The Incredible Melting Man (1977)
If we're to believe the cult movie scuttlebutt that accumulates over the years, this ludicrous, dirt cheap goo-fest became much treasured and beloved by fanboys everywhere.
True, one look at that poster could send any horror-gorehound into fits of orgasmic joy.
That is, until you sit down and try watching it from beginning to end......
Such a tasking feat is possible, but only if you're well lubricated with booze and come prepared to fling your own 'Mystery Science Theatre 3000' gags and insults at the screen.
Every expense was spared to bring this story to slow moving life......a shameless rip-off/remake of the much better 1959 "First Man Into Space". It's about an astronaut who returns to Earth coated in agonizing cosmic sludge and driven to murderous madness.
'Melting Man's dauntless space voyager Steve West, along with two other crew members, gaze upon the rings of Saturn......big mistake.
Even bigger mistake due to the film's $2.98 budget - it's not Saturn they're looking at but old archive footage of solar storms......which as far as we know, only take place on the sun.
Steve's buddies don't make it back to Earth, but Steve does.....in a state of dripping, extra-gooey decomposition, which doesn't sit well with Steve. Growling and enraged, he chases after his poor nurse to insure she'll never be included in any sequels.......
And now let us point out the film's ultimate raison d'etre......the startling make-up effects by one of the masters of the art, Rick Baker. ("Planet of the Apes", "An American Werewolf in London" and many many others). He's the only genuinely talented, creative individual involved with this movie.......but that doesn't bode well for any movie that has to rely solely on one single production team member to make the resulting film watchable.
The rest of film's crew, writer-director William Sachs and his woeful cast of has-beens and non entities are a painful embarrassment to even talk about.
Nobody should think they'll extract laughs aplenty from this bunch, like giggling at Ed Wood Jr. and his coterie of outcast-oddballs from "Plan 9 From Outer Space". The 'Melting Man' cast appears recruited from whoever agreed to kick in a few bucks to film's budget and they're no fun at all to even mock for their limited to non-existent skills.
Speaking of the film's low, low budget......its depiction of the U.S. space program consists entirely of that hapless nurse, two doctors and a cranky old General (Myron Healy). How this bunch managed to launch three guys to Saturn all by themselves with no apparent infrastructure anywhere in sight....well, feel free to make your own attempts to figure that out......
But let us now move on the the actual bloody adventures of Melty, who spends most of the film's 86 minutes staggering through rural foliage, dripping goo on the vegetation and offing a few unlucky folks here and there......including one poor soul whose severed head floats lazily down a river till it tumbles down a waterfall for extra squishy goodness.
A teen girl, giving the worst impression of hysteria ever, does hack off Melty's hand but you can't keep an oozing man down.....before he finally succumbs to a total blubbery collapse, like a diarrhea snowman caught in a heatwave, he's succeeded in wiping out most of the supporting cast.....but then, they're really no loss to either the film or the acting community.
In the final ironic scenes, it's left to a perplexed elderly janitor to scoop up what's left off Drip-along, while the TV news proudly announces we're sending three more guys to the rings of Saturn! (presumably sent there by a re-staffed NASA consisting of a nurse, doctor and General. )
Fans of the astonishing nightmare-inducing creations of Rick Baker won't want to miss this....but for even for the most ardent of sci-fi completists, the minimal fun this movie provides is barely worth the time spent to endure it.
1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2).
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