Body Melt (1993) ***
Body Melt (1993) starts off really strong with a frenetic indie energy that reminded me a lot of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. The plot revolves around people becoming involuntary test subjects for "health" products that instead cause them to hallucinate, mutate and, yes, melt. The story is pretty scattershot and I think part of that can be attributed to the fact that the film is based on four short stories. Body Melt loses steam here and there but it still remains a fun ride throughout and its sub 90 minute runtime works in its favor.
Director Philip Brophy's whacked-out film very much feels like a holdover from the 80s in its approach. There's the obvious comparison to Street Trash (1987) (my review here) and other "melt" movies, but Cronenberg and Tsukamoto also spring to mind. Like Street Trash, Body Melt is played purely as a comedy—with any horror that results caused by the film's gooey f/x (which are really enjoyable and impressive for a low budget film). Not all of the humor lands, but there are enough WTF moments to satisfy lovers of weird cinema. Brophy incorporates inventive camera moves and editing and provided the experimental soundtrack as well (he was previously the leader of art punk group → ↑ →). I've said it before and I'll repeat it—more so than my enjoyment of the movie itself, I'm often just glad that films like this exist.
Director Philip Brophy's whacked-out film very much feels like a holdover from the 80s in its approach. There's the obvious comparison to Street Trash (1987) (my review here) and other "melt" movies, but Cronenberg and Tsukamoto also spring to mind. Like Street Trash, Body Melt is played purely as a comedy—with any horror that results caused by the film's gooey f/x (which are really enjoyable and impressive for a low budget film). Not all of the humor lands, but there are enough WTF moments to satisfy lovers of weird cinema. Brophy incorporates inventive camera moves and editing and provided the experimental soundtrack as well (he was previously the leader of art punk group → ↑ →). I've said it before and I'll repeat it—more so than my enjoyment of the movie itself, I'm often just glad that films like this exist.
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