mastery of the medium". Tom Buckley of The New York Times described it as poorly written and directed, calling it one of many poor summer films released "to fill the need of drive-in operators for something cheap to put on the screen for the kids in the cars to ignore or laugh at". The Globe and Mail writer Robert Martin praised Baker's makeup effects and said director Sachs did an efficient job building tension. However, Martin strongly criticized the script and the acting, claiming "logic and character are jettisoned in favor of suspense and horror," and said the film's positive elements were not strong enough to outweigh the negatives. John Foyston of The Oregonian strongly condemned the film as gratuitously gory with thin, motiveless characters. He declared it worse than the horror film Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), which is widely considered one of the worst films ever made. Rick Worland, a film professor at the Meadows School of the Arts who wrote a book about horror films, said there was "little to recommend" about The Incredible Melting Man besides Baker's makeup effects. Richard Meyers, a novelist who also wrote about science-fiction films, called the film muddled and dull: "Although the movie didn't have to be a sage examination of outer space diseases, it should at least have been exciting". Meyers complimented Baker's visual effects, but said his work was undermined by poor filming and actor Rebar's impatience with the makeup effects. A 1985 review in the book The Motion Picture Guide said, "The film tries to balance horror against morality but ends up shaky at best". The review described the special effects as "all right, but not nearly as gruesome as the film pretends they are". In a review written shortly after the film was released, Variety wrote that the film "more often than not succeeds in telling a story and sustaining audience interest," and that the script included not only horrors, but also a human story with a moral message about society. However, the review also called the dialogue "trite," described some scenes as "technically incorrect," and said the film disappointed by lingering on the ordinary characters rather than on the monster. Gene Wright, who wrote a book about science fiction films, said the film "attempts to blend pathos with awesome horror, but can't resist going for the gut with a surfeit of gore". Blockbuster Inc.'s Guide