The Incredible Melting Man

When I was a kid way back in 1977 there was an article about this movie in a kids magazine called Dynamite. It looked so incredibly gross that it just had to be fantastic, right? Well, go forward to the present year, 2003. I'm channel surfing and lo and behold, I find that The Incredible Melting Man is coming on Flix!! Sure it's goofy, but I got kinda excited about it since I STILL remembered seeing pictures of this hideous guy with his face melting off in that magazine. OK. I really wasn't expecting much, but I must say, despite the terrible plot, acting, etc., the special effects weren't half bad. Definitely not a movie you could enjoy while eating a plate of lasagna or something like that. But, even the gross factor is overshadowed by the dumbness of it all. To quote a character in the movie, "The more he melts, the stronger he gets!" WHAT?? No explanation is EVER given as to why this guy has ended up this way or how it is making him stronger. And it has to have one of the most depressing endings I've ever seen in a Z-grade movie!! I'll almost bet I would have loved this movie had I seen it as a kid in the late 70's though. I guess that whole idea of what I thought it would be as a kid was ruined by actually seeing it. Oh well...

Irresistible, guilty pleasures like "Incredible Melting Man" don't appear often, so when they do, you watch them closely. Space shuttle pilot survives a near-fatal dose of radiation, but finds that his flesh is melting, and this inversely increases his hostility. After catching a glimpse of his disfigurement in the mirror, he becomes enraged. You'd become unhinged too. Despatching the nurse (who does the longest slow-motion panicked run in film history) he escapes, then awkwardly stumbles across the landscape, disintegrating and dismembering until his inevitable conclusion.

While star-billed, Rebar has little to do, and is unrecognisable beneath Rick Baker's repulsive make-up, leaving acting duties to the capable DeBenning whose ability to deliver his puerile dialogue without flinching is a testament to his dedication and professionalism. He has some crackers - my personal favourite being when he spies a piece of rotting flesh attached to a tree and on closer inspection announces despondently "Oh god.. it's his ear". A quality supporting cast includes Myron Healey and Michael Alldredge as the reinforcements, while Janus Blythe and Jonathan Demme appear in cameos. Exploitation aficionados might also recognise tragic Rainbeaux Smith as the model, nearing the end of her mainstream film career.

Baker's make-up effects are spectacularly camp; the guy's decapitated head tumbling down the waterfall is pure gold. Only the terrified expression bares any resemblance to the person off whom it was ripped, but that's trivial. The radioactive goo that trickles off Rebar is like pizza topping; sometimes cheesy with occasional ham. What enthralls some, will appear tasteless to others, but credit where it's due, Baker has done an outstanding job.

Like its title character, William Sachs' film ambles along, bereft of any real plot or direction, just a succession of gory, head-ripping melting moments, punctuated by incessant flashbacks and stock footage of solar flames. Often pilloried as a stinker, there's more than meets the eye here, and though not a serious contender with "The Quartermass Experiment" or others of its ilk, it's still entertaining late night fare, well worth the admission.

Well. Apparently in this film there is a "man" who is "melting" and this is "incredible". Whatever. For my money there is only one reason to see this film, and it has nothing to do with snot-faced fellows who eat people's flesh.

At one moment in the film the incredibly thin and pasty protagonist Dr. Ted Nelson mentions his mother-in-law, and suddenly this film swings into high. We're shown a wonderful sequence of two incredibly lumpy elderly folks driving. These oddly shaped, lawn gnome-esque folks decided to steal lemons, but they get scared and run (well, totter) back to their automobile only to be eaten by the titular character.

God, these two actors are wonderful! Dorothy Love and Edwin Max deserve the accolades of their peers for this brief glimpse into the magical and bewitching talents of actors in their prime, who were given a script that seemed to have been written by a spastic monkey.

The Incredible Melting Man (1977), looks, every bit, like a polished, seasoned, TV production company, produced a science fiction film, about a lost astronaut, inflicted with a terrible condition, wandering around the hills of southern California, terrorizing the public, while his friends at the space agency, try to save him. Then, Moe, Larry, Curly and Freddy Krueger come into the production and make, another movie. Then, they merge the two movies together into this mess. I decided to look into this situation, with the obvious differences and from what I have read, that is exactly what happened to this doomed production.

Director, William Sachs, who has plenty of good credits in his resume, along with a fine group of seasoned actors and legendary, make-up genius, Rick Baker, started shooting this movie and those parts of the film, are the good ones in this movie. Studio producers then came in, did reshoots on all those scenes, which are truly embarrassing and re-edited the film, in a completely different way. The only thing, that the producers decided to do, that I feel worked in the film, was making the Incredible Melting Man (1977), into a full horror movie and not a parody of itself, which Sachs had originally intended to do. Sachs uses, in his filmmaking process, interesting styles of camera-work, lighting and editing, as well as, strategically-placed, audio edits and voice-over techniques. The film looks really good in some parts. The melting-man is what kills the film.

Rick Baker's creature effects are ok, but they too, suffer from the re-editing and change of direction, that the film took. At one point in the film, we get to witness the melting man's right eye-ball fall out of his head. Unfortunately, later in the film, we can see actor, Alex Rebar's, real eye, poking out behind all of the creature make-up effects. The melting effects worked much better in long shots, back shots and low-lighted scenes. The dripping effect of his skin falling off his body looks cool in some shots. There are plenty of miscues in the film and terribly embarrassing moments, which means, maybe Sachs was right. Make the film a parody of itself, because the melting skin and bones, are a metaphor, for a mess of a film, on the way.

4.6 (E MyGrade) = 5 IMDB.

"The Incredible Melting Man" is a fantastically gross, trashy and energetic Z-grade production that every self-respecting camp-horror freak simply has to see for him/herself! The ideal way to describe this low-budget 70's gem is like a shameless copy of Hammer's "The Quatermass Xperiment" ...only a thousand times filthier! Astronaust Steve West is the only survivor of a disastrous space-mission, but turns out the carrier of a horrible disease that makes him radioactive and ... causes him to melt! In shock after seeing his face in the mirror (can you blame him?), Steve busts out of the hospital, leaving a trail of sticky pus and fallen off body parts behind. Doctor Ted Nelson has to find him urgently, as the disease also set Steve up with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. The premise may sound utterly stupid but this flick is enormously entertaining and contains great make-up effects from the hand of Rick Baker. The melting dude's face looks like a rotting pizza and his heavy breathing makes him sound like Darth Vader! Another big advantage is that William Sachs' screenplay doesn't waste any time on tedious scientific explanations or emotional speeches. The repulsiveness starts right away and lasts until the very last moment of the film. Just enjoy this silly horror gem and try to switch off your brain activity as much as you can because, if you start contemplating about the many stupidities in the script, you'll miss out on all the campy fun!