The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

Just how incredible is this man, you ask? Monstrously incredible.

The premise is that of a classic monster movie. Some group tries to stop a bad accident from getting worse, and our hero/villain/victim is the gimmick. A man melts. The concept of the film is terrifying. The execution is not. It's cheesy and poorly shot at times, but it is gory. It has to be, right?

The dude is fucked either way, and we take a trip through his decomposition and it is pretty gnarly. Throw in a slasher/monster angle for good measure. He needs to feed on people to slow his decay rate. None of the characters matter, and for a movie that wants to showcase its gore effects, it skips out on a lot of opportunities for it.

It's all about the special effects on the main guy though. His character is just as shallow as everyone else, but it's better that way. The audience can be left to ponder their own wonders of this melting man's melting biology, and maybe even try to put themselves in his shoes. The melting man's shoes.

He wears a hospital type of outfit, so you'll only ever see his melting head, hands, and feet. All he does is stumble around the land and kill people every so often, until a confrontation with his past ends it for everyone. Not that it matters, because every character in this movie is bland. You'll have zero attachment to any of them as you root for the Melting Man to kill people and, well... melt some more.

It's a bleak ending, but damnit, I loved it. And I loved that bit where the guy has to clean up the muck. His fate is inevitable. Melted things can't unmelt. I'm surprised it took me so long to see this. This movie is trash, and that's exactly where they put him.

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