The citizens of the Pebbles Court neighborhood of Homesville are unwitting participants in a diabolical experiment by the Vimuville corporation. They are each receiving doses, in vitamin pill form, of a substance that causes catastrophic changes to the human body.
The first phase is hallucinogenic. The second phase is glandular. The third phase is... Body Melt.
The movie isn't one cohesive story. It's more like an anthology following the residents of Pebbles Court as they encounter the horrible effects of their pills. (In fact, the credits indicate that the film is based on four short stories by the writer/director, Philip Brophy.) They are all dispatched in nasty, gory ways involving all manner of mutations and body horror. Men, women, and children - no one is safe.
The gore effects are nice and gloppy. In addition to the tearing and melting flesh, you get a number of horrible tentacles coming out of open wounds on the victims' bodies. Frankly, I think the tentacles, which are well executed, tended to detract from the titular body melt effects. When I turn on a movie called Body Melt, I want to see more people melting down to goo, not tentacles outta nowhere. Call me picky. Still, the effects are very strong overall.
With its over-the-top gore and bizarre characters, Body Melt has some really funny moments - of both the intentional and unintentional varieties. The movie is largely a satire of the pharmaceutical industry, but also of the type of splatter movies that sat side-by-side with Body Melt on video store shelves.
Body Melt takes some time to get going, but once it does, it doesn't hold back. It aims to be as nasty as possible, going for the gross-out at every turn. If you have a strong stomach and the right sense of humor, you can suss out Australian accents, and you aren't especially concerned with movies making sense, Body Melt is a disgusting good time.
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