“The first symptoms are hallucinogenic, the second is glandular and the third is… Grahhraarghhhhh!” From the VHS box I can tell you that the third is Body Melt, whatever that really means.
An evil drug company called Vimuvile market tests its evil ‘Body Melt’ drugs on the residents of a small neighbourhood called Pebble Court. Why a sinister pharmaceutical company would want to sell something that causes ‘Body Melt’ is never explained. Of course this results in various set pieces and a variety of gory deaths. If you think this sounds like a tenuous way of holding together a film of short stories you’d be right - but that’s not why you’re here…
Without ruining too much, Body Melt includes: a husband being attacked by his pregnant wife’s placenta, an exploding penis, snot, mucous, tentacles, mutants and finally some random deaths that are completely unrelated to the main plot.
This of course will wet any low-budget gore movie fans appetite, but its enjoyment is increased dramatically for daytime TV fans in the UK.
A particular favourite, is a scene that’s linked only to the plot in a very tenuous way. Two guys from Pebble Court stop off at a gas station to see if they can get a windscreen fixed (the scene where it was smashed is missing) and find themselves stuck with a family that clearly practice in-breeding.
This film loses some points as it feels that, because it is an Australian gore film released after Brain Dead, that it tries too hard to be a Peter Jackson film. It really wants to be a cult movie, which it has managed, but it never quite really reaches the same level of all-out craziness Brain Dead did. And a lot of the comedy comes out of the improbability of the whole plot and the really awful editing.
All things said, this is a great gore fest movie, just don’t eat while watching it.
3/5
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