Customer Reviews

Body Melt [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Apparently Austrailian director Brophy wanted to make a film to rival New Zealander Peter Jackson's gorefest, Dead Alive. The outrageous gore and humor are very Jackson-esque in Body Melt. But this film is crazy-100% nuts. It's not as gory as Jackson's film, but it's alot more off the wall. In fact, I'm surprised this film isn't a bigger hit amongst hardcore horror fans. Must not have had very good distribution or promotion, and that's a shame coz this film should be viewed at least once by any horror fan. The gore here doesn't come from flesh eating zombies(which is very reliable subject matter for gore), but from an experimental drug, actually vitamin or vitamin supplement, it's never defined 100%. Some evil, wacky corporation/health club is making this stuff in the hopes of making a totally healthy human being, but the darn stuff just doesn't work right. It basically just makes the body lose all control and rebel against itself. This doesn't stop our corporation from wanted to sell it in the markets though. The Corporation decides to give this stuff a little test run in an unsuspecting small neighborhood. Once our neighborhood has taken it, the trouble starts. Trouble-with a capital T, that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool. Speaking of pool, some of these folks get invited to the health spa(for scientific observation I'm guessing) and meet their ends in particularly gruesome fashion. Most of the(short) film has the police investigating the entire mess and unraveling the conspiracy. I could easily see David Cronenberg doing this film, though it would be alot different. Just imagine if David Cronenberg decided to let his sense of humor take over(fat chance) for one film, and you get a pretty good idea of what Body Melt is like. This is an independant film done in Australia, which means no Hollywood meddling. The Hollywood system would NEVER allow such a film to hit theaters. That's fine though coz you can get this dvd for a pretty reasonable price. At least rent it if you aren't willing to gamble with your purchases. I can tell ya, if you like Peter Jackson's or Sam Raimi's early work, Body Melt is highly recommended for you.

This is a fun and crazy film. It feels like a Troma flick at times and at others gives you a sort of TCM shudder. There are visions of Dead Alive and quite a lot of Cronenbergian images. At just barely over an hour, this film packs in a lot of craziness. Not scary, but pretty over the top in terms of grossness. I can't get the idea that one inbred chick in the film is a dead ringer for the lead singer of A.F.I. She/he is very scary; actually this scene is the most frightening in the film. Just for this "separated at birth" deal it's worth checking out for yourself. Head on over to you local health farm, get some vitamins, and enjoy the show. A great party film and a must have for those of you that enjoy Reanimator, Dagon, or any other gruefully great movies by Stuart Gordon, Raimi, etc.

Actually, that was just a little joke. 'Body Melt' is one of the best splatterfest/comedies I have ever seen despite the fact that I do believe I once lived in a place eerily similar to the fictious 'homesville'.

Anyone familiar with Aussie T.V will instantly recognise such famous faces as Neighbour's Ian Smith and Blue Heeler's Lisa McCune. Those of you who have no idea what I am talking about can rest assured that this movie is camp Aussie acting at it's best with lots of whacky nudity, mutations, inbreeders and vomit thrown in for good measure. Even the storyline is almost clever, albeit simplistic. But who needs a complicated plot when you've got lots of exploding bodies and melting faces...right?

M.

We are familiar with Peter Jacksons early cult classics Bad Taste & Dead Alive (Braindead). Those films are very well known for the very low budget, cheesy, gross out gore, that actully works and is very squeamish at some points. Body Melt pretty much reminds me of that, I sometimes wonder if this was a wannabe Peter Jackson film, its got the cheesy gore, the low budget story, and shot on not too big of a budget.

This movie doesn't really focus on one individual character, the whole film is just going, showing random residents of this town meet their misfortunes in a gory way. The main plot is pretty much the suburb of Pebbles Court are being used as guinea pigs for a new medical drug, that has the side effects you can probably guess. Mutations, they turn people into hideous, very grizzly looking creatures. SPOILERS FOLLOW, lets discuss some of the gory scenes.

1. At the beginning, a former client tries to drive to Pebbles Court to warn the people not to take the drug, but arrives too late, because he crashes into a van, and then his head starts to split open, with spaghetti looking tentacles come out a wiggle all around his face.

2. A guys rib gets massaged out of his body, just because a woman has a collection of ribs. (WTF!)

3. A very discusting scene towards the end involves a deformed buy puking, painting the whole room green, my god I was eating when that scene came up!!!

The theme song for this movie is also pretty odd. Its like a techno / dance song, with the only lyrics being "BODY MELT!!!" & "Give it to me baby", and "WHYYYYYYY". I actually own the full mp3 theme song to that, which saddens me lol, its a really bad song.

But Body Melt is pretty good, very gory for the budget, although, even though I liked it, I don't think too many people will.

I Personally give it 4/5.

WOW! Is what I was thinking when viewing this for the first time haha. I rate this flick high up there when comes to weird, gory silliness! 'Body Melt' isn't scary, I compare it to flicks such as: 'Street Trash', 'Bad Taste', and maybe a pinch of 'DRAINIAC'. All in my opinion of course. This film is probably the best at showing the viewer the weird side of 90's horror. If that makes any sense haha. It's loaded with plenty of cheezy, yet likable characters as seen in the previous flicks I've mentioned. With a title like 'BODY MELT', you would think great amounts of gore, but your wrong. There is however, enough to satisfy those who are fans of 'STREET TRASH', or just odd-ball-horror flicks in general. The gore is over-the-top when shown and because of that, it makes it unrealistic but in a fun way!

Small town folk are given free samples of an experimental dieting drug throw the mail. Once taken, the drug causes each person to have different reaction that ends up fetal!!! I give it four stars only because it's gruesome title fails to deliver more off-the-wall gore as seen in flicks such as 'Dead Alive'. I was hoping that this flick would be as crazy as 'Dead Alive'. But all-in-all, it is very entertaining to watch!

This is a pretty cool B style horror flick. However,keep in mind,if you don't care much for 80's B horror type movies using old school special effects and what not,this one may not be for you.

This is a truly awful film. It is completely disjointed, the characters make no sense at all and there is a kind of claustrophobic aimlessness to the film that is difficult to describe. There is no story line and absolutely nothing happerns for ages. I just do not understand the scene where the two teenagers are openly laughing at eating an animals insides...this is like a bit of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Then you have Ian Smith (Harold from neighbours), what's he doing in this?
Utter total rubbish.

Given the right combinations of vitamins/cognitive enhancers, there's no telling what the human body is capable of. Of course, if the formulas of such super vitamins aren't exactly right, you could be in for one bloody mess - and Body Melt is Exhibit A all the way. Some critics see the film as some sort of satire of suburban life, but all I saw was a really weird movie with bad - albeit gross - special effects. It would certainly be possible to impart some kind of actual message into this type of storyline, but I don't think the writers and director of Body Melt set out to do anything like that. I don't even think the movie is all that gross, but that's partly due to the fact that the special effects are so unrealistic.

Let the opening of the film be a lesson to you. If you're planning on flooding the pharmaceutical market with a potentially dangerous, inadequately tested super vitamin and one of your scientists sees what is happening and sets out to reveal your dirty little secret, just chop his head off or something. Obviously, you have to kill the guy, so don't take any chances of him living long enough to drop a few clues pointing back at you. Our would-be hero doesn't actually succeed at warning anyone in Homesville that the free vitamin samples they are about to receive are dangerous, but his actions do point a finger of suspicion toward Vimuville when residents of Homesville start dying in exceedingly unnatural, disgustingly painful ways.

Obviously, given the title, you can expect to see some bodies melting in this film, but that's not even the half of it. You also have certain body parts basically exploding, nasal congestion of the most disgusting kind, projectile vomiting all over the place, and a pregnancy that goes very, very wrong. For me, though, most of the mess was far too amateurish in the special effects department to bother me in the slightest. The weirdest part of the whole movie, though, takes place at a "middle of nowhere" service station. It's not so much the fact that the resident "family" is hideously deformed and absolutely mental (and they are both - in spades); what I didn't get is why these two lost blokes that stop there actually have a gay old time with these characters. It's not surreal as much as it is just plain weird.

Most people who come to watch Body Melt will undoubtedly have been lured in by the gore factor. Many will indeed find the film rather disgusting, while a few (like myself) will undoubtedly find the special effects little more than yawn-inducing. Since there aren't really any surprises along the way, the story itself is not a particularly strong draw, either. All of this adds up to a movie that, in my opinion, just isn't very good.

One of the worst films ever. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgable in the realm of horror movies, even those played for laughs, but this one is just awful. Nothing happens for the first hour of the movie. When the "special effects" do finally show up, they are terribly fake and cheesy looking. Unintentionally hilarious, in fact. I get the attempted point of the film, one of scientific experimentation gone awry, it was just completely botched. There is no need for anyone to waste their time on this piece of crap. It is truly terrible.

This flick is a curiosity.Most of the actors are quite known to have performed in series such as Blues Heelers,Home and away ...and see them in a "horror" movie made me smile.The budget sounds not too bad but how weak is the story.Effects are bad.I was expected something a bit similar to the P.JAckson Bad Taste and unfortunately I was wrong. There is more dialogue than horror or fx scenes.Some parts are funny but I am not sure that's the result they wanted at the end.Ridiculous.