The Incredible Melting Man (1977) Is A Seventies Stoner Doom Tragedy
In cinema, space travel is one of the best ways to expose the folly of man. From Pazuzu issuing premonitions of death, to distress signals ending with a greased up dick monster pushing your shit in, the void beyond our skies is a place to explore if you seek a horrific undoing. The tale of Colonel Steve West affirms that going to space is terrible, but it's the telling which makes THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN such an enduring oddity.
While on a mission, Colonel West and two other enterprising astronauts are exposed to the rays of the sun through the rings of Saturn. Apparently that's a big no-no, and results in potent radiation poisoning leaving West the sole survivor. Though he lives, West is left heavily irradiated and horribly disfigured. Awakening back on earth he (Understandably) takes the news poorly, and (Less understandably, I guess) goes on a kill-crazy rampage as his body slowly degenerates into a state akin to a svelte Pizza The Hutt. Is there more? Nope, and that's the beauty of it.
On my initial viewing, I was unimpressed with THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN. Sure I got to see a fantastic severed head prop and West's decomposing body made for a goop-centric treat (Rick Baker did the effects and apparently he's no slouch), but the whole endeavor seemed too straight forward and simplistic. Revisiting the movie as an older (True) and wiser (Debatable) degenerate, I was delighted. In the same vein as Without Warning, the magic of the movie comes from its earnest desire to create a contemporary answer to fifties space horror. In doing so we get outrageous pseudo-science and creature feature hyperviolence, wrapped up in the shag carpet/asbestos aesthetics of the late seventies. A contributing factor to the bizarro tone is that the movie was originally intended as a horror comedy, but was hacked to pieces in post-production to create a straight-forward creature feature.
In a slow motion shot meant to inspire dread, a nurse flees The Melting Man and runs straight through a plate glass door. Our "hero" Dr. Ted Nelson is tasked with finding and subduing Colonel West. Dr. Ted dresses like Carl Sagan, and spends an inordinate amount of time upset that his wife forgot the crackers for his bowl of soup. The aforementioned severed head is detached offscreen, but we do witness The Melting Man huck it unceremoniously into a stream. For any other severed head that would be the end of its story, but we cut back to it later in the movie as it careens down a small waterfall and cracks open like a ripe melon. A trio of surly nicotine-curious children end up playing near said waterfall, and one of them witnesses The Melting Man going through a PTSD episode. She runs screaming from the scene and past her two playmates who laugh at her terror, while one of them reads a Playboy (For the articles) in broad daylight.
I could continue to synopsize the plot gems that make up the overflowing treasure chest of THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN, but I'd be doing you a disservice. It's a doom metal song, one where the ever-striding, melting Colonel West is the discordant, repeating riff. Shedding body parts as he gradually dissolves (Using the cinematic language of shellacking a guy in buffalo sauce and cum), he has become a harbinger of chaos. A once proud astronaut, reduced now to what the cheese looks like when it all comes off a pizza slice. The riff fades into oblivion as his nightmare ends, but the memory remains. There's a hint of melancholy in the aftermath of all the horrors. It's poetry...Shellacked in buffalo sauce and cum.
-Dr. Benny Graves
