Icky throat-tentacles, a murderous placenta at large, exploding penisesÂ… "Body Melt" features quite a lot of splatter-images that you don't see every day, and I'll leave it up to you whether that is a good thing or not. Still, despite being remarkably better than its fellow contemporary melt-movies ("Street Trash" immediately comes to mind), this remains forgettable 90's horror with an insuperable lack of coherence and professionalism. I'm aware that it was all meant to be absurd and over-the-top gooey, but a little bit of continuity wouldn't have hurt anybody, would it? The goodhearted residents of Pebbles Road all receive free samples of a new vitamin product from the eminent Dr. Phillips' health farm, immediately after a bizarre lethal car accident took place in their peaceful street. Each and every one of them soon undergoes drastic physical changes, as it seems like this vitamin drink actually is an experimental drug. A Pregnant woman loses her placenta, a male resident has visions of a severely mutilated girl and two teenagers that seem to have escaped the "test" end up at an inbred & cannibalistic family that is also related to Phillips' health farm. It takes a duo not-so-bright cops quite some time they realize the clinic might be involved. The splatter images in "Body Melt" are indeed extreme but not at all constant and the gore-free sequences in between are actually quite dull. As strange as it may sound, the screenplay is much more effective as a social satire instead of a repulsive horror flick. Philip Brophy cleverly spoofs a lot of hugely irritating 90's trends, such as brainless fitness-freaks, fraudulent health-gurus and typical joy-joy TV soap-operas that portray life in the suburbs way too rosy.
