The Incredible Melting Man (1977)
"...come prepared"
Plot
Astronaut Steve West returns to Earth from an ill-fated mission to Saturn and is stricken with an awful disease, literally melting him away. Escaping his hospital confinement, he finds that the only way that he can stay alive is to kill and eat human flesh.
With a title like The Incredible Melting Man, what do you think you are going to get when sitting down to watch it? Well there’s a man in it and, yes, he does melt. 1977 may have been more noted for its other monstrous sci-fi hit set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away but this low budget goop-fest showed that there was still life in adult-orientated shock-horror sci-fi that didn’t involve gold-plated droids and heavy-breathing bad guys. B-movies work best when they stick to simple premises and formulas and there's no question that The Incredible Melting Man is one of the ultimate B-movie experiences - terrible acting, questionable script choices, sketchy pacing and so on. But it's central premise is ramped up to the extreme, leaving viewers with unforgettable images of some of the best practical effects work to come out of the 70s.
The Incredible Melting Man sounds decent in concept – the idea of astronauts returning to Earth after being stricken with galactic diseases out of the limits of human knowledge has been a well that many sci-fi films have tapped in to (The Quatermass Experiment springs to mind). But the execution of that concept is woeful. With direction that is lifeless, a script that is as bizarre as it is terrible (with arguments about crackers being a random highlight) and overall production values that scream 70s movie, the film should never have been given the fame that it seems to have garnered. Amazingly, it was originally conceived as a horror-comedy that would have parodied its predecessors such as The Incredible Shrinking Man but the post production hatchet job turned it in what we see today. This is perhaps why the film does have a vaguely imbalanced tone, switching from the ultra nihilistic one moment to dafter silliness the next.
Well that is until the make-up effects are called in question and then you won't think of this as silly in the slightest. When you sit down to watch a film about an incredible melting man, you expect to see an incredible melting man. Thankfully, and rather surprisingly given the poor quality of everything else on show, the special effects are marvellous but that’s expected when Rick Baker is behind them (he did the make-up in Star Wars the same year as this). Fellow make-up legend Rob Bottin worked uncredited here too and was only too eager to replicate the melting effects for the 'toxic waste' death. Having two of the most memorable make-up artists of all time working on your film should be a badge of honour and, at least for the effects, it is. The gradual decay of the ‘melting man’ is disgusting and you really sympathise for the character all the way through the film, right through to the final meltdown as his vocal chords melt away as he's scream one last howl of pain - it's a rather tragic and disturbing final visual. He is a gruesome sight to behold and the effects are done splendidly – at one point one of his eyes just drops out because the flesh and bone holding it in place has melted so badly.
Though clearly not meant to have any deeper meaning in the script, the idea that by killing someone else you can preserve your own life is a moral dilemma that would make for interesting analysis. If you were in his position, would you kill to extend your life? Or just horribly melt away and spare innocent lives? Unfortunately, the special effects are the only positive in the film and not much is done with this interesting moral fabric - the rest of The Incredible Melting Man is virtually a plot-less stalk 'n' slash film in which we're introduced to a minor non-character, they are given a few brief moments to impress the camera and try and eek out some sort of personality before they meet their doom at the hands of Mr Gloop. Replace the astronaut with a guy in a mask and a machete and you have the sort of structure to the narrative.
What little attempt at a story fails as one of West's old friends joins the authorities to hunt him down, but who spends more time with his wife than he does investigating. There's not much development of their relationship and so the final confrontation between old friends comes off as a rather feeble and anti-climatic. Undoubtedly, the sole star of the show is of course Alex Rebar as the Melting Man who just stumbles around the woods like a zombie and doesn't really do much apart from stand and growl at people since he’s usually caked up in make-up (most of the actual kills happen off-screen). The script says that he's getting stronger as he melts and that he can kill people easier but surely if he's losing body mass, bone structure and muscle tone, he'll be getting weaker?
Final Verdict
Ah, who cares? The Incredible Melting Man is absolute nonsense with the exception of Rick Baker’s special effects. There aren't too many body horror films like this which actually show you every single last detail on the screen and is a perfect example of how great old school practical effects can have so much impact on a film's legacy. This would never have been remembered as fondly as it is without Baker's input.
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The Incredible Melting Man Director(s): William Sachs Writer(s): William Sachs Actor(s): Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Michael Alldredge, Ann Sweeny, Lisle Wilson, Cheryl Smith Duration: 84 mins |  |
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