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Friday, August 26, 2016

Body Melt (1993)

Director: Philip Brophy
Writer(s): Philip Brophy and Rod Bishop, based on short stories by Brophy.
Starring: Gerard Kennedy, Andrew Daddo, Ian Smith, and Regina Gaigalas


When I was a teenager obsessed with films and filmmaking as an art form, I immediately fell in love with the early works of Peter Jackson. His devilish filmography featured puppets doing drugs and filming porno movies (Meet the Feebles), a zombie epic with a finale featuring dozens of zombies, a lawnmower, and gallons upon gallons of blood (Dead/Alive, aka Braindead), and his notorious alien film, which shot only on weekends, over the course of four years (Bad Taste). It was obvious even then, amongst the blood-strewn setpieces and over-the-top slapstick gore, that this man had loads of talent, and his gleeful ignorance of the mainstream made me appreciate him even more. This was a guy doing his own thing on his own terms, and so it never really came as a shock to me that he eventually went on to become an A-lister in Hollywood (okay, the level of his success did come as a huge shock).

Obviously, I wasn’t the only one taking notes, because here we have Phillip Brophy’s Body Melt, a film that exists only to blast the viewer with slimy, gooey special effects in the same vein as the master of slapstick grue. Brophy clearly doesn’t have as much talent as Jackson, but he still proves himself able enough to mix some graphic, tongue-in-cheek bloodshed, with enough comical scenes that this manages to be both entertaining and stupid in equal measures.

There really isn’t much plot to speak of, and what there is serves merely as an excuse to throw as many gruesome effects on the screen as possible: Vimuville, a vitamin company, singles out the residents of Pebbles Court, Homesville, to test out their new vitamin powder. Only, it’s not really a vitamin at all, but rather a vicious poison that causes rapid body deterioration. The residents find the packets in their mailbox, and eagerly try it out, unaware of its lethal properties. A man who works for Vimuville has a change of heart and attempts to warn the Pebbles Court residents of the fatal consequences, but he succumbs to the “disease” right before his arrival. As he is the only “good guy” in the entire thing, this leaves the door open for the townsfolk to melt away, one by one!

The residents are being “watched” by evil Vimuville execs, who are eager to get the product widely released. Now, I don’t know how long a vitamin that causes an agonizing slow death would be able to stay on the market, but that’s an example of something you’re just not supposed to do while watching Body Melt: think. Seriously, everything that happens is so pointless that by just using your brain, you’ve already used more resources than the writers did at any point. But who cares, because it’s all in the name of demented fun! I mean, it’s so stupid that even the executives end up taking Vimuville, in pill form, and melting themselves—what sense does that make? If anyone should know the unlimited evil of Vimuville, you would think it would be the people that they pay to monitor the deaths of unsuspecting test subjects. Buy hey, we get to see a couple more people die, so who cares?

Honestly, I’m surprised at the hate this movie has received, with even fans of bad horror movies chastising it for its terribleness. I mean, the typical “B-movie” stereotypes apply: the acting is pretty bad, the writing is pretty bad, and the threadbare plot is pretty stupid, but I thought the effects were above-average (given the clearly limited budget), and it’s all just so bizarre that it’s impossible to get bored or shut it off. It also knows not to overstay its welcome, clocking in at just under 80 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time for its limited…intelligence. But I have seen far, far worse. Maybe it just caught me in a good mood, but I thought it was competently shot, and given the budgetary limitations, well-made. I am apparently in the minority, but if you like your horror gooey and graphic, and if you don’t mind that it doesn’t even attempt to take itself seriously, then you should at least give this a fair shot.

RECAP: Unfairly maligned by just about everyone, Body Melt is an incredibly stupid horror film with barely any plot to speak of, but it also achieves a level of stupidity that only talent can reach. I thought the gooey special effects were well-done, it was competently shot, and the acting was tolerable for an independent horror feature. Best of all, there’s a freewheeling craziness that I loved—it never takes itself seriously for even a second, and there’s some legitimate humor to be found. If you ever wondered what a David Cronenberg movie would look like if he suddenly lost 100 IQ points, this is it.

RATING: 6/10

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