Bataille au-delà des étoiles

With a title like "The Green Slime", your expectations for this film are certainly not going to be great. However, despite many knocks against the film other than the title, the overall effort is surprisingly watchable.

The film stars mostly American actors, though it was filmed in Japan and it shows. The sets and rockets are very reminiscent of those you might see in Japanese sci-fi films and Godzilla-type films. This isn't necessarily bad, as for this style of film it is one of the better ones. However, considering that in the US, 2001 was being released as well, then THE GREEN SLIME's special efforts really look shabby in comparison. I am sure that the folks that made this film felt much the same way and cursed 2001's brilliant special effects!

As for the plot, this is generally the best thing about this sci-fi film. The idea of a small and seemingly insignificant organism growing rapidly and taking over a space station is interesting and is reminiscent of movies such as THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. I am sure that the folks at NASA were also seriously worried about such possibilities. I liked this idea, but unfortunately making this growing green menace look menacing and credible was tough--and the folks who made this film didn't even come close! The green glop morphed into silly looking creatures that looked a lot like the sea monster from "Sigmund and the Sea Monster"! I think if they'd just kept the green slime in the form of a rapidly spreading slime instead of silly electricity-spouting semi-humanoids it would have played out better.

So the overall effort has a lot of cheese as well as a few dumb performances (such as the doctor who needlessly gets himself killed and Richard Jaekel's very inconsistent character) but there is also a bit of charm about it, as this was kind of the last gasp for the 1950s style sci-fi yarn. Now, thanks to better special effects and audiences that expected more, films like THE GREEN SLIME were a dying breed.

By the way, you may recognize the female lead, Luciana Paluzzi. She was one of the Bond villains from THUNDERBALL and she was never lovelier.

There isn't a single Japanese actor in this big-budget Japanese produced sci-fi drama, but the special effects are a dead give-away. A wandering astroid (code named `Flora') is on a collision course with Earth. Richard Jackel and Robert Horton lead a team which places atomic bombs on the astroid to blow it up. They succeed, but they unwittingly bring back an alien fungus to their wheel-shaped space station. The fungus grows into man-sized monsters which multiply rapidly and overrun the space station. Jackel and Horton are forced to set aside their romantic rivalry over Luciana Paluzzi (`Thunderball') while they battle the creatures. Blazing laser guns abound in a desperate battle with the unstoppable monsters! The astronauts even don spacesuits and jet-packs for a battle on the space station's hull. All this in glorious color AND wide screen. Wow!

Sure, this sounds great but . . . well, these guys didn't know what they were doing. Or did they?

`The Green Slime' looks more like a clever satire of sci-fi movies than an ineptly made film. The odds against all the side-splitting humor in this movie happening by accident must be astronomical. The potato-shaped monster suits are hysterical. The miniatures of the rockets are so tiny the camera can barely focus on them. The dialogue sounds like perfect parodies of sci-fi's most treasured clichés. (Example: The doctor rushes up to soldiers as their about to attack a slim monster. `Stop, don't kill it!' he pleads. `This is a magnificent discovery, and we must do everything possible to SAVE it!' -- and he says it in a perfect imitation of Richard Nixon.)

When the heroes' rocket tries to outrun an atomic blast, Robert Horton orders the pilot to increase thrust. But the G-forces are already so strong, the pilot can't lift his hand to reach the throttle. Macho Robert jumps up, walks to the pilot's chair, and pushes the throttle himself!

`The Green Slime' is so full of scenes like this that it should be re-released as `National Lampoon's Space Adventure'. And just wait until you hear the Jimmy Hendrix sound-alike title theme, a psychedelic rock tune. Its was even released on 45 rpm! (That's kinda like a CD, for those of you too young to remember.)

Rent the movie, call your friends, and mix up a batch of lime Jello as a snack. This is MST3K squared.

You have GOT to see this movie to believe it. The music is better (or cheesier) than Austin Powers (Whammy bar electric guitars twang along while a pretentious singer who sounds like Elvis on Ludes wails "Green SLIME! Green Slime!") Richard Jaeckal (of The Dirty Dozen fame) is unintentionally hilarious as the space station Rambo. He grits his teeth every time the camera is on him (no exaggeration!) But the stars of this movie have to be the one-piece, rubber suited, one-eyed monsters with the electric touch. I saw this when I was 15, and I still remember laughing at them, and at the space station hanging on its wires, burning in space (The flames and smoke RISE UP...in space, get it?) All in all, a spectacularly bad movie...so bad its great.

A team of astronauts are called upon to destroy a particularly large asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. While they are planting charges on the big rock, an ooey, gooey green substance is discovered, and it ends up attaching itself to the suit of one of the crewmen. When the suit and the substance are back aboard their space station, it evolves, creating a bipedal, red eyed, tentacled monster. And its oozing green blood merely helps to make the creature multiply. Our intrepid heroes who must stop the infestation include Jack Rankin (Robert Horton of 'Wagon Train') and Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel, "Grizzly").

Whether or not the filmmakers actually had their tongues in their cheeks, the end result is that "The Green Slime" is magnificently cruddy sci-fi, a true camp classic. Some viewers may deride it for being overly silly and juvenile, but there's no denying its goofy charm, especially when the monsters are stomping around. The main problem is that it simply goes on too long, and interest level may wane for some in the audience. The special effects are hilariously awful, although the monsters are great fun, what with their tacky appearance. Overall, this American / Italian / Japanese production, directed by Japanese filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku ("Battle Royale"), provides pretty colorful entertainment, at least in a literal sense, and its widescreen photography also helps a great deal.

Viewers may feel embarrassed for co-stars Horton and Jaeckel, but they give admirably straight faced performances in the face of such inanity. Luscious Italian babe Luciana Paluzzi ("Thunderball") is mostly good for eye candy, as are assorted other female bit players. You do have to love the way that so many of these female space travellers wear miniskirts.

That priceless, rocking theme song ("The Greeeen Sliiime!!!") is over much too quickly; it's the kind of thing for which you want to rewind the movie.

Provided that prospective viewers know what to expect, they can have quite a good time with this one.

Five out of 10.

You have to love a sci-fi movie that:

1) Is a Japanese-produced product featuring a mostly-Anglo cast (saves on dubbing cost).

2) Has equivalent special effects of any given "Godzilla" movie.

3) Has Italian bombshells named "Sheila Benson".

4) Gives you slime creatures that look like Sigmund the Sea Monster.

5) Has a mad doctor (isn't that a pre-requisite for these movies? Thought so.).

6) Has one of the all-time coolest title songs I have ever heard in my entire natural life.

If you watch "The Green Slime", just think: if Jaeckel had brought the rest of his "Dirty Dozen" cronies along with him, the Green Slime would never have stood a chance.

Oh well....

Seven stars. By the way, does anyone know where to get this movie's soundtrack? I have GOT to get that song....