The Green Slime
The Green Slime
G | 21 May 1969 (USA)
The Green Slime Trailers

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!

Reviews
StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??
SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted
Whitech It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.
a_chinn 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.
zardoz-13 "Tora, Tora, Tora" director Kinji Fukasaku's "The Green Slime" isn't as atrocious a sci-fi-horror chiller as I had been led to believe. Of course, my chief complaints are the campy special effects, particularly the inflatable-looking space station held aloft by two wires, its rickety doors, and ultimately the worst, the monsters that strut around the station with a pair of twirling tentacles spewing electrical sparks. Predictably, these half-pint monsters are green, scale-ridden, and equipped with one large eye like a cyclops. Now that I think about it, they resemble Minions with tentacles swirling above their heads, and those sputtering, live-wire electric cables can whip a man to death and electrocute them. These goofy critters reproduce with licentiousness of rabbits, and they feed ravenously on power. As villainous creatures, they look hilarious. Reportedly, Japanese school children wore these costumes. On the other hand, their arsenal of electric energy makes them impressive as does their excessive numbers. Unlike most idiotic monsters that try to kill the heroes, these monsters can kill, do kill, and come close to taking out the star. Before the humans outsmart these creatures, they exercise an irrefutable advantage over mankind. Boiled down to basics, the first third of "The Green Slime" concerns an "Armageddon" encounter with an enormous asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Commander Jack Rankin (Robert Horton of "Apache War Smoke") is dispatched to take command of a team to destroy the asteroid. They land on the asteroid and set explosive charges, and then leave. One of their landing party has picked up a wad of green slime on his uniform. They blast the asteroid to smithereens and eliminate it as a threat to Earth. Once they are back aboard space station Gamma III, the landing party shed their uniforms to have them decontaminated. During the routine decontamination process, the green slime swells to life. When the system overloads, the technician checks on it and fear sets in when he sees the monster. A general quarters alarm sounds, and Rankin and Space Station Commander Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel of "The Dirty Dozen") rush to the spot. Chief science officer Dr. Hans Halvorsen (Ted Gunther of "The Cop Hater"), briefs Rankin and Elliot about the abilities of these green things. First, they feed on energy and gravitate toward power sources. Second, they reproduce in great numbers. Third, shooting a laser at them will kill them, but it will also result in spores flying forth to grow. Fourth, these critters scorch their victims, covering them with burn wounds, if they don't kill them. Fifth, they constitute a veritable army that is extremely lethal. Commander Rankin, Space Station Commander Elliot, and chief medical supervisor Dr. Lisa Benson (Luciana Paluzzi of "Thunderball") must contend with their formidable but funny monsters. During the second third of "The Green Slime," they reduce power as much as they can and try to lure the monsters into a storage room and away from the injured personnel so they can be evacuated to safety. Eventually, by the last third of "The Green Slime," Rankin realizes that there is no escape from these creatures. They are reproduced to the extent that they cover the exterior of the space station. Rankin informs his superiors that based on the alien's lethal attributes that have no alternative than to abandon the space station and blow it up. Naturally, Space Station Commander Elliot refuses to believe that they must sacrifice the station.Fukasaku sets up the story well enough and then the action wanes during the second thirty minutes before it generates momentum in the last half-hour. The cinematography changes drastically for the better during the last thirty minutes with Fukasaku adopting Dutch Tilt angle to heighten the suspense. Robert Hort0n acts like he took the shenanigans of these creatures seriously, and the rivalry between Rankin and Commander Elliot offers a breath of soap opera reality. As it turns out, Dr. Benson and Rankin have had a history, and Benson has been romantically engaged with Elliot. What Benson fails to admit to herself is that she still loves Rankin despite having announced her impending marriage to Elliot. Unfortunately, the valiant Elliot doesn't survive, while Rankin and Benson do. Despite the phony special effects, "The Green Slime" isn't the dreck that you've heard it was.
classicsoncall For only the second time since I've been writing these reviews, I got up in the middle of the night to catch a screening for a title that simply screamed out to me while cruising the cable line-up. The other one was "Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told", and that was four years ago. There's no way this could have been a disappointment with a title like "The Green Slime", and suffice it to say you'll just have to see it to believe it. Now it would be real easy to pan this thing for it's cheesy rubber monsters and it's garish colors, but let's not forget, the classic TV series 'Star Trek' was being made at the same time with it's own cardboard sets and goofy aliens. My favorite was The Horta, a crawling rock from the episode 'The Devil in the Dark'.Probably the most surprising thing for me was seeing who they got to play the leads in this Japanese production, Robert Horton as Commander Jack Rankin and Richard Jaeckel as Commander Vince Elliott. The love interest for both men is provided by a curvaceous redhead who's name sounds a lot like Lollapalooza, which is just another way to describe this picture. But they're simply outclassed by the green slime aliens, which oddly enough aren't really slimy at all once their frightening cell duplication turns them into Sesame Street monsters.Say did you catch that go-go dance celebration following the successful space mission to the asteroid Flora? You really have to check out some of the couples making up their dance steps on the fly, it's simply hilarious. But not as hilarious as the methods used to fight off the creatures once they begin multiplying. If laser guns don't do the trick, then you might as well fight them with hospital beds and space helmets! Why Rankin even threw his flashlight at one, yeah that'll show 'em.And gee, don't let me forget that opening theme song. It ranks right up there with all the greats, like the one from the 1958 flick "The Blob". Which come to think of it was another kind of slime monster. Was it green too? I don't remember, not that it makes any difference.
Tom van der Esch Okay; in short: An asteroid is about to crash Earth, so some guys are send up there to blast the thing. An alien creature (in the shape of some green goo) comes back to a space station by accident. There, it grows and eventually ends up killing a few people. The acting is.. well.. just fine. Nothing really outstanding or horrible to report. The Russian female character got on my nerves at some point though.The monsters in this movie look really silly and hardly scary. The noises they make tend to annoy you sooner or later.It's an okay B movie, but nothing more then that.On a side note, it does have a catchy theme tune in the beginning.5 out of 10 stars.