Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

The Incredible Melting Man Blu-ray Movie Review

Help him, he's melting.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 26, 2013

Fans of Scooby Doo are well aware of the series’ famous trope “. . .and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!” The Incredible Melting Man’s writer and director William Sachs might be forgiven for slightly adapting that famous phrase and lamenting, “I would have made the film I wanted to, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling producers!” Sachs (misidentified as “Sacks” in one of the bonus featurettes included on this new Blu-ray) spends quite a bit of his time on the commentary track “bitching and moaning” (in his own words) about how the film he wanted to make didn’t exactly make it to the screen. And listening to him describe his vision for The Incredible Melting Man, it’s hard to argue that his concept was manifestly better than the one that ended up in the final cut. As I discussed in the Project X Blu-ray review, part of what hobbled that film is that screenwriter Edmund Morris and producer-director William Castle revealed the “secret” of what’s really going on from the get go, rather than making the viewer an unknowing co-conspirator in a plot to fool a spy that he’s actually a writer living in the distant past in order to help him retrieve some data buried deep within his subconscious. The source novel for Project X, L.P. Davies’ wonderful The Artificial Man, didn’t spill the beans until well into the book, at which point it was a huge surprise. Up until that point, readers were aware that something nefarious was going on with this 1960s era writer toiling away in an isolated village in England. The fact that he was a super-spy from the far distant future was one of the novel’s crowning twists, but in the film version, it’s depicted from virtually the first scene. Where’s the mystery? Where’s the intrigue? And in fact, where’s the interest? Much the same “lay it all on the line” ethos permeates the “producer’s cut” version of The Incredible Melting Man, giving the film a rote, predictable quality that Sachs’ original concept certainly would have avoided. What’s left is a pretty campy exercise in a ooey gooey monster stumbling through the woods and occasionally killing people.

Sachs’ original conception was closer to the old EC Comics horror outings from the fifties, spiced with a winking sense of humor and, in the original version anyway, a sense of mystery as to what exactly was going on. Sachs’ producers “knew better”, however, forcing reshoots that supposedly clarified everything for the audience (not that anything needed clarifying in such a basic premise as this, frankly) while at the same time injecting a more pseudo-serious approach that actually only ended up making the film funnier, albeit unintentionally this time. For those not familiar with the history of The Incredible Melting Man, fast forwarding through the first several minutes until the scene of the nurse running down the hallway will at least give an approximation of how Sachs wanted to withhold vital information to make what was happening to the hero one of the prime questions in the film.

In this “new, improved” version, we’re shown astronaut Steve West (Alex Rebar), who is exposed to a solar flare and, well, starts melting. Back on Earth, he’s swaddled in massive amounts of bandages, but he also seems to have developed a murderous streak, as his attending nurse soon finds out. Meanwhile, an investigating scientist and friend of West’s named Dr. Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning) is tasked with figuring out what’s going on with West, not to mention figuring out where West is, since after snacking on the hapless nurse, West has disappeared into the scrub. And, ladies and germs, that’s pretty much the gist of The Incredible Melting Man. West trundles through a number of anecdotal scares, including a nice little Frankenstein involving some kids and, later, a pretty funny escapade with two seniors attempting to steal some lemons for a pie. Nelson follows from a distance, Geiger Counter in hand, attempting to get his charge back to the hospital, where evidently they have procedures to handle someone melting as badly as West is.

Even Sachs seems to be aware that the film is not very good in its final version, saddled with too much portentous dialogue for its own good and also stripped of its kind of silly sense of humor. The film could have been an outright comedy-horror masterpiece if only the powers that be (and/or were) would have left Sachs to his own devices. While there are traces of Sachs’ anarchic spirit here, most of the humor now stems from overly serious actors proffering absolutely ridiculous dialogue. The real attraction of the film probably is Rick Baker’s rather astoundingly gruesome makeup, something that is admittedly kind of at odds with the supposedly comedic offering Sachs hoped to create.

The Incredible Melting Man Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Incredible Melting Man is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory imprint Scream Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is another very solid offering from Scream Factory, one which offers nicely saturated color and some rather good fine detail, at least in the more brightly lit daytime segments. The film suffers from some low light level issues, including negligible shadow detail, quite a bit of the time. The elements here are in very good shape, with very little damage to report. As Sachs mentions in his commentary, the producers injected a bunch of stock footage, which is noticeably more grainy and quite a bit softer than the bulk of this high definition presentation.

The Incredible Melting Man Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Incredible Melting Man's original mono track is delivered via a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. While there's nothing major to complain about here, there's also not much to write home about. Dialogue, while kind of flat, is clean and easy to hear and the foley effects also come through fairly vividly. The sound design here is not overly ambitious, so this is by no means a sonic knockout, but fidelity is fine, if not overwhelming, and there's no real damage to report.

The Incredible Melting Man Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Make-up Effects Artist Greg Cannom (1080p; 2:56) is a brief but interesting interview with one of the make-up artists on the film.


• Interview with Writer/Director William Sachs and Mak-up Effects Artist Rick Baker (1080p; 19:37). Sachs and Baker appear to have been interviewed separately and their comments are interspersed with each other. Sachs repeats some of the information he imparts in his commentary, while Baker reveals he didn't really want to do the film and provided what he thought was an outrageous bid for his services, which the filmmakers accepted. D'oh!


• Theatrical Trailers (1080i; 1:48). Note how Rick Baker is the selling point!


• Photo Gallery (1080p; 4:22)


• Radio Spot (00:31)


• Commentary with William Sachs. This is a great commentary, albeit a kind of bitter one, as Sachs spends quite a bit of time distancing himself from the final film. Still, there's a wealth of background information here and despite Sachs' claims to the contrary, he remembers what happened all those years ago quite well. His closing "moral of the story" is absolutely hysterical.

The Incredible Melting Man Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Incredible Melting Man has a few decent scares and even a few decent laughs, but the problem is the laughs are now mostly in all the wrong places due to those darned meddling producers and their ridiculous efforts to subvert Sachs' original premise. That boneheadedness is only compounded by the stupid decision to spill the beans right off the bat, letting the viewer in on what's happening to West. Sachs' version would have kept that secret until near the end of the movie, adding some much needed suspense to the proceedings. As it stands, The Incredible Melting Man is just kind of a goofy outing with a slimy monster lurching out of the shadows and occasionally killing people. Rick Baker's make- up work is outstanding, however, and is certainly one of the best things about the film. This Blu-ray features excellent video and very good audio, and comes with some appealing supplements.