Review by Kelly Parks

THE GREEN SLIME - 1969 Toei / MGM Rating: Finland: K-16 / Sweden: 11 / USA - Unrated

I'm sure I'm not the only one. Some of you must have had this happen.

Flashback twenty-five or thirty years ago. You're just a kid; your fascination with horror, sci-fi, and unpopularity is just beginning. Mom and Dad let you stay up late one night to watch a movie with a promisingly weird title. It turns out to be a really scary movie. Really God Damn scary! You're suddenly conscious of being a little kid up late in a dark, quiet house.

Decades go by. Over the years, whenever the subject of scary movies comes up, you mention "The Movie", the one that scared you. Then, finally, you find it on video. You take it home, nervously insert it in the VCR, and . . . laugh your ass off! Who could ever be scared by this cheesy piece of crap?

IN THE FUTURE: SPACESHIPS WILL LOOK LIKE VIBRATORS

Speaking of cheesy crap, THE GREEN SLIME is definite cheddar feces. My Mom has never let me forget how scared I was after I saw this incredibly bad movie.

Also known as BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, DEATH AND THE GREEN SLIME, THE BATTLE OF SPACE STATION GAMMA, and AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF SPACE STATION GAMMA: Big Military Operation. THE GREEN SLIME is a Japanese movie shot entirely in Tokyo, but shot in English with a mixed American and Italian cast. It was written by Tom Rowe (WILD PLANET [TV]), Charles Sinclair (TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST, THE DEVIL MEN FROM SPACE) and Ivan Reiner (THE CRIMINALS OF THE GALAXY, THE DEVIL MEN FROM SPACE) and directed by Kinji Fukasaku (MESSAGE FROM SPACE, BATTLE ROYALE).

The story begins with the discovery of an asteroid on collision course with Earth. A mission is quickly launched to blow up the errant rock and while there the astronauts discover a pulsating green-glowing slime. It seems harmless enough but their mission doesn't allow for sightseeing. They place the nukes and go. Unfortunately a booger-sized dollop of the green stuff clings to one astronaut's space suit and is thus transported back to the big space station where most of the action takes place.

IN THE FUTURE: MEN WILL DRESS LIKE SANITATION WORKERS AND WOMEN WILL WEAR WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT.

With the asteroid no longer a threat, everyone is happy and celebrating and Elliot can't wait to get Rankin off the station and away from Lisa. But a routine disinfection of the space suits used on the mission provides THE GREEN SLIME with the energy it needs to grow. Very quickly a variety of technicians (always the first to go in these kinds of movies) are electrocuted by the energy seeking green monsters that grow from the tiny bit of goo.

IT'S COOL MAN. BE COOL! I'VE GOT MY TENTACLES UP. BUT ONE OF US IS GONNA HAVE TO ANSWER THAT SWEET FUTURISTIC PHONE!

The resulting infestation causes the station to be quarantined as the humans try to find a way to combat the alien menace.

Damn. If you just read the plot description it sounds pretty good, and pretty familiar, doesn't it (ARMAGEDDON comes to mind -Feo)? Well, maybe if James Cameron made it, but Kinji Fukasaku just wasn't up to it.

This is a bad movie, but definitely in the so-bad-it's-good category. The way they so very seriously deliver their lines; like when the base commander on Earth shows Rankin a map that has only two things on it, the asteroid and Earth, and says, "This is us, here, on Earth." will make you laugh out loud. The shaky model rocket space ships and the giant space station hanging from clearly visible wires would be enough to qualify this movie for two negative shriek girls.

But the monsters!
The hilariously not scary rubber suit monsters easily brings THE GREEN SLIME down to my rating of four negative shriek girls.

This review copyright 1999 E.C.McMullen Jr.



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