THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN – The Blu Review

To rate THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN best ever movie about a guy who melts is like saying SNAKES ON A PLANE was the best movie about snakes on a plane. Like the Sam Jackson hit, this B-movie from 1977 fondly recalls the 1950s movies from the likes of Roger Corman where a high-concept title is though up first, then a movie is filmed around it (though this one was updated with squishy makeup effects, gore, and boobs). THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN is a stupid premise executed with tacky enthusiasm, an irresistible guilty pleasure impossible not to like.

Astronaut Steve West is the only survivor of a disastrous space-mission and carrier of a horrible disease that makes him radioactive and ….. his body is liquefying on him! William Sachs’ THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN screenplay is a schlock riff on the 1955 Hammer film THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (aka THE CREEPING UNKNOWN) that doesn’t waste much time with explanations or lead-up as it opens with stock footage of solar flares followed by West having a nasty nosebleed in outer space. Steve wakes up in a hospital and, in shock after seeing his face in the mirror, busts out, leaving a trail of sticky pus and fallen off body parts behind. A pair of Geiger counter-toting scientists follow his trail of moldy flesh and half-eaten corpses (they find a chunk of flesh stuck to a tree and proclaim “Oh god….it’s his ear”!).

They claim that Steve “gets stronger as he melts” which doesn’t make a lick of sense if his appendages are sloughing off (yet he never loses overall body mass – this is obviously the type of movie that if you spend too much time contemplating its many stupidities, you’ll miss out on all the fun). When these two, who have spent the entire film on goo man’s trail, finally confront him near the end, one says to the other “What do we do now?” ( I guess weapons – or an organized manhunt – slipped their minds). There’s a flashback late in the film where they replay the entire opening sequence so we get to see that dramatic nose bleed again and for the climax I guess the filmmakers couldn’t figure out what to do with the Incredible Melting Man except have him melt some more, so that’s exactly what he does. He just sort of sits down and finally liquefies, wicked witch-style, into a messy puddle, which a janitor promptly sweeps up (but I thought he was “getting stronger as he melts!?!”).

THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN is crap, but it’s fun crap and I can remember being amused by it several times at drive-ins in the late 70’s. The movie was marketed around the film’s real star, make-up effects artist Rick Baker (who had worked on STAR WARS the same year and would go on to win several Oscars). Baker has an enormous amount of (pre-CGI) fun creating revolting faces with liquefying eyeballs and ears and teeth exposed beneath melted lips. The movie gets a great deal of mileage out of its gooey effects and the money shot is a decapitated head tumbling down a waterfall and crashing watermelon-style on the rocks below. THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN received a lot of publicity in 1977, scoring a cover of ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ and an article in the kids mag ‘Dynamite’ The weirdest back story concerning THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN is that Baker in fact created many more gruesome prosthetics that were never used in the final film. Apparently the actor playing the title creature refused to wear some of these bloody. And who could blame him really, after all he was played by that 70’s icon Alex Rebak (!!!..not to be confused with ‘Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek, who he kinda looks like). It seems astonishing today that Baker went to the trouble and expense to create these effects (and I’ve seen photos of these props in ‘Cinefantastique’ magazine – they’re cool!) and the final film was compromised by the diva-esque behavior of its lead. Why on earth they didn’t just get a stuntman to wear the goriest devices instead is one of the great movie mysteries (the story may be a myth, but it’s something I’ve read for years). Rebak was a nobody actor from soap operas whose career melted after this film and the only other recognizable name in THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN is 70’s drive-in fave Rainbeaux Smith who’s topless in a brief scene (though look closely for mustached director Jonathan Demme in a surprise cameo). THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN was roasted by the MST3K guys and released a couple of times in the 80’s on VHS including part of MGM’s Midnight Movie series and on Warner Brothers Archive DVD-R series.

Now THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN has been released on Blu-ray by Shout Factory with an incredible AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 that, frankly, the movie isn’t worthy of. One highlight of the Blu-ray is a running audio commentary by director William Sachs, who doesn’t seem to have much respect for his own movie. There are also interviews with Makeup FX artists Rick Baker and Greg Cannon and a Theatrical Trailer is a bit of campy genre nostalgia. I’m not sure the Blu-ray is worth forking out $20 for, but I found a used copy at Vintage Vinyl for $7 and snatched it up. Lucky me!