The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

This is the story of a film that ate itself.

Writer-director William Sachs conceived THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN as a loving parody of 1950s atomic-age horror - a comedy dressed in monster-movie clothes, full of black humour and deliberate absurdity. The producers decided during shooting that a straight horror film would be more financially successful, stripped out the comedic scenes, reshot key sequences without Sachs's involvement, and reassembled the whole thing as a serious horror film.

The result is a movie that feels permanently at war with itself - not quite funny, not quite frightening, wandering through Southern California leaving a trail of goo.

And yet.

Rick Baker provided the makeup effects, originally designing four distinct stages so the melting would appear gradual - stages that were also cut from the final film. What remains is still remarkable: practical gore effects so convincing that they directly inspired the RoboCop toxic waste sequence a decade later.

Baker had tried to price himself out of the job - demanding what he considered a ridiculous salary - but to his surprise the producers accepted, so he took it.

The film got an MST3K episode. It has a devoted cult. The janitor mopping up the remains of the fully melted man at the end is one of the more deadpan closing images in B-movie history, whether intentional or not.

Sachs wanted to make a parody. He ended up making the thing he was parodying. That is either a tragedy or a miracle, depending on your tolerance for goo.