. But that’s exactly why it felt like a good place to start with my 8- and 5-year old boys.

It’s easy to see why more fervent fans of the Godzilla series find Son of Godzilla a bit corny. A couple of examples:

• The opening situations involving the scientists on the island, and the musical score that accompanies them, are very lighthearted and reminiscent of the tone of live-action Disney films of the same era.
• Goofy music plays whenever Minilla is fumbling about, and at one point the filmmakers even have Minilla throw a kicking, screaming temper tantrum on his back.

The film spends too much time trying to give substance to the scientists’ efforts to control the weather, and there’s a budding romance between investigative reporter Goro (Akira Kubo) and native island girl Riko (Bibari Maeda) that’s harmless enough.

But the human storylines aren’t why we watch these films. We want to see giant rubber monsters throw down, which is what makes the classic Godzilla films exciting, cheesy fun (here, Godzilla and Minilla battle giant praying mantises and a monstrous, web-slinging spider). Unfortunately, the battles in Son of Godzilla are infrequent, and the best clash (where Godzilla takes on the praying mantises) is early in the film and too brief to be satisfying.

While Son of Godzilla is by no means a classic (though the ending is oddly touching), it was a good first choice for introducing Dash and Jack-Jack to the Godzilla film series. Now the question is: Which one do we see next? Suggestions are welcome in the comments below.

Tidbits:
* A year after Son of Godzilla, Kubo also starred in the aforementioned Destroy All Monsters.
* Director Jun Fukuda directed several other films in the Godzilla series, including Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Godzilla vs. Gigan, Godzilla vs. Megalon, and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

Rating:

What did Dash and Jack-Jack think?

After only one brief appearance by Godzilla in the first 25 minutes, Jack-Jack’s patience was tested, while surprisingly Dash was interested in the dubbed dialogue of the Japanese cast. To their credit, they both stuck with it to the end, even when there were long stretches of action-less dialogue (a pitfall of many of the Godzilla films).
Dash (on the praying mantis): “It’s not really scary.”
Jack-Jack: “I think I like the girl the most. I think the girl knows everything.”

Is it suitable for your kids?

Son of Godzilla is rated PG for “sci-fi monster violence.” Godzilla bodyslams and breathes fire on several of the giant mantises, as well as the giant spider. In a couple of other scenes, Minilla is in peril as the monsters pursue him. Also, a man is attacked by one of the giant spider’s claws, but escapes unharmed.
From the humans, there are separate mentions of a concentration camp and having a cold beer, men shoot their rifles at a giant praying mantis, a man gets grazed in the arm by a bullet, and there is a brief scene of smoking.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

I haven’t met any serious female Godzilla fans in my lifetime, though I’m sure they’re out there. I’m guessing this would be more of a you-and-the-boy(s) situation if you decide to check it out.

And he was stompin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew,

He'd say, "I'm gonna be like you, dad / You know I'm gonna be like you."

Son of Godzilla
* Director: Jun Fukuda
* Screenwriters: Shinichi Sekizawa, Kazue Shiba
* Stars: Tadao Takashima, Akira Kubo, Bibari Maeda
* MPAA Rating: PG


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Beware! The Blob (1972)

HERE’S A RUNOFF REVIEW from the Halloween season, one I couldn’t fit in to my October postings…

Plot:
Pipeline worker Godfrey Cambridge brings home a frozen specimen of something he found on the job. The specimen is foolishly left out of Cambridge’s freezer, so it thaws and proceeds to feast on Cambridge, his wife, their cat, and a housefly. The Blob then heads across the countryside and into the local town, dining on the denizens and growing to gigantic proportions. Can young lovers Lisa (Gwynne Gilford) and Bobby (Robert Walker, Jr.) convince the authorities that the town is danger – or will everyone just think the couple’s on a bad trip? (It is the post-hippie ‘70s, after all.)

Critique:

Beware! The Blob director Larry Hagman (Dallas’ J.R. Ewing) is in no danger of taking his film too seriously. For nearly the entire running time, he alternates scenes of supposed terror with hokey, non-sequitur interludes featuring a string of oddball characters who are basically there to be served up as Blob food.

The film is plagued by poor lighting, a strange lack of close-ups, and an atmosphere that gives it a documentary or improv feel (that’s my nice way of saying the script was an afterthought).

Not only would I say avoid Beware! The Blob, but for a real Blob fix, skip the original 1958 Steve McQueen “classic” and go right to the underrated 1988 remake, co-written by Frank Darabont (The Mist). Hurry, before Rob Zombie delivers on this threat to direct his own “reimagining” of The Blob.

Trivia:
• Before the Blob snacks on him, Cambridge is watching the original Blob on TV.
• Look for cameos by Dick Van Patten (Eight is Enough), Cindy Williams (Laverne & Shirley), Burgess Meredith (the Rocky films), and Hagman himself as a doomed, drunken bum.
• Actress Gwynne Gilford (Lisa) is the mother of Star Trek star Chris Pine.
• Despite the awfulness of the film, it made this child of the ‘70s smile based on some items that appear. Push-button car radios! Pull-off beer can tabs! Ker-Bangers!
• The DVD cover for Beware! The Blob says, “Directed by Larry Hagman – The Movie That J.R. Shot!” For those old enough to remember, that line is hilarious.

aka Son of Blob.

Rating:

Will your kids want to watch it?

It depends whether your kids think the concept of a killer Blob is silly or cool. As far as objectionable content, a young couple smokes a joint and lots of people are eaten by the Blob (albeit sometimes comically and nearly always with poor FX).

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Not worth her time, even if she likes horror films. Rent the ’88 Blob like I mentioned earlier.

M’yeah, see, you’ll never take me alive, copper! M’yeah!

Beware! The Blob
• Director: Larry Hagman
• Screenwriter: Anthony Harris
• Stars: Robert Walker, Jr. Gwynne Gilford, Richard Stahl, Richard Webb, Marlene Clark
• MPAA Rating: PG


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Mad Monster Party (1967)

LIKE MANY OF MY GENERATION, I was raised on Rankin/Bass holiday specials: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year without a Santa Claus, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, etc. – back when they were annual, one-time, prime-time events and not blanketed all over ABC Family each season the way they are now.

So how did I miss Rankin/Bass’ full-length Halloween movie, Mad Monster Party? The box art and description didn’t ring a bell. But since I was in need of a kids’ movie to review for October, I sat down with Dash to check it out…

Plot:
After creating the secret formula for destruction, Baron von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff) – head of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters – assembles all the great classic monsters (the Frankenstein monster, the Mummy, Dr. Jekyll, Dracula, the Werewolf, and the Invisible Man) at his castle to announce his retirement. He’s chosen his mild-mannered, klutzy nephew Felix (Allen Swift) as his successor, much to the dismay of the monsters – who plot various schemes to double-cross one another and get rid of Felix once and for all.

Critique:

According to the hyperbolic, editor-starved liner notes in the DVD, Mad Monster Party was a commercial dud when it was released in theaters. Can’t say I’m surprised, because it’s a ponderous, flat, unfeeling film that substantially lacks the charm of its Rankin/Bass brethren.

Many of the scenes play out way too long and seem detached from each other, like their own little vignettes, each with nearly the same formula: scene plays out, punchline is delivered, fade to black... scene, punchline, fade…

Also, the musical numbers come out of nowhere and are largely forgettable (except for the peppy “One Step Ahead”). And outside of the musical numbers, there’s virtually no background score to keep things lively.

After the first 30 minutes, I was bored. At 45 minutes, Dash was asleep on the couch (this was a two-night viewing). Had Mad Monster Party been trimmed to a one-hour TV special, rather than a 95-minute film, it may have been more effective and enjoyable. (Interestingly, several scenes were added at producer Joseph E. Levine’s request, despite Arthur Rankin, Jr.'s protests that they slowed down the film.)

Watching Mad Monster Party is a cold, sterile experience – and not just because the majority of the film takes place in Dr. Frankenstein’s castle. Yet much like Frankenstein’s monster, the movie lumbers aimlessly.

A weird postscript: Turns out I had seen Mad Monster Party as a kid; I just didn’t remember any of it, except for one random scene: Dracula hacking through the woods near Frankenstein’s castle with a machete. For some reason, that one scene had stuck in my head since childhood, but I never would have guessed it was from this film. I guess the liner notes said it best: “Many adults remember seeing [Mad Monster Party] as a child but weren’t sure of the title or even if it was an actual film because it didn’t repeat [on TV] year after year in most areas.”

Trivia: The voice of Francesca (Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant/creation) was singer Gale Garrett, who had a hit in 1964 with “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine.”

Rating:

What did Dash think?

He was a little apprehensive based on the creepy box art, but he agreed to watch it. Did he like it? Well, he paid attention, laughing heartily only once (as did I, at the same scene). When it was over, he shrugged and said, “It was okay.” We both then agreed, it ain’t no Rudolph.

Will your kids like it?

Most kids today don’t have the attention span for older kids’ movies and shows, and Mad Monster Party will definitely put their interest to the test: It’s slow and a bit longer than most of today's kids’ films.
In terms of content, there are a few questionable elements:
• Some of the creatures and their jerky animation may be a bit scary for preschoolers or younger
• Near the end, Felix gets so distraught over losing Francesca to a giant monster that he declares he’ll kill himself
• The film ends, essentially, with (SPOILER ALERT!) a mass murder of the monsters by Dr. Frankenstein, who also perishes with them

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Even if she loves Rankin/Bass shows and/or Halloween, be forewarned: Mad Monster Party is a struggle to sit through. Pass on it and wait a couple more months to enjoy the true R/B classics of Christmastime.

Insert Grateful Dead joke here.

Mad Monster Party
• Director: Jules Bass
• Screenwriters: Len Korobkin, Harvey Kurtzman
• Stars: Boris Karloff, Allen Swift, Gale Garnett, Phyllis Diller, Ethel Ennis
• MPAA Rating: G


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Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster (2004)

In the words of our president-elect, let me be clear: There is, and will only ever be, one true incarnation of Scooby-Doo – and that is the original flagship TV series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? All future iterations of Scooby, Shaggy, and the gang – spinoff series, revival series, live-action movies – are chaff to the original series’ wheat. (And the less said about Scrappy-Doo, the better.)

So I set myself up for a heroic dose of self-injected cynicism when I sat down with my 5-year-old son to watch Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster, a direct-to-DVD movie I TiVo’d off Cartoon Network. But for the sake of movie-bonding with my son, and my childhood fascination with the Loch Ness Monster back in Nessie’s heyday of the ’70s, I made the popcorn, served the drinks, and started the show.

Plot: Scooby and the gang go to Scotland to visit Daphne's cousin, Shannon. But when the mythological Loch Ness Monster appears and wreaks havoc at the site for the annual Highlander Games, it's up to the gang to solve the mystery and answer the question that’s baffled mankind for years: Is the Loch Ness Monster real?

There’s always a risk when stretching a 30-minute show to a full-length feature film. But by and large, Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster pulls it off. The plot and action keep moving at a decent clip, there are plenty of shenanigans to keep the kids entertained, and quite a few times I found myself chuckling aloud (mostly at Shaggy’s quips; Mr. “Zoinks!” had quite a few good zingers).

In addition, the film’s Loch Ness Monster stands out in more ways than just its size. It’s impressively ominous, and there seems to have been an added level of attention given to its design and animation.

For the adult viewer, the film makes several nods (and in-jokes) to the original series, including jabs at splitting up and searching for clues, and Fred’s famous plans that never work. The movie also includes a staple of the original series: chase scenes complete with “chase songs,” written for the movie by the appropriately named Thomas Chase. (There are also visual and verbal homages to several classic films and TV shows, including Jaws, Titanic, Jurassic Park, Apollo 13, and The Six Million Dollar Man.)

So yes, regarding my belief that there is no Scooby-Doo anywhere near as good as the original TV series, Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster has silenced the cynic in me. Sort of. For now.

Trivia:
• The voice of Fred was done by Frank Welker, the same (and only) Fred since the original TV series debuted in 1969. That includes this year’s Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King. Nice work if you can get it.
• Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster was nominated for a 2004 Annie Award for Best Home Entertainment Production. (It lost to The Lion King 1½.)
• The Wikipedia page for Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster says the monster bears a striking resemblance to the Giant Behemoth, a creature from the 1959 movie of the same name. Decide for yourself…

The Giant Behemoth trailer:


A scene from Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster:

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5).

Will your kids like it?

My son got a big kick out of Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster. Still – and I have no data to back this up – don’t boys and girls both like Scooby-Doo and the gang? If so, I think this movie would appeal to both genders. The fact there’s a giant monster that looks like a dragon/dinosaur hybrid may sway the appeal slightly to the boys’ side, is all I’m sayin’.

Will your FilmMother like it?

I think she’ll appreciate the fact that the filmmakers put enough effort into the story and script to keep both kids and parents entertained…and entertained she shall be.

“When they invent a game that tests eating and sleeping, let us know!”

– Shaggy on the theme of the Highlander Games

Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster
* Directors: Scott Jeralds, Joe Sichta
* Screenwriters: George Doty IV, Ed Scharlach, Mark Turosz
* Stars: Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Michael Bell, Jeff Bennett, Sheena Easton
* MPAA Rating: G


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