i got drunk the previous weekend and watched this. i couldn't finish it though, pretty sad when 10 beers can't help you get through a movie. oh well, atleast it was only 10 bucks.
"I'm Dr. Ted Nelson!!!!"
Yeah, Ted, yell it a little louder and freak out the already freaked security guards a little more.
"ATCHKA!!!"
"Honey, our friend Ted is turning into a puddle of wet sick, and eating people as he goes...where are the saltines?"
I reviewed this movie for scifilm awhile back....
http://www.scifilm.org/reviews/meltingman.html
needless to say, I was far from kind.
And what was it about eating in this movie. Everybody is either eating or talking about food in every single scene, or so it seems.
I've got this movie on my shelf. It's been there for a couple of months now, and the more I hear about it, the more I am tempted to see what it's all about. The Amazing Colossal Guide of Mst3k claims it almost edges out Manos as the worst movie they have ever done. The IMDb reviews say it isn't too bad, but I've been hearing a whole lot differently elsewhere.
Scottie
Well, it IS completely pointless (the ending seems to be trying to say something, but...what? "Stay home?"), preposterous in a fashion "Repticulus" only dreams of ("He's getting stronger as he melts!"), crawling with boring domestic scenes and the most eye-gougingly hideous senior citizens ever captured on film (the "gobble gobble" bit from MST3K nearly gave me a coronary), low budget to a fault (it honestly appears to have been shot in a single day, at times seeming like a color remake of "Monster A Go-Go" or "First Man Into Space" with Karo Syrup on everything), and contains cliches that no one in their right mind would touch even in the '70s ("Te...Te...Ted?").
God forgive me for saying this, but "Manos" at the very LEAST had more imagination. I mean, look at the Master's robes! "Incredible Melting Man" takes a single effect that was all used up in the last five minutes of "The Devil's Rain," and based the entire ninety-minute movie on that effect.
"Ch...Ch...Chuck?"
"See? He knew him!"
--Gilda Radner reviews "First Man Into Space" in "It Came From Hollywood"
I mean, "Reptilicus." Gin makes a man mean! And stoopid.
When the cop finaly shot him, shouted "I'm Dr. Dead Nelson! aghhhh..." Few times have i felt an "Innocent" bystander needed shooting...this was one of them.
I about broke down in tears laughing at the scene where the "general" is eating breakfast (more frigging eating!) at some console. WTF? Doesn't he had an office at least? Or does he just like taking his breakfast out to the main control center to have a bite?
And, as for the message, it's "Don't look at solar flares through Saturn's rings or you'll melt into a hideous pile of slush." Words to live by.
>>God forgive me for saying this, but "Manos" at the very LEAST had more imagination. I mean, look at the Master's robes! "Incredible Melting Man" takes a single effect that was all used up in the last five minutes of "The Devil's Rain," and based the entire ninety-minute movie on that effect.>>
Speaking of Manos' creativity, it's said that John Reynolds worked very very hard to make this movie, even spending painstaking hours to construct the goat knees and cleft feet (unseen in Mst3k version because the theater seats block the view) of Torgo. Reynolds, it's said, committed suicide because of the film's lack of success, as well as two other cast members. Now come on. Surely they had to have known what they were making was terrible, especially since this was made on a bet that the movie could become extremely popular, even with its extremely small budget.*
Scottie
*Info courtesy the IMDb
ha ha good point, the film also struck me as having one of those tpyical "man screws over nature-nature gets revenge" kinda theme in a lot of 60's and 70's horror. it is a truly fascinating film though in how horrible it is.
wow! worse than manos, i wouldn't say that myself. are you hearing more bad than good reviews i take it?
I have this movie on VHS and I think it is one of the more enjoyable bad sci-fi movies from the 1970s. The sequence at the beginning inside the rocket is delightfully cheesy. The scene of the nurse running down the corridor in slow-motion is hilarious. I haven't watched it in several years (since I made the switch to DVD), but maybe I'll have to dig it out . . .
Back in the day, when I attended conventions with some regularity (too expensive now), I saw fistfuls of IMM stills that features the dripbeast attacking the nurse. Anyone have any idea whether some scenes were trimmed, or if these were just posed publicity stills?
They printed one of those in "Starlog," I recall. (Is "Starlog" still around?) In it, Melty is kneeling down next to the collapsed and flailing Nurse Chunky, reaching towards her head; Melty's hair was already mostly gone, I think, which was weird as this should be occuring two or three minutes after he first takes off his bandages... The scene had to have been fully shot; I don't believe a no-budget thing like that would go to all the trouble just for an unappealing still like that; they'd go for a shot of Alex Rebar (Melty) trying to grab Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith's bobbles instead.
That's one of the major "duh" moments of "Melting;" instead of feeding us so many filler minutes of Dr. Ted Nelson's boring home life, or that horrible senior-citizen trespassing scene (gobblegobblegooble!), the story should have at least TOUCHED upon some sort of transition from Steve West, Astronaut to Melty, Gooey Cannibal. There's no sense of motivation or resistance; he just tears off his bandages, sees that he's got a bad case of herpes, and immediately murders and partially eats the head of his nurse before bailing into the woods--leaving the audience to say, "Wait...wha?" Me, I would've asked for some saltines and ointment and stopped to take a dribble (ha ha). Hospital, woods. Hospital, woods. I would've at least TRIED the hospital cafeteria jello BEFORE the nurse's head. But I'm not an astronaut, so I don't know...
Jeez: I looked up "Rainbeaux" Smith's IMDB profile and found some sad things:
(1) Aside from her brief role as the model in "Melting," she was the girl in "Laserblast" and had a bit role in "Parasite." She had little roles in a lot of B-movies.
(2) She died in October, bringing the number of dead leads/stars associated with "Laserblast" to four (with Kim Milford, Keenan Wynn, and Roddy McDowell). However, Eddie Deezen remains at large.
One more bit: You know, I should be more in love with this dumb movie than I am. The refrigerator-raiding Colonel is played by Myron Healy, who played another military brass ass as the "hero" of "Varan The Unbelievable." And how many movies follow a torn-off head as it's hucked out of the bushes into a stream, floating along in the current, and plopping over a small waterfall to break open on the rocks below with a sick, slo-mo splat--and still be less effective or memorable than the severed leg in "Jaws?"
Potential titles of remakes/sequels:
"PUS!! The Motion Picture"
"Nightmare of Eczema"
"Melting Man 2: The Liquifactoring"
"The Spew People"
"The Incredibly Strange Creature Who Started Melting And Became A Mixed-Up Zombie"
>Is "Starlog" still around?
Yup.
According to Fangoria's DVD/Video release calender, Synapse is putting together a "Special Edition" of the movie for DVD. Guess it's no longer one of those 'Midnight Movies' package deals.
Yeah, and I'm buying it. Sheesh, I need help.