The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

HIS NAME WAS DENNIS, and he was my best friend in 3rd grade.

One Monday morning, Dennis couldn’t wait to tell me about a movie he saw over the weekend: a horror flick called The Incredible Melting Man, about an astronaut named Steve West (Alex Rebar) who comes back from space after flying through the rings of Saturn, causing his body and mind to disintegrate, making him kill.

I had seen ads for The Incredible Melting Man in the paper, and the shot of the man’s decomposing face terrified me. But Dennis proceeded to tell me all the details about the film, from the melting man’s goriest kills to his ooey, gooey demise.

It sounded like the greatest film ever made.

Over the years, I began to hear just how wrong I was. The Incredible Melting Man is panned in virtually every review you read. It even got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in 1996. But it still gnawed at me that I hadn’t seen this film for myself. So recently I decided to try and watch it through the eyes of a third grader, and see if it would have been cool to my inner 9-year-old.


Dennis better pray I never see him at a high school reunion.

The Incredible Melting Man is excruciatingly bad. Less than ten minutes in, the cheesiness envelops you, much like the gelatinous goo swallowing up West, our tragic hero turned mindless monster. When he’s not busy ripping people apart, West spends a lot of time wandering across hillsides, sometimes with a beautiful sunset behind him.

The acting in The Incredible Melting Man alternates between wooden and melodramatic. As Dr. Ted Nelson, the man trying to track down West, Burr DeBenning is dreadful. He looks clammy and emaciated, and delivers every line like he was told his dog died just before writer/director William Sachs yelled “Action!”

Sachs’ script doesn’t help matters. Here are a few doozies from the dialogue:

“Steve escaped.”
“He what?”
“Did you get some crackers?”

“You mean he’s radioactive?”
“Just a little bit.”

“Don’t call me baby.”
“Ok, sorry, honey.”

The Incredible Melting Man’s score by Arlon Ober sounds like something from a ‘70s cop drama – right down to the dramatic “DUM-dum-dummm” when something “shocking” happens. The only reason, if any, to sit through the film is to witness the early work of Oscar-winning special effects legend Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).


Contrary to what I thought of Dennis’ word-of-mouth review, The Incredible Melting Man is not great. It’s not good. It’s just bad. It’s not even “so bad it’s good.” There are no scares. No suspense. Like the melting man himself, the film aimlessly lumbers from one scene to the next until it mercifully ends.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Incredible Melting Man is rated R, and for good reason:
Violence/Scariness: A nurse’s mutilated face is shown. The melting man tears off a victim’s head off-screen, then we see it tossed into a river, where it cracks open on a rock like a melon (the victim’s bloody, headless corpse appears in a later shot). The melting man rips apart and dines on an elderly couple. There are several scenes of the melting man, well, melting – all gooey with random body parts falling off. A potential victim chops off the melting man’s arm with a meat cleaver. A sheriff repeatedly shoots the melting man, who shows his appreciation by tossing the sheriff onto high voltage power lines, frying him. A major character is shot in the head. The melting man’s final demise is a gooey, crunchy mess.
Sex/Nudity: A model gets topless at a photo shoot in the woods.
Smoking: Three kids share a cigarette behind a house.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s got a soft spot for low-budget horror cheese, highly unlikely. The Incredible Melting Man is a bloody, gooey affair with little redeeming value.

But wait – there’s more!

Act now and get your very own Incredible Melting Mandle, made by Stexe of Futurechimp:

The Incredible Melting Man
* Director: William Sachs
* Screenwriter: William Sachs
* Stars: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Michael Alldredge
* MPAA Rating: R


Rent The Incredible Melting Man from Netflix >>

Starcrash (1979)

IT’S NO SECRET that after the blockbuster success of Star Wars in 1977, a glut of quickie, low-budget space sagas flooded the market over the next few years, all looking to cash in on the phenomenon.

And probably no one in the history of motion pictures has successfully mastered the art of “quick” and “low-budget” like the legendary Roger Corman. So it’s a no-brainer that he entered this stampede of sci-fi schlock by producing the 1979 turkey Starcrash.


Marjoe Gortner (Bobbie Jo & The Outlaw) and Caroline Munro play a pair of interplanetary smugglers recruited by an emperor (Christopher Plummer) of a nearby planet to help defeat the evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) of the League of the Dark Worlds (DUN-DUN dunnn…), who’s planning to use The Doom Machine (DUN-DUN dunnn…) to destroy the emperor and his planet (dun, dun, DUNNN!!!).

Picking the best worst element of Starcrash is like trying to pick a favorite color of the rainbow. There are so many to savor: unconvincing miniature spaceship models, jarring editing, poor matting, the dated use of wipes and lap dissolves, melodramatic dialogue with expired phrases like “we’ve studied all the videotapes,” and cheesy stop-motion animation that immediately makes you yearn for anything by Ray Harryhausen. (Irony alert: Munro faced off against Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion creatures in 1973’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.)

The cast’s ham-fisted performances make it obvious they’re in on the joke. Gortner plays leading man Akton as part hero, part guide: Much of his dialogue consists of explaining oddities or advancing the threadbare plot. As space vixen Stella Star, Munro’s sexy British voice is removed and dubbed by American actress Candy Clark (Gortner’s then-wife). To compensate, Munro is scantily clad for much of the film – which is an additional blessing since her acting consists mostly of a raised eyebrow, scowling, smoldering stares, or a head-shake-and-grin combo.


As the Emperor, a slumming Christopher Plummer (who shot all his scenes in one day) gives as much regality and class as possible to his role, while Spinell (Rocky, Maniac) does such a good job hiding his Noo Yawk accent that is sounds like someone else dubbed his lines. And since everything can use a little Hoff, the Emperor’s son Simon (David Hasselhoff) shows up around the one-hour mark to help with the cause. However, it’s soon after Hasselhoff’s appearance that Starcrash starts to lose its playfulness – lumbering into a mundane, anemic third act despite lots of stuff getting blowed up real good.

Directed by Italian schlockmeister Luigi Cozzi (under the name Lewis Coates) and originally released in Italy as “Scontri Stellari Oltre la Terza Dimensione (Stellar Clashes Beyond the Third Dimension),” Starcrash wasn’t Corman’s only entry in the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom: He also produced the far superior Magnificent-Seven-in-space epic Battle Beyond The Stars.

In the finale of Starcrash, the Emperor orders his imperial battleship, “Halt the flow of time!” At many points during this clunker, it does indeed feel like time is standing still.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Starcrash is rated PG: Several people are shot dead by laser guns; victims of a spaceship crash are shown frozen in the snow; Stella, Akton, and Simon engage in hand-to-hand combat with enemies at various points; and there is one utterance of “damn.” Basically, if your kids have seen Star Wars, there’s no reason they can’t watch Starcrash.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

The two of you could have some fun with Starcrash by goofing on it MST3K-style, but the novelty may wear off before the end credits roll. You’re probably better off exploring it alone as a morbid curiosity to see what makes it such a talked-about train wreck.

Yes, that’s a light saber. No, nothing is sacred.

Starcrash
* Director: Luigi Cozzi
* Screenwriters: Luigi Cozzi, Nat Wachsberger
* Stars: Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff, Robert Tessier, Judd Hamilton
* MPAA Rating: PG


Rent Starcrash from Netflix>>

The Sadist (1963)

THE SADIST OFTEN GETS OVERLOOKED and lumped in with the large amount of B-movie, drive-in dreck released during the mid-1960s – which is a shame, because it’s a taut, effective, and surprisingly brutal film for its era.

Shot in real time, The Sadist’s plot is unassumingly simple: Three schoolteachers on their way to a Dodgers ballgame – Carl (Don Russell), Ed (Richard Alden), and Doris (Helen Hovey) – have car trouble and pull into an isolated auto yard. There, they run into crazed killer Charlie (Arch Hall, Jr.) and his young, nubile girlfriend Judy (Marilyn Manning).


Working from his own script, director James Landis does a superb job of creating tension. Even early in the film, as the teachers arrive at the auto yard, Landis sets the foreboding tone: When Ed yells for assistance and all he hears is his echo, it’s clear any later cries for help will fall on deaf ears.

The Sadist also features fantastic camerawork, including great use of foregrounds and depth by a young Vilmos Zsigmond, whose later legendary cinematography includes Deliverance, The Deer Hunter, and an Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Just as Charlie shows no mercy for his hostages, Landis gives no relief to the audience. The Sadist is shockingly brutal and graphic for its time: Charlie verbally and physically tortures the teachers, and several scenes are indeed sadistic. The best example is the infamous “soda scene,” where Charlie tells one of his victims he’s going to shoot them in the head once he’s done his bottle of soda – all while the victim is on their knees, begging for their life. (An additional form of torture: Carl, Ed, and Doris can hear the ballgame they’re missing as it plays on the car radio.)

Hall’s performance as Charlie falls between nutjob killer and goofy caricature, and this combination is what makes him so frightening. With a twisted grimace and a maniacal giggle (which Hall admits he stole from Richard Widmark’s hitman in Kiss of Death), Charlie also shows on several occasions that he may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. He’s often one step ahead of his captors, whether it’s counting the number of bullets he’s used or showing he knows more about cars than Ed thinks he does.

One of the first films loosely based on 1950s serial killer Charles Starkweather (followed by the better-known Badlands and Natural Born Killers), The Sadist still packs a wallop nearly 50 years later. With a cast of five, one location, and a premise that (sadly) still resonates today, it’s a gem worth seeing.

aka Sweet Baby Charlie.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

No. Charlie menaces Carl, Ed, and Judy nonstop, threatening them with a gun and a knife. That’s on top of the actual violence: Charlie pistol-whips Carl and assaults Doris, kicking her and shoving her face in the dirt; Doris is slapped by Ed and Judy on separate occasions; a man is shot in the head in close-up; four others are shot dead; two other bodies are shown dead (shot by Charlie before Carl, Ed, and Doris arrived); Charlie talks about people he's killed in his travels; and a person is bitten to death by snakes. Also, Ed utters a minor profanity.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

The Sadist’s combination of violent content and being shot in black and white may not be appealing to some viewers. Unless your FilmMother has a penchant for ‘60s B-movies or films about thrill-killers, you may be watching this one alone.

 

Outta my way…I wanna carve my initials on this tree.

Watch The Sadist in its entirety:

The Sadist
* Director: James Landis
* Screenwriter: James Landis
* Stars: Arch Hall Jr., Richard Alden, Marilyn Manning, Don Russell, Helen Hovey
* MPAA Rating: N/A


Rent The Sadist from Netflix >>
Download The Sadist from the Internet Archive >>

Battle Beyond The Stars (1980)

THREE YEARS AFTER seeing Star Wars in the theater as a kid in 1977, I was still starving for more science fiction movies and TV. That hunger was fed mostly by lesser fare such as Disney’s 1979 sci-fi flick The Black Hole and the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.

Then, while still riding high from seeing The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, my aunt (and multi-contest winner) Kathy took me to see the latest attempt to cash in on the Star Wars craze, Battle Beyond the Stars.

Plot:
In this Roger Corman-produced sci-fi fantasy, Shad (The Waltons’ Richard Thomas) must scour the cosmos to recruit mercenaries from different planets and cultures to save his peaceful planet Akir from the threat of evil tyrant Sador (Enter The Dragon’s John Saxon), who’s bent on dominating and enslaving the entire universe. The team of mercenaries includes:


* a young female scientist named Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel)
* a buxom Valkyrie warrior named Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning)
* a wanted hitman named Gelt (The Magnificent Seven’s Robert Vaughan)
* a space cowboy named, uh, Cowboy (The A-Team’s George Preppard)
* a lizard humanoid named Cayman (Morgan Woodward)
* a quintet of telepathic aliens all named Nestor (led by Earl Boen) 

Critique:
Comparisons of Battle Beyond The Stars to the two films probably yelled out at the pitch meeting (“It’s The Magnificent Seven meets Star Wars!”) are so obvious and frequent, they’re not even worth pointing out. But if you must, some quick examples: Robert Vaughan is basically repeating his character from Magnificent Seven as Battle’s Gelt, and Shad’s ship features a sassy, no-nonsense voice system named Nell (Lynn Carlin), who’s essentially Han Solo to Shad’s Luke Skywalker.

And while it’s true that it seems like another attempt to cash in on Star Wars fever, Battle Beyond the Stars has an impressive pedigree: It’s executive-produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman, written by John Sayles (Alligator, The Howling, Piranha), scored by Oscar winner James Horner (Titanic), and features impressive set designs by some art director named Jim Cameron (Avatar).

A big part of what makes the film so enjoyable, next to the cheese-tastic space battles, is Sayles’ dialogue: It consists of real, relatable conversations – the kind that makes the original Star Wars trilogy fun, and its prequels’ oh-so-serious dialogue unbearable. The occasional stabs at humor also largely hit the mark (Preppard’s line about hot dogs is classic).


Yes, some of the special effects look dated (and steal sound effects from Battlestar Galactica), and both the acting and Horner’s score teeter on melodramatic. Also, the action in the third act is a bit uneven, including an abrupt ending probably due to budget constraints. But ultimately, Battle Beyond The Stars is a fun trip through retro B-movie pseudo-camp.

Tidbits:
* Footage and music from Battle Beyond The Stars were re-used in the 1983 sci-fi cheapie Space Raiders.
* Watch for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene early in the film with comedian Kathy Griffin as an inhabitant of Akir.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Battle Beyond The Stars is rated PG, largely for its sci-fi violence and adult situations and language.
Violence: Many people are shot with lasers; several die in spaceship explosions; Cowboy stabs one of Sador’s soldiers and green blood pours out; a man is impaled; one of the Nestor’s arms is severed by Sador’s doctor, who then attaches it to Sador in place of his lame arm (most of this is done in cutaway; no pun intended); a sonic weapon by Sador’s army causes Akir’s soldiers to scream in pain (one man bleeds from the ears); scientists working on upper torsos and body parts of lifelike humanoid robots might freak out younger kids.
Adult situations: Nanelia’s father plans to have Shad breed with her, ordering his androids to prepare “the conjugal suite” for the couple; Cowboy smokes and drinks on occasion; it’s implied that one of Sador’s henchmen had his way with a woman from Akir (a young Julia Duffy), as she emerges from a back room with mussed hair and a tattered robe.
Adult language: Phrases such as “sons of bitches,” “son of a bitch,” “damn it,” “what the hell,” “snowball’s chance in Hell,” and “that’s a hell of a note;” Saint-Exmin uses several double entendres for sex (“recharge his capacitators,” “tingle his transistors”); there is occasional talk between Nanelia and Shad about breeding, mating, etc. (“I think your torque bar slipped its groove”).

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

If she’s a fan of sci-fi and/or quality cheese, you could have a fun time watching Battle Beyond The Stars together.

That’s Shad’s spaceship. Yep, the bottom looks like something. Two things, actually.
There’s actually an online debate about whether they’re “his” or “hers.”

Battle Beyond the Stars
* Director: Jimmy T. Murakami
* Screenwriter: John Sayles
* Stars: Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughan, John Saxon, George Preppard, Darlanne Fluegel, Sybil Danning, Morgan Woodward, Earl Boen
* MPAA Rating: PG


Buy Battle Beyond The Stars (DVD) at Half.com >>
Buy Battle Beyond The Stars (Blu-ray) at Half.com >>
Rent Battle Beyond The Stars from Netflix >>
Watch or download Battle Beyond The Stars via StageVu (.avi file) >>