Slime City

A young art student Alex moves into some dirty New York apartment where the gallery of weirdos live.Alex receives mysterious Himilayan Yogurt from his friend-an aspiring poet Roman.Unfortunately consuming green goo has deadly consequences as Alex turns into slime-covered mutant with an urge to kill..."Slime City" is the debut feature of independent filmmaker-turned author Gregory Lamberson.The film is cheaply made,but there is enough crazy gore and slime to satisfy fans of such insane classics like "Basket Case","From Beyond" or "Street Trash".The last fifteen minutes of "Slime City" are wonderfully gory and grotesque.So if you are in the mood for some slimy goodness check out this low-budget piece of gory insanity.

College student/video store employee Alex (Robert C. Sabin) gets an apartment with the hopes the privacy will allow him to get it on with his virgin girlfriend Lori (Mary Huner). Things change, however, when his neighbor Nicole (also Huner), a goth temptress, seduces him and makes him drink this green elixir. Soon Alex starts sweating orange slime and the only thing that can return him to normal is human blood. Turns out everyone in the tenement are occult followers of a guy named Zachary and Alex's body is going to be the host for his return.

This is really cheap and makes something like BASKET CASE (1982) look slick by comparison. But like Henenlotter's film, there is a certain charm in the capturing of sleazy era 1980s NYC. The highlight of the film is definitely the effects work by Scott Coulter and some of it (especially the end meltdown) is totally gross. Director Gregory Lamberson, unfortunately, lets the effects down with his really flat direction and the film would have benefited from some STREET TRASH level inventiveness (that film's director, Jim Muro, worked on this as a steadicam operator). Sabin is an odd choice for a lead, mostly because he has a lisp that makes him sound like Sylvester the cat when he gets mad. Huner really surprised me as I had no idea she played both lead female roles until the end credits. Lamberson recently completed the sequel SLIME CITY MASSACRE, which brings Sabin back.

A college student rents out an apartment. Strange happenings, occurring in the basement, give way to the student's mental and (literally) physical collapse.

For a zero-budget film, SLIME CITY isn't bad. The apartment building is cheap-looking(with bizzare jars stored in the basement)and odd characters roam the halls.

This is a surreal image of ghetto life, but the film never enters the world of pure satire. It is more concerned with grossing us out(which it often succeeds in doing)and scaring us(which it fails at), than with delivering a bigger overall message.

The acting is sturdy for an amateur production, and the effects are messy but not bad. It is the finished film that I was mostly disappointed with. The story just was not there, and with the lead female playing two parts, the end result is disbelief.

Still, as far as horror movies go, you could do much worse than SLIME CITY. It is just a shame that the makers of the film didn't realize that if they spent just a few bucks more, they could have afforded a real script.

And, when was the last time you saw a place in New York that looked like the inside of this building?

"We could use some fresh blood around here," claims a punk-poet inhabitant of the low-rent boarding house where most of SLIME CITY takes place.

As Alex (Craig Sabin) gets settled into his new apartment in Flushing, New York, he meets strange neighbors under the spell of the resident ghost, Zachary. Alex soon learns that Zach has replaced their personalities with those of his long-dead buddies. Alex is warned that he'll be next, and that Zachary was a malevolent mystic and wrote a book of alchemist's recipes called "Flesh Control."

Instead of leaving, Alex eats "Himalayan yogurt" -- some sort of flavored ectoplasm -- and the next morning awakes in a pool of slime. Alex roams the streets and kills people. Among the other flat characters are Nicole (Mary Huner), who dresses in fishnet stockings, works strip joints, has clothed sex with Alex, and murders a one-night stand. Alex's straight-laced girlfriend Lori (also played by Huner) is unaware of Alex's newly acquired personal hygiene problem right up until the point where he tries to kill her.

In the closing sequence, Alex and Lori battle it out. She chops him up but the various disembodied parts start attacking. As Alex's head barks orders, his arms, hands and even internal organs attempt to get her. The wild action is funny at times but poorly staged. Originally shot on 16mm.

This movie is so fun!! Every scene is good, they connect to each other well, and the gore effects are just outstanding. Many camp movies are unwatchably boring, but this one entertains start to finish. I recommend it highly if you like low budget gore.