The Incredible Melting Man
Film Review
by
Ann Huseman©2003
Opening: stock footage of a planet, supposed to be Saturn.
Next, we see a hospital room and a man shrouded in bandages. Two men discuss his pitiful condition. Something terrible has gone wrong on the recent Saturn Mission. This man, an astronaut on the mission, has contracted melting syndrome.
Suddenly a woman goes screaming down the hallway. Somehow Melting Man has removed his wrappings and escaped!
We learn that one of the men is a general, since he arrives in the next scene in a uniform and gives terse orders. Doctor Ted--we've learned his name--was also on the mission, but somehow he was unharmed. Dr. Ted's worried because his wife is pregnant with their first child and Melting Man has escaped. This doesn't look good.
We see Melting Man's sticky feet as he makes his way to a creek where a young couple is having a romantic picnic. She takes off her shirt for the mammary shot. Melting Man will have none of it. He craves blood for his rotting corpse.
The couple is oozified.
Next Ted and his pregnant wife Judy are at home by the fireplace. Ted isn't supposed to tell Judy about Melting Man, he has sworn to keep this whole thing hush-hush, but he can't lie to Judy, for Pete's sake. He blabs.
General Billy Bob shows up, but he's lost his uniform. He's in a denim jacket and a cap and has suddenly adopted a fake southern drawl.
Next we see an old couple driving down a dark lonely road in their car. She gives him a big smack.
Uh oh, Melting Man is hiding in the bushes as they pull into a lemon grove to steal lemons for a nice lemon meringue pie.
Meanwhile, Melting Man splashes water on his face from a rain barrel, while memories of the mission haunt him. Oh dear, he sees his oozy, gooey face and is repulsed.
The old couple shuffle into the grove, smooching. They're going to put the stolen lemons in the old lady's skirt. This is all very risqué.
Suddenly a dog barks. Fog rises. They dodder back to the car. They almost escape, but no, Melting Man must have blood.
Dr. Ted and General Billy Bob are at Dr. Ted's house
for dinner. General Billy Bob is angry because Dr. Ted has told his pregnant
wife, Judy, about Melting Man. Judy is hysterical. This is not good for
the baby. This is
not good for the town. If Dr. Ted had not told Judy, the town probably
wouldn't notice that an oozified serial killer was on the prowl.
Suddenly, we are at a cemetery with crooked crosses and ratty fencing. Uh oh, Melting Man is there. He is so sadly hideous with his ooze and blood and memories. He sinks down by the graveyard and puts his bloody-pulp of a head in his hands.
One chord strikes on a piano. Something bad is about to happen.
General Billy Bob and Dr. Ted are in a car heading for a drink. Apparently, they've ironed out their differences and abandoned Judy.
Melting Man's sticky feet move on.
Oh no, he is outside Dr. Ted's house. Crescendo. Dr. Ted's wife knits baby clothes in the living room, unaware that she's in dire straits.
Melting Man stands by the window. Dramatic pause while
tension builds. More ooze, head and hands.
Dramatic pause.
Judy hears a sound. She isn't going into the kitchen? Oh please, Judy, no. Judy goes into the kitchen. Dark pan of the room. Scary music. Judy turns on the light. It's only the cat. Whew.
Suddenly Dr. Ted is there-huh? I thought he was with General Billy Bob.
Blood-smeared leaves appear outside as Melting Man hides in the eucalyptus.
Dr. Ted and Judy are in the bedroom. Judy is crying over her dead mother. We find out later this is a precognitive moment.
Enter Sheriff Goober ridin' in his pick-em-up-truck listen' to the country top 50. Probably not the Dixie Chicks.
Sheriff Goober finds the old couple's car. Psycho shower scene music blends with the country music station in the truck. The sheriff looks in the car. Not good. He calls Doc Nelson (Dr .Ted, we find out).
Oh no, the old doddering couple is Judy's parents? How did Judy know before Sheriff Goober?
Dr Ted gives Judy some powerful medicine. General Billy Bob, who has apparently moved in with Ted, offers to watch over Judy. General Billy Bob tells Ted that Melting Man has only seven hours left--why we don't know. Ted leaves and fails to notice that Melting Man is still outside his house.
General Billy Bob is raiding the fridge while Judy is sleeping and Ted is away! He's stealing a turkey leg!
Melting Man is standing outside the patio doors of Judy's bedroom.
Meanwhile, the flies are already buzzing over the old couple, Judy's parents. Sheriff Goober wants Ted to give him some answers. Sheriff Goober is smarter than he looks, he's figured out these killings are not accidents.
Dr. Ted also fesses up to Sheriff Goober. Melting Man is on the loose. General Billy Bob is really going to be ticked off, that's twice Ted has blabbed.
They're off to find Melting Man, while General Billy Bob picks his teeth, totally unaware that Melting Man is ogling Judy.
For no reason, the general gets up and opens the front door. Maybe he need some air or wants to go to the Pic-N-Sav for dessert.
But no, General Billy Bob ain't going nowhere. General Billy Bob is oozed to death.
Ted is back with Sheriff Goober just in time to see the be-moozled General.
Next we cut to a young couple at a lonely farmhouse. He decides to check the house while his wife waits outside in the dark. Perhaps, he does this every time they come home, maybe he is cautious.
Time passes and his worried wife goes inside. Lights are on, but her Matt (that's his name) is missing. She goes into the kitchen. Of course, it is a bloody, oozing mess. But where is Matt?
The wife tiptoes through the house. A scream. She's found Matt. She goes into the kitchen and jams the fridge in front of the door. The door is forced back by someone, we don't know who, we just see the jiggling fridge.
She tries to call for help. Where is that butcher knife? Ah, she finds the cleaver. We wait. Oh no, Melting Man has jammed a fist through the kitchen window. Glass smatters onto the floor. That Melting Man sure moves fast. How did he get from the jiggling fridge to the outside window?
She chops off his hand with the cleaver. It falls moving and oozing on the kitchen linoleum.
She screams, scrunches into the corner. She is hysterical, laughing and crying and screaming. This is Academy Award winning stuff.
Sheriff Goober and Doc go back to Dr. Ted's house. They find a bloody, oozing thing in the yard. It's a turkey leg.
The woman who has just disarmed Melting Man is Nell Winter. Nell has somehow found the presence of mind to call Sheriff Goober.
But no, we see her still sitting in the corner. Maybe the hand called. The fridge door jiggles again.
Doctor Ted rushes through the door barred by the fridge. Melting Man hulks slowly away.
Bums are gathered around a barrel fire by the railroad tracks.
Melting Man wanders down the tracks, his armless sleeve dangling. He's headed for the power plant. Oh, yeh, we just found out he is radioactive too.
Sheriff Goober and Doc are at the power plant. Somehow they have figured out Melting Man is going to be there.
Melting Man climbs the grids. Doc and Goober are close behind. Music swells.
No, Melting Man has sneaked down the stairway and is hidden below He hulks his way through the plant to a warehouse room. Doc and Goober have lost him. No, suddenly he comes out of hiding just long enough to let them see him, then runs away.
More skulking, running, and stairs. Goober has his rifle now. He must have run back to the truck to fetch it.
Two night watchmen are puzzling over the oozy trail that has invaded their floor. For watchmen they are pretty much unaware that a chase is happening.
Doc has finally caught up with Melting Man. The sheriff arrives and aims. Shots fire. Two, three times. Melting Man spurts blood, but he ain't dead.
He lunges at Goober. Goober is thrown into the wiring and is as fried as the turkey leg.
The watchmen suddenly realize Melting Man is in the plant and give chase.
But somehow Doc has gotten himself hung over the side of the rail. He begs Melting Man, his former friend we find out, to help him. Melting Man suddenly has a change of sticky heart and gives Ted his one good arm.
The watchmen arrive and shoot Melting Man some more. But of course, it doesn't work.
Melting Man wanders away clutching his stomach. Pitiful violin music plays. Melting man makes monster sounds just like Frankenstein.
We watch as he slowly oozes away with the sounds of the space mission playing in his head. He's pulp.
One last shot of a melting eyeball, a shrinking hand and he goes like an ice cream cone on a hot day.
It is morning, hazy and red. Dr. Ted is asleep on a grid of the power plant, having forgotten he was in the middle of a horror movie. The radio plays and we learn that another mission is headed to Saturn. Have they learned nothing?
Melting Man Two is due for release soon in a town near you.
The End
