I watched this at an Alamo Drafthouse last October. Had never heard of it before, but I’ve seen many of the films that influenced it, so I decided to check it out. I’d say that the closest comparison point for Body Melt is Peter Jackson’s Braindead, a comparison I’m sure the filmmakers were consciously striving to set up. I don’t think this works as well as Braindead, as Jackson was ultimately telling a clear and logical story between all the gross out gags. Body Melt, on the other hand, seems like a a disparate assemblage of elements that don’t wholly mesh together (much like some of the amalgamations of flesh and goop depicted in the film). I think I read somewhere that the film was born out of a short story collection one of the forces behind it had published, and it shows. The various plots of the movie are clumsily woven together, if they come together at all, and everything seems to be done in service of the visual gags.

However, don’t let my tone confuse you. This is still a racous good time, as long as you accept that it’s less of a narrative arc and more of a fever dream with emphasis on the absurd. The exuberance of the filmmakers comes through and lifts the experience.