Body Melt

Year: 1993
Director: Philip Brophy
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106450/

Rating:

Review:
A little known Australian horror flick from the early ’90s, Body Melt is mostly a rebuke at better living through chemistry.  An evil health supplement company, which appears to be run by two people with the help of their two muscle bound assistants, decides to use the residents of Pebbles Court as guinea pigs for their new cure-all vitamin.  The chief chemist tries to warn the people on Pebbles Court, but he’s been shot up with the chemical and begins mutating, failing to give his warning in time, and all of the residents end up being used as test subjects.

The movie is strange, disjointed, and keeps you off guard.  This is a body horror movie, so there’s plenty of gore, most of which is tame by today’s standards, but there are a few vomit-inducing scenes.  About fifteen minutes into the movie it seems to switch to a pastiche of The Hills Have Eyes, only to get back on track a few scenes later.

It’s unsurprising that the movie was based on four different short stories.  It feels like separate stories that only tangentially connect.  Unfortunately, this keeps the main overarching plot more incomprehensible.  Why is the company shipping out product it knows will cause mutations and death?  What could it possibly gain?  Why open a health spa and only invite one family?  Why even run tests if you’re already shipping out the product?  None of this is ever actually answered.

The movie is fun, if somewhat ridiculous.  It never seems quite sure if it’s a horror film or a comedy, and its theme seems to wander at times. It’s not a long movie and worth a watch on Netflix if you want to see an old-time gross out movie.