Review of The Green Slime (1968) by Trinity C — 25 Jan 2007

Ne of the most attacked films of all time, Kinji Fukasaku's The Green Slime is an obvious attempt to cash-in on the burgeoning interest in 2001 (also released that year). But whereas Kubrick's space opera is positively majestic, the same cannot be said here.

The Thing From Another World-aping plot delivers some apalling cornball dialogue, and the rest of the show doesn't fare much better: there's dreadfully wooden acting (witness the 'going up to 3 Gs' moment), the most obvious modelwork ever and it certainly doesn't date well, as best proved by the so-60s-it-hurts dance sequence, replete with then-fashion to boot.

But as with Plan 9, it at least isn't pretentious. This is one of those daft, crap-but-amusing sci-fi Bs that made the fifties and sixties so entertaining. It may also claim as position as a cinematic milestone, as it was apparently the first joint Japanese-American film production. And one might also argue its influence on Alien, but whether Ridley was taking down notes from this mess for his first masterpiece is debatable.