Leofwine_draca An interesting, updated gory variant of the QUATERMASS adventures from Hammer, with a lower budget and much less plot. The main reason this film exists is to showcase Rick Baker's awesome makeup effects which more than make up for the minimal dialogue and the pathetic attempts at pathos. The film is cheaply and poorly made with actors whom you've never heard of, and will never hear of again. While all acting is of sufficient standard for a film of this type, the only person that sounds out from the rest is Doctor Nelson, who is a believable man juggling his marriage and his best friend's destruction. He's not a good performer but he's memorable in his wool hat and parka.However the plot and acting aren't really anything to judge this film by, instead you have the Incredible Melting Man himself, a character that is frankly hilarious. Hearing "space noises" in his head as he wanders the countryside, this guy just comes off the worse for wear in every instance. He even leaves his ear on a tree! Incredibly, the deaths in this film seem to have been played for laughs - check out the scene where he beheads a fisherman! The highlight of the film is probably the scene where he attacks a young girl who cuts off one of his arms with a meat cleaver! The camera lingers on the still twitching digits of the severed hand in one of many neat touches.On an aesthetic level the film is disappointing, no Oscar-calibre material here, but the Incredible Melting Man makes for quite an effective monster. It's just a shame that he wasn't given much to do apart from run around in the dark. The effects of his melting face and the final disintegration are truly superb, Rick Baker sure knows his stuff. And who can forget the fantastic ending, where, as I once heard someone on the internet sum it up neatly, "The guy melted and they threw him in the trashcan!" An enjoyable obscurity from a forgotten era.

mark.waltz There's nothing like seeing the sun from the rings of Saturn! That basically sums up the theme of this deliciously bad and funny science fiction/horror film that has to be seen to be believed. Basically a rip-off of the atom age science fiction movies of the 1950's and 60's, this is too funny to pass up, yet too gory for some audiences to watch without turning their face away. It is one of those "Come back from outer space and see what you turn into!" themed space films, and boy, what happens to the astronaut here isn't a fate you'd wish on your worst enemy, probably because you know he'd be trying to chow down on your face for dinner. Lots of dripping goo will give the "eew" factor to audiences not expecting it, but there are also plenty of seemingly intentional laughs here in spite of the carnage.Burr DeBenning is the handsome scientist, Dr. Nelson, whose old friend Steve has become a walking Frankenstein's monster, to quote one little girl who encounters him like the little girl did Karloff and Peter Boyle, and at least at the hands of Karloff didn't live to regret it. A fisherman encounters more than a bear and "heads up" (or off), the shot of the poor man's face floating down a river of no return onto an obvious man-made waterfall and plopping down as if it was an Alaskan salmon. That was the first of many laughs for me, and I settled back in preparation for a treat of horror comedy that both grossed me out and tickled my funny bone, although a few sequences were extremely disturbing.The funniest sequence comes with the car ride of Dr. Nelson's seemingly old crone of a mother-in-law (a hysterical Dorothy Love), kissing her boyfriend as he drives, then nagging him to stop to pick oranges, which actually turn out to be lemons. The tension increases as the monster oozes his way through the lemon grove, stalks Dr. Nelson's house, encounters a turkey leg eating general, and eventually ends up in some sort of power plant like James Cagney fighting to get to "the top of the world". Another hysterical sequence has a young couple coming home to find oozing blood on their open door, and the poor girl actually pushing a refrigerator in front of the door and chopping off a hand while going slowly insane over what she's encountered. For a local sheriff, his encounter with the gooey creature turns out to be totally electrifying!Containing some of the most ridiculous attempts at serious conversations I've seen in a film, one whole segment deals with Dr. Nelson's pregnant wife and him arguing over her forgetting to pick up crackers. It goes on and on, seemingly pointless, yet the same pointless attempt at serious conversation with mother-in-law Love just continues to get so hysterical, I longed for it to continue. She wants to stop to call to let her daughter know she's late, even though they are just a few minutes from there. Then, she wants to stop and get them chocolates or flowers, denying that she wants the chocolates for herself yet agreeing that flowers die too quickly. Hence the sudden decision to pick citrus fruit when you're already late, a segment that reminded me of Billie Burke's insistence on eating cake in somebody else's house while searching for her missing husband in "Topper Returns". This is fast and funny, yet there is a serious message attached to the plot line that keeps repeating through the monster's memory of being an astronaut and encountering rays from the sun as seen from many millions of miles away. What are we going to outer space for when we don't know what sort of horrors we might bring back, and while it isn't mentioned, destroying our own atmosphere at the same time? So when a bad movie still makes you think about the impact that human beings are having on the world that we're supposed to be content with and try to continue to nurture, there is some purpose to it. The ending is very downbeat and ironic, with a janitor finding the mess of the night before, and simply sweeping it all up and tossing it away as the shot of another spacecraft prepares to take off.

breakdownthatfilm-blogspot-com The whole decade of the 1970s brought on a lot of change in several areas of life. People were advocating for peace rather than war. Some were fighting for civil liberties. Others were making strides in space exploration and some were pushing the limits that were everyday filmmaking. The 1970s for Hollywood received a jumble of new people who were making films that attracted audiences like never before. The horror genre was being exploited and tested to see how graphic directors could get away with showing their material to casual audiences. Science fiction movies were also on the rise with a number of films that inspired many future film crew professionals. For director William Sachs, having produced only a few films before this, took a hand at the horror and sci-fi genre. What turned out being only a literal 2-week shoot, has also been regarded as one of the worst films ever released. It is pretty bad, but it isn't the worst. It does have some moments to point out but it's more for if you just want to laugh at how silly the execution is.The story is about an astronaut named Steve West (Alex Rebar - probably his most memorable role) who went on a trip with others to Saturn to see the Sun of our solar system. Scientifically the trip doesn't make sense, but that's the least of the problems. After receiving some type of radiation trauma from the rays of the sun (via public domain stock footage), West is the only survivor. When he awakes, he discovers his skin is beginning to fall off. Expecting the worst, West begins to rage with fear and develops an appetite for human flesh. Dr. Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning), a friend of West is ordered by Gen. Michael Perry (Myron Healey) to find him before word gets out and also figure out how West got that way. This plot would be okay if it held a little more weight. Sachs was also the writer for this project. The screenplay is too light on exposition and hardly develops its characters. There are subplots, but much of the material is just filler making them pointless. Padding is really a big one. The whole running time is just an extended cat & mouse chase.Also not helping that is 99% of the acting is dull and unconvincing except for maybe Sheriff Neil Blake (Michael Alldredge). The actor who's possibly the worst is Burr DeBenning. As the lead, his delivery is banal, carrying barely any hint of emotion. This is made all the more obvious when certain characters make extremely dumb decisions or lack any kind of deductive reasoning. Nobody can find a man who is literally melting and leaving trails everywhere he goes. Probably one of the more frustrating parts is not really getting to know the star of the film. Sachs script loves to indulge in giving its audience numerous playbacks of the first scene to West's poisoning. Yet, some viewers might actually like to get to know what's going on in West's mind other than the fateful day he went all brain stew on everyone. Audiences aren't given any reason as to why West went after people he knew other than he needed buckets of blood to survive. The creature idea itself isn't the most unique either (although only one film has been made about such a creature) but how it's treated visually is another story. Practical effects whiz Rick Baker (getting his kick- start from Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)) was head of special makeup effects. Wow is the melting man actually believably unappealing. Alex Rebar in costume as the slimy fall apart man is visually nauseating and that's good. Taking into account the budget and how long it took to shoot the movie, that alone is a feat in itself. The rest of the horror relies on more gore than anything else. There is nothing to be scared about because of how quickly the acting takes one out of even remotely feeling that it could happen. There is a funny moment though. The credits aren't exactly clear but there is a scene involving to old folks driving. There acting is by no means good but if anything they provide the most energy to the film. It's truly ironic that two older actors can show up the rest of the entire cast when it comes to showing any emotion beyond seriousness.The last two components that need to be mentioned are camera-work and music. Willy Kurant took care of cinematography. Although mostly doing more of his native work for Belgian productions, Kurant does however give the film somewhat of a professional look. The lighting is clear and bright where it needs to be. The camera is also steady and that's always good. Arlon Ober composed the musical score. Ober who is more familiar with orchestrating and conducting still makes use of whatever he saw in this below average film. It's not a good score because of its typical 1970s sound using flutes, electronic piano and guitar. It's an odd combo and it would be one thing if it was experimental, but this film was trying to appeal to mainstream audiences, so no. It also doesn't help with bad acting that it makes the scenes feel over dramatized. What does work however is the motif theme for the melting man. The theme consists of sad sounding strings in full orchestra, which makes the character feel that more tragic. Unfortunately, it's still not that good of a film.The (though all too 70s) film score, well-lit cinematography and makeup effects are mostly well put together, nothing else is really that acceptable. Most of the acting is not even comically dry, almost all characters are one-dimensional and the padding makes the sit painfully slow.

gavin6942 An astronaut (Alex Rebar) is transformed into a murderous gelatinous mass after returning from an ill-fated space voyage.This film is apparently considered one of the worst movies ever made, even being featured in a documentary as one of the 50 worst of all time. While not to say it is exceptionally good, it is far from the worst and can actually be quite enjoyable if taken as a bad science fiction film -- get some popcorn or beer and this can be a treat.Interestingly, although not really notable for anything at the time (besides being on the very tail end of space radiation films), we can now look back and see that it has Jonathan Demme in it, and special effects from seven-time Oscar winner Rick Baker. According to Baker, Rob Bottin was also an uncredited assistant on the picture, too.On the Shout Factory release, the director tries to downplay the badness of the film by saying it was intended to be humorous. Rick Baker seems to understand better that it really did not have much of a chance even from the get-go, and he places much of the blame on the editing. Apparently the editor was replaced halfway through, so some sequences are cut better than others.The best part of the movie (besides the effects) is a scene with two elderly people driving a short-cut through the woods. It goes on a bit long, but is the most entertaining. The worst part was the constant repeated space radio noises in the melting man's head. Director Sachs says originally they were not going to reveal that he was an astronaut until the end. Instead, they went the other way and we get constant reminders throughout the film from the opening shot and onward. Completely unnecessary.