The Incredible Melting Man

During the late 1970s, my family's weekly "Movie Night Dates" included a stream of back-to-back motion picture releases, ranging from musicals like "Grease" and "Thank God It's Friday", to horror epics like "Carrie" and the cinematic opus under review here: The Incredible Melting Man. I can remember standing in the lobby of the Chicago Theater (it was still a movie house then) as my mother, my brother and I were there to see Carrie, and beholding the poster for The Incredible Melting Man. It gave me the groovy weebie-jeebies, and almost immediately, I'd asked my mother if we could 'come back and see that one next week?!', to which my mama (God love her) replied: 'Yes!' We did return to the show the following week to see The Incredible Melting Man, and it was creepy good. It freaked me completely out! I'm giving it only four stars due to a rather slow start ... A rather slow science fiction start. God, sci-fi films were so friggin' slow (and boring) during the 70s, it seemed. And though The Incredible Melting Man eventually drew me to the edge of my theater seat, it set up too slowly for my taste. Therefore, four stars. I would still recommend this cult classic, though, to any sci-fi horror fan.

Smelting! The Incredible Melting Man is written and directed by William Sachs. It stars Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning and Myron Healey. Music is by Arlon Ober and cinematography by Willy Curtis. Astronaut Steve West’s body begins to melt after he was exposed to radiation during a space flight to Saturn. Escaping from the hospital, West trawls the land in search of human victims to eat in the desperate hope of staving off the melting of his body. It’s as bad as you most likely have heard it is, and Rick Baker’s makeup work is as good as you have heard it is! Intended as a horror parody but switched to being a “supposed” horror with some cuts and swipes requested by the studio, it’s pretty evident upon viewing the film that was clearly the case. Tale doesn’t add up to much more than the melting man of the title walking from one scene to another dripping in goo whilst meeting up with a host of bad actors. He’s pursued by a pal who wants to help him, while it all builds to some fireworks at a power plant where the “big” battle unfolds. You can’t really do much with the story, after just 8 minutes of film he starts melting and once his bodily parts start falling off you just know he is beyond help. The tragic creature vibe is strong enough to hold interest, if you can stop yourself from laughing at everything else that surrounds him (it) during its Quatermass Experiment journey. The power plant scenes are nicely photographed, the final demise of the creature is bleakly sad and Baker really comes through with the only bit of quality in the piece. It’s messy in more ways than one! But fun to be had if in a very forgiving mood. 4/10