Review of The Green Slime (1968) by Trent M — 10 Dec 2007

It must be said up front that this film has a kick-ass theme song. The rest of the film is not quite as awesome as that theme song, but damned if it isn't fun. In an unnamed future year, an asteroid Flora is discovered to be set to collide with earth in only 10 hours.

A group of astronauts, who are of course old friends with a history being reunited, depart from the nearest space station to land on Flora and plant explosives. While there they encounter a strange slime that is attracted to their equipment.

Some of the slime attaches to one astronaut's space suit before they flee the asteroid and blow it up. Unfortunately, the decontamination process the space suits are run through causes the slime to not only grow, but to mutate into a bizarre cyclopean beast with tentacles that carry a deadly electric charge.

If that wasn't bad enough, a single drop of the monster's blood can regenerate into another monster. Soon dozens of the electric fiends are running loose on the station and those trapped on the station must find a way to survive and destroy this threat.

There's no denying that this film is cheesy. It is possibly the most 60s film you will ever see and features some truly pathetic special effects. Imagine if you will what would be the result if a special effects artist who was fired from special effects duties for the original GAMERA series because his work was too sub-par decided to make his own movie.

That's roughly the result here. Making the shoddy effects even worse is that this film had the misfortune of coming out the same year as 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The film's "hero" is also a smug, square-jawed jerk who is directly responsible for everything that goes wrong: he smashes the specimen jar the scientist used to collect a sample of the green slime thus splattering it on a space suit, he ordered a triple decontamination of the suits which enabled the monster to develop, and he ordered the creature shot on sight.

Sadly he never gets the comeuppance he so richly deserves. One of the main saving graces of the film is that its critters are just so memorable. They're more cute than scary with their lumpy bodies, single red eye, clawed feet, sparking tentacles that wave in front of their chests, and their arms that limply hang at their sides for no apparent reason.

True, the sound they make is truly annoying--although I marvel that they can continue to make it whilst in the vacuum of space--but the monsters are just downright lovable. Although, as many a character finds out, it is not advisable to hug them.

So, it may not be the greatest sci-fi movie ever, but it's doubtful that anyone could watch it and not be entertained.