Three astronauts are exposed to a severe blast of radiation while orbiting Saturn. Only one of the astronauts, Steve West, survives. (They never explain how he makes the return trip to Earth in his rapidly deteriorating state.) You know it’s serious when the attending doctor checks the fully bandaged man’s chart and the only thing it says is RADIATION in bold red letters. Thankfully, those bandages don’t stay on for long as the movie is eager to show off its makeup effects, provided by the legendary Rick Baker. Steve is a mess of a man, leaving behind a sticky slime on everything he touches. His ability to reason has melted much like his flesh. You’ve seen slime monsters before, but few as gross as this one.
As soon as the doctor leaves, Steve bursts out of his restraints, chases a nurse through a plate glass door, and rips off a nearby fisherman’s head, which ends up in the waterfall where three kids play. Those kids, by the way, are bad little shits, first introduced sharing a cigarette even though they’re not even out of grade school. One asks the little girl if she wants to play Doctor before putting her up to a game of Hide & Seek, which is really just an excuse to ditch her. And the aforementioned severed head looks so good, the camera lingers on it longer than necessary as it floats down the river and ultimately sails over the waterfall, smashing wonderfully on a rock below.
Dr. Ted Nelson, played by fellow Oklahoman Burr DeBenning, gets on the phone and calls an Air Force general to let him know Steve has escaped. The phone call reveals that not only is the general familiar with Steve’s condition, this very thing has happened before, only Steve “seems to be getting stronger.” It’s imperative, the men agree, that Steve is found immediately for reasons that will remain undisclosed until the final minute of the film. This task is of such importance that Dr. Nelson spends the next few scenes idly chatting with coworkers before heading home to eat lunch with his wife. That may sound like the movie plods, but it doesn’t, as Steve is a busybody when it comes to a-meltin’ and a-killin’. When at last Dr. Nelson picks the general up at the airport, you expect them to speed off in a serious manner, at which point Nelson immediately stalls his Toyota like a man who’s never driven a stick.
I use the word “cheese” a lot to describe the movies I feature here, but rarely camp. The Incredible Melting Man isn’t in the cheese camp. It’s squarely in the camp camp. That doesn’t mean it’s completely lacking cheese (not to mention a little sleaze in a scene involving a pushy photographer), but it has more in common with a movie like The Thing with Two Heads than it does yesterday’s Cannibal Apocalypse, which oozed cheese and sleaze. Camp is what filmmakers like William Castle and John Waters did. No part of it wants to be taken seriously. Indeed, the director has lamented that he shot a funnier movie until American International Pictures ordered him to make the kills more serious. As much as I hate studio interference, I assume that “funnier” picture was less funny than the one we got. Subtly poking fun at the genre is almost always preferable to a full-on parody, the latter of which often feels like a bad imitation in which the actors wink at the camera to remind you that they’re above the material.
The Incredible Melting Man is somewhat tame for a melt movie in terms of meanness, but it delivers the gross even though there’s only one meltdown shown. It just so happens it’s a long, grueling meltdown that lasts the entire movie. Maybe it loses a little steam toward the end (I am utterly bored by how so many of these movies end with a foot chase through mechanical spaces), but the film ends with an aftermath shot of its violent climax which I found quite amusing.
