The Incredible Melting Man (1977)
- Directed by
- William Sachs
- Genre
- horror film, science fiction film, monster film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 26m
- Rated
- R
- Rating
- 4.6 of 10 from 94 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
An astronaut returns from a space flight to Saturn with his body melting from radiation exposure. He wanders around killing people and eating them to survive while a scientist and a general try to stop him.
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What happens
The Incredible Melting Man is a 1977 American science fiction body horror film directed and written by William Sachs. The plot concerns an astronaut whose body begins to melt after he is exposed to radiation during a space flight to Saturn, driving him to commit murders and consume human flesh to survive. During post-production, the producers reshot scenes without Sachs' participation. The film starred Alex Rebar as the main character, alongside Burr DeBenning as a scientist trying to help him and Myron Healey as a United States Air Force general seeking to capture him. While writing and shooting, Sachs was influenced by Night of the Living Dead. With the changes by the producers, the final film has been described as a remake of First Man into Space (1959), which in turn was directly influenced by The Quatermass Xperiment, even though Sachs had never seen either of those films. The screenplay which Sachs dramatized was originally intended as a parody of horror films, but comedic scenes were edited out during production and new horror scenes added. Sachs claimed that the producers decided during shooting that a straight horror film would be more financially successful, and that the film suffered as a result. The Incredible Melting Man was produced by American International Pictures, which also handled the theatrical distribution, while Columbia Pictures handled international rights under the Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors label. The film includes several homages to science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Makeup artist Rick Baker provided the gory makeup effects for the film. He originally created four distinct stages of makeup design so that the main character's body would appear to melt gradually, but the stages were ultimately cut from the final film. The film was commercially successful, but it received largely negative reviews, although even critical reviews complimented Baker's makeup effects. According to writer/director Sachs, many scenes that were re-shot and changed by the producers proved problematic due to their inferior acting. The Incredible Melting Man was featured in the comedy It Came from Hollywood (1982) and inspired the makeup effects for a scene in the science fiction-action film RoboCop (1987). It was also featured in a season 7 episode of the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 and episode 108 of RedLetterMedia's 'Best of The Worst' strand. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Operation Ganymed (1977)
Capricorn One (1977)
End of the World (1977)
Damnation Alley (1977)
The Incredible Hulk (1977)
Polygon (1977)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.