The Incredible Melting Man, 1977.
Directed by William Sachs.
Starring Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Ann Sweeny, and Michael Alldredge.
SYNOPSIS:
An astronaut returns to Earth after flying through the rings of Saturn and mutates into a gooey mess whilst going on a murderous rampage.
With one of the best movie titles ever, The Incredible Melting Man is a 1977 horror film with its roots in 1950s sci-fi and the horror comics of the day, where gloopy, radioactive monsters would roam the country and infect innocent people whilst the world was under the threat of nuclear war. The full details of the plot are basically what is in the summary above – astronaut Steve West (Alex Rebar) and his crew are flying their spacecraft through the rings of Saturn when Steve suffers some sort of seizure and blacks out. He wakes up in a hospital back on Earth covered in bandages and, having overheard that his crew are all dead, rips off his dressings, catches a glimpse of his peeling skin in the mirror and goes on the rampage, killing a nurse (who, given that she is a rather large lady, probably didn’t appreciate director William Sachs making her run towards the camera in the tightest uniform possible and then slowing the footage down for effect) and getting a taste for human flesh to help slow down the melting process (not entirely sure that’s medically accurate…). Hot on the trail are Dr. Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning) and the very serious General Michael Perry (Myron Healey) to try and capture Steve before the radioactive pulp does any more damage.
In a similar way to the George A. Romero/Stephen King collaboration Creepshow, The Incredible Melting Man tries to recapture the comic book panel effect with a lot of its shots and angles, and it largely succeeds as William Sachs obviously knows how to frame an image. It also helps that the look of the melting man is similar to the cartoonish zombies that you used to see in the likes of EC Comics, so stylistically The Incredible Melting Man hits its mark and is an obvious inspiration for movies such as Robocop and any amount of neon-lit madness from Troma.
It’s clear from the interview with director William Sachs in the special features that he has a real affection for this film and thinks he made something a little more highbrow than what it actually is; not in a arrogant way but in the same way that an overly proud parent refuses to see the flaws in their slightly wayward offspring and praises them for everything they do. It’s also clear that effects maestro Rick Baker isn’t quite so forgiving in his assessment of what the film actually is, stating that he deliberately tried to price himself out of the running for doing the make-up but American International Pictures accepted his quote of $10,000 and he got the job.
This is not a film to be taken seriously because it really is tacky, in more ways than one. The characters of Ted Nelson and Michael Perry are so serious and po-faced that they perfectly parody the stoic heroes of the films that The Incredible Melting Man takes its inspiration from; William Sachs points out that Myron Healey’s performance reminded him of Leslie Nielsen in Police Squad, where Nielsen’s acting was so straight it was comical, and it’s not hard to see the connection. Alex Rebar’s physical performance as the titular character is pretty spot on but the opening scenes where he is the fully human Steve West is pretty gruelling, especially as he only has a couple of lines but Rebar’s delivery is so wooden you could almost sandpaper his words (again, check out the interview with Rick Baker for some less-than-flattering comments about the actor). The real star of the show is Rick Baker’s make-up effects and for a film with such a low budget they more than do the job, but having the monstrous effects as your main selling point means that when Alex Rebar isn’t on the screen the film holds very little weight as the various characters on his trail try to figure out where he’ll be, and that’s not very interesting to watch. An 86-minute film about a man with a melting body shouldn’t really have pacing issues but there are chunks of this film that just drag.
So overall, this is another quality HD transfer from Arrow Video as the film looks superb and the interviews and audio commentary from William Sachs make for some interesting extras but the film itself is a bit of a mixed bag. For the most part it’s fun and the sort of film that makes post-pub movie watching such a delight, but it probably would have worked better as part of something like Creepshow than as a whole feature on its own. It’s not particularly scary but it will put you off pizza for a while.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
Originally published October 13, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
