When I first experienced The Incredible Melting Man on Mystery
Science Theater 3000 more than fifteen years ago, I thought to myself
"as bad as this is, this is far from the mind-numbing crap that's
usually on this show". I could actually get through this B-flick without
the best riffers in the world (Joel, Mike, Tom Servo, Crow and the gang)
throwing in their clever barbs every few seconds. Scream Factory has taken the
liberty to put William Sachs’ The Incredible Melting Man out in an ooey-gooey
special edition Blu-ray that is sure please fans of this messy little
masterpiece.
The plot is actually quite simple: Alex Rebar plays Astronaut
“Steve West”, a man on a mission to take space exploration that much further
than anyone before him. He does, but at a price, because now he is sitting in a hospital
bed, gradually melting away thanks to a solar flare while gazing like a lecher at Saturn. After killing a rotund nurse, he emerges from the
hospital, on the loose and suddenly an aggressive murderous creature.
Fast on the syrupy heels of our cannibalistic melting creature is
Dr.Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning) who’s out to capture West before he gets too
powerful during this sloppy metamorphosis. The film really has the look of a
70’s TV movie – just with graphic violence. Somehow this adds to the experience
because you don’t have that expectation so much as you watch it. The
performances, to be expected are sub-par, with Alex Rebar taking overacting to
a grotesquely new level with his few speaking scenes during the opening. These are
gold! It’s probably good that he was in that make-up for the majority of the
film.
The extras features here are all pretty entertaining, as you do
get some interviews with make-up artist Greg Cannom, Director William Sachs and a surprisingly candid Rick Baker. In a soft-spoken tone the FX titan talks about
is displeasure with The Incredible Melting Man himself, Alex Rebar. It's quite
funny so I won't be spoiling Baker's experience. Baker also talks about his FX
team that included the talented Rob Bottin (The Thing, Total Recall) and of
course Greg Cannom.
On the excellent commentary track Sachs goes into quite a bit of
detail on how The Incredible Melting Man came about. Amazingly, it was Sachs'
mother who came up with the basic idea of this sloppy slice of genius. Much
like Rick Baker in his interview, Sachs seems to wish he had done things differently
had he had another shot at making the film.
The Incredible Melting Man will never be confused with one of the
great Universal monster classics but if you’re hankering for a beautifully
inept, gory, 50’s throwback that will go out of its way to destroy your brain-cells
(or melt them), Scream Factory has this enjoyable flick looking better than
ever on the Blu-ray.
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