The Green Slime
A giant asteroid is heading toward Earth so some astronauts disembark from a nearby space station to blow it up. The mission is successful, and they return to the station unknowingly bringing back a gooey green substance that mutates into one-eyed tentacled monsters that feed off electricity. Soon the station is crawling with them, and people are being zapped left and right!
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- Cast:
- Robert Horton , Luciana Paluzzi , Richard Jaeckel , Robert Dunham , Kathy Horan , Linda Miller
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Reviews
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
After successfully destroying an asteroid that was on a collision course with Earth, the team returns to space station Gamma III. They don't know it, but they brought a little something back with them from the asteroid. It's a very small sample of some sort of green slime. The slime reacts with the energy flowing through the base and, in no time at all, it's grown into a full size, one-eye, tentacled creature capable of killing with its electric touch. At first, the team on the base tries to shot and kill it. But they discover that with each wound, the creature loses a certain amount of green blood. This green blood is capable of rapid cell division and will turn into another creature. The main goal now is to defeat these creatures and make sure none reaches the Earth.Believe it or not, but The Green Slime has been on my "To See" list as long as I've had a "To See" list. I watched it last night and wasn't disappointed. I've read any number of reviews where people write about liking the movie because it's campy or cheesy or "so bad, it's good". I'll go along with campy and cheesy, but bad – no way. I enjoyed The Green Slime because I found it wildly entertaining. Here's a laundry list of things that worked for me while watching the film:1. The three main actors – If The Green Slime was going to work for me, I had to buy into the performances of the three main actors – Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel, and the insanely gorgeous Luciana Paluzzi. All three made this movie special. All three contributed immensely to my overall enjoyment of the film.2. The special effects – I loved 'em! The miniatures were just so cool. From the space station to the UN building to the bombs on the asteroid – the miniatures worked on me. The creature design was also a hit with me. These wild, green-bumpy-skinned creatures with their electric arms flailing about might have been cheesy, but they were also effective. The first one we see, wriggling on the floor, was actually creepy. 3. The direction – Director Kinji Fukasaku hit all the right notes. This thing was a blast from start to finish. The pacing was spot on. There's drama and excitement around every corner. The action, particularly as space station gang is trying to corral the creatures, never stops. Very nice show.4. The love triangle – I'm as surprised as anyone, but the love triangle worked on me. Kudos has to go to Horton and Jaeckel for the chest-thumping performances and the way Paluzzi played both of them. And I loved the way it all played out in the end. The two that belonged together could finally be together. Usually I don't care about stuff like this, but I found it enjoyable here.I could go on and on. I haven't even touched on the cool 60s set design, the opening theme song, or the incredible lighting/cinematography. I keep saying this, but it all worked on me. Overall, The Green Slime is one of the most entertaining films I've seen in a long, long time. Given the joy it brought me, I feel good about the 9/10 rating I've given the film.
THE GREEN SLIME is an unwieldy space opera-cum-monster flick, a Japanese-American-Italian co-production filmed in Japan with a mainly American cast. The director is none other than Kinji Fukasaku, better known to today's audiences as the man behind BATTLE ROYALE, and this must be one of his worst films. The problem with it is that it's incredibly dated, full of shoddy special effects, '60s dancing, fashions, and hairdos, and with an uneven pacing even this fan of B-movies found it hard to watch. The storyline is nothing new, and throws in all of the usual ingredients including a love triangle between the heroes, a mad scientist who can only think of the greater good, ray guns, tentacle-waving one-eyed aliens and much, much more.Robert Horton is the stiff hero battling the creatures, although I preferred Richard Jaeckel as the tough commander who screws up time and time again. Lending some glamour is '60s Italian babe Luciana Paluzzi, whose turn in THUNDERBALL catapulted her to world stardom. There are a ton of special effects in this film which are all Japanese-made, so the emphasis is on quantity over quality. The rubber-suited aliens take some beating, but shoddy scenery, ray gun effects, and awful-looking space miniatures are also thrown into the brew. This is undoubtedly one of the cheesiest films I've ever watched, which may be a recommendation for some bad film lovers. It's a lot of fun if you can get over all of the factors stacked against it.
I watched this expecting to find a typical, late 60's low budget sci-fi movie of little interest. Instead, while I found some of that (especially the low budget angle) what I actually found was a fun, fairly exciting movie. The special effects included were pretty standard for this kind of movie, the sets were well designed and the alien creatures were silly-looking but nevertheless interesting.The story is set mostly on a futuristic space station. A huge asteroid is discovered that's on a collision course with earth, and a team led by Commander Rankin (Robert Horton) is assigned to blow it up. Rankin's assignment is the source of friction with Commander Elliott (Richard Jaeckel), who's normally in command of the station but is displaced by Rankin for the mission. The fact that these two are former best friends who obviously have some issues left over from having worked together in the past creates tension, and complicating that tension even further is the fact that Elliott's fiancé (Luciana Paluzzi) is also Rankin's ex- girlfriend. Yes, there's a bit of melodrama involved with this! On the asteroid the team discovers a strange green slime (as the title implies) and inadvertently carries some of it back to the station when they complete their mission. The slime turns out to be alien blood cells that feed off electricity and grow rapidly into these weird looking creatures that also produce electricity and can therefore electrocute those they come in contact with. The story basically revolves around the battle against these creatures, and whether the crew of the station will survive.All things considered, it's pretty well done. The performances are, I would say, a bit above standard for this kind of movie. Despite being set well into the future it's very much a product of its cultural times (as the theme music suggests) but it makes for an enjoyable hour and a half. (7/10)
Rather like "Them!" set in outer space: two adversarial Commanders, in love with the same woman, battle alien creatures brought on-board a space-station in the form of a slimy green ooze (lit from within!). The electromagnet slime reproduces itself while thriving on energy, eventually giving birth to screeching, one-eyed creatures with furiously waving tentacles (their high-pitched chatter is effective, the monsters are not). B-grade sci-fi was a joint effort from the U.S. and Japan, with M-G-M handling distribution duties Stateside. It has a cartoony sensibility--and a candy-colored appearance--that's fun for cult audiences; all others, beware! Title song mixes rock and soul for a vaguely blaxploitation feel, years ahead of its time. ** from ****