Review of The Green Slime (1968) by Allan C — 03 Aug 2017

Released the same year as "2001: A Space Odyssey" this US/Japan co-production is embarrassingly dated and ridiculously campy compared to that Stanley Kubric classic. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, who at this same time was directing some excellent, very tough Yakuza films and who'd later go on to direct the cult classic "Battle Royale," but this film lacks those films production values and most importantly a decent script.

The set up for "The Green Slime" isn't all that bad. A giant asteroid is headed towards earth so a gigantic spaceship is sent out to intercept it. What ends up happening after they blow it up is the space adventurers inadvertently bring back the titular slime, which then mutates into some embarrassingly stupid looking one-eyed tentacled creatures.

On the positive side, I did enjoy the colorful 1960s production design, which had a nicely campy Mad Men feel. I also found Fukasaku's overuse of dramatic zooms entertainingly goofy, adding to the film's camp value.

Overall this is a terrible film that can only be enjoyed on a so-bad-it's-good level of entertainment, which did entertain me.