Body Melt  ★★★

PHILIP Brophy’s credits on the Australian horror film Body Melt include direction, writing, music composition, sound design and testicle effects.

Yes, that’s right – testicle effects. Mr Brophy is a jack of all trades.

Released in 1993, Body Melt is one of the oddest films ever made in this country.

With its recent release on Blu-ray, the film has slowly developed a cult status amongst fans of body horror films.

It’s a low-budget movie bolstered by a decent script, made with style and acted with enthusiasm.

The special effects are too ridiculous to be frightening and are in keeping with the darkly humorous script.

Brophy’s film is a commentary on our consumer society and obsession with products that will achieve the desired results quickly and with minimal effort on the user’s part.

It’s set in two main locations – a quiet suburban neighbourhood called Homesville and a nearby health farm run by the Vimuville company.

Vimuville offers a short-cut to enhanced life, health and beauty through a variety of health products taken by ingestion or injection and delivered via shops, home delivery or during an extended stay at the luxurious health farm.

What those taking the products don’t know is they have horrible side-effects with the worst-case scenario being a sudden and extreme physical breakdown of body parts.

Of course the people who run the company are more concerned with continuing to make profits and keeping the problem quiet while they work out the cause.

So we have a man’s neck bursting open while he’s driving a car, a pregnant woman’s foetus fighting to get out through her stomach and a man’s penis exploding. It’s all done in a humorous fashion, but is definitely not everyone’s idea of an entertaining night in.

If you enjoy the Troma movies or Peter Jackson’s early experimental films Bad Taste and Brain Dead you should enjoy this.

Probably the best part of the film for local audiences is watching the cast of familiar names and/or faces having fun. These include Gerard Kennedy and Andrew Daddo as investigating police, Vincent Gill and Matthew Newton as deformed hillbillies and William McInnes and Lisa McCune as Vimuville victims.

Best of all is Ian Smith who played the demented doctor in between his ongoing role as Harold Bishop in the television soap opera Home and Away.