filmed numerous scenes for that purpose without the participation of the director. Among those scenes is the entire prologue of the astronauts in space and West waking up in a hospital—these are the only scenes in which Rebar's face is seen without makeup. Additionally, the film was extensively re-edited by the producers. Sachs criticized the acting in those re-shot scenes, as well as the change of tone they bring into the film along with the re-editing by the producers. Release Distribution The distribution of The Incredible Melting Man was handled by American International Pictures, with the involvement of film producer and distributor Irwin Yablans, who specialized primarily in B movies and low-budget horror films. A trailer released for the film attempted to build tension by not revealing the monster right away. Instead, it showed portions of the scene immediately before the nurse is murdered, in which she runs down a hallway screaming and then crashes through a glass window trying to escape from West, who is only shown towards the end of the trailer. In some advertisements, the monster from the film was described as "the first NEW horror creature". As a promotional gimmick, candles were made and sold to advertise the film. One poster for the film included the statement: "Rick Baker, the new master of special effects, who brought you the magic of The Exorcist and gave you the wonder of King Kong, now brings you his greatest creation, The Incredible Melting Man". Although Baker assisted with the effects in The Exorcist (1973), Dick Smith was the makeup artist who primarily worked on that film, not Baker. Exorcist director William Friedkin was so angry about the poster that, upon seeing it on an associate's wall, he tore it down and ripped it to pieces. Baker, who did not know about the poster in advance, was horrified by the publicity campaign and publicly apologized for it, claiming: "Dick wanted some help so I first went out to do some work on the dummy whose head turns around 360 degrees. I really didn't do anything creative, I just did labor". ReceptionThe Incredible Melting Man received largely negative reviews. It holds an 8% rotten rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It has ranked among the Bottom 100 list of films on the Internet Movie Database, although there have also been very favorable reviews. The New York Post attested to Sachs' "simple