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Film: The Incredible Melting Man
Year: 1977
Director: William Sachs
Writer: Williams Sachs
Starring: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning and Myron Healey
Review:
This film begins in space showing us solar flares on the Sun. We learn that there is a mission that is orbiting Saturn. There is an astronaut, played by Alex Rebar. He tells Houston that you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the Sun through the rings of Saturn. Something happens and everyone on board the space shuttle is hurt. Rebar bleeds from his nose.
Back on Earth, Rebar is in a hospital bed. A doctor, played by Lisle Wilson, comes to see him and decides with a nurse that they need to check his vitals every 15 minutes and to continuously give him full blood. They both leave and Rebar wakes up. He starts to freak out after looking at his hands and face. The nurse returns and flees at the sight of him. He kills her outside.
Another doctor examines her body; she is played by Burr DeBenning. He calls a general, played by Myron Healey to inform him of the situation. They are to keep this quiet and to find Rebar before it is too late.
BeDenning starts to look for him, knowing that he was radioactive and that a Geiger counter will help him. He finds a trail, but it goes cold.
Rebar on the other hand runs into a local fisherman. He kills him and tosses his decapitated head into the river. We see that Rebar is melting, but still getting stronger. DeBenning also finds proof of this by finding his ear, as it got snagged on a tree.
DeBenning then heads home for lunch and learns that Healey is on his way. His wife comes home; she is played by Ann Sweeny. She is pregnant and has gone through two miscarriages. DeBenning is nervous about her having another one. He does share with her what happened to Rebar and that he has to find him. He picks up Healey from the airport and on the drive they discover a crime scene.
This was actually discovered by a model, played by Cheryl Smith, and a photographer. It is the body of the fisherman. At this scene we learn that DeBenning is good friends with the local sheriff, played by Michael Alldredge.
We see that Rebar has a run-in with a little girl, but he doesn’t kill her. He just continues to look worse and worse as he continues to melt.
DeBenning becomes frustrated when they cannot find him and he decides to call it a night. He invites Wilson and Healey back to his place for dinner. Healey agrees and Sweeney informs him that her mother, Leigh Mitchell, and her boyfriend, Edwin Max, are coming as well. DeBenning is not too happy about this.
They never make it though. They stop off to steal some lemons from a farm, but they are scared off by a dog. They are chased back to their car where Rebar is waiting for them. He kills them both.
Sweeny is scared, because they should have been there by now. She asks DeBenning to go find them. He takes Healey along.
We then see that Rebar is stalking outside of DeBenning’s house. Will he kill his wife or will she survive? Can anyone stop Rebar on his rampage before it is too late?
I have to say that I tried watching this as a child and it grossed me out. I will give credit to the make-up and effects crew for what they did to Rebar. He is quite the creature. I like that the radiation causes him to become stronger, but the side-effect is that he melts. They do come up with some creative situations to put Rebar in as well.
Now I do have a lot of issues with this film. The first being I think they are implying that something on Saturn is the cause of this, but they use images of the Sun. Saturn is so far out, the radiation from the sun would be pretty much harmless. This is a personal issue from what they show and try to explain. I also would assume that as his skin and muscles melt, he would become weaker, not stronger as well. The make-up is creepy, but you can clearly see that he has normal skin by his eyes through the skull he is wearing, also his teeth behind the teeth of the skull as well. There is an issue that he gets his arm cleaved off by Janus Blythe, but it is close to the elbow. They have him tuck his arm into his shirt and it is clear. BeDenning also leads a subpar acting crew as well. He has zero emotions through every single scene.
With that said, I would only recommend this film if you want to see decent low budget horror film. The idea isn’t bad, but it isn’t played out all that realistically. The acting isn’t good and there are issues throughout the film. This one would be better to not take so seriously, as I found some of it funny. It would be one that is good to watch with friends while having drinks. There are much better films in this genre out there.
My Rating: 4 out of 10