Audience Rating: G (General Audience) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786302181753 Format: Color ISBN: 6302181755 Label: MGM/UA Home Video Manufacturer: MGM/UA Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: MGM/UA Home Video Release Date: 1998-09-01 Running Time: 90 Studio: MGM/UA Home Video Theatrical Release Date: 1969-05-21
Customer Rating: Summary: One of my favorites Comment: Why this isn't out on DVD--even some cheapo non-remastered version--is a complete mystery. It's a hoot; a nice blending of Japanese and Italian sci-fi of that time. The monsters are goofy, but in a seriously disturbing way, and the film actually has a few weirdly nightmarish moments. I'd rank this in the top-twenty of hip gonzo 60s sci-fi.
A good pack of reviews for a film that doesn't exist any more. Maybe someone will notice and do something about it. But what somebody should really do though is get some of this stuff back on cable TV--movies like this were easy to find there in the 90s. Another generation could get hip to the fun of it and DVD sales might pick up. Customer Rating: Summary: overblown badness becoming anti art Comment:
THE GREEN SLIME 1968 MGM. with Robert Horton, Richard Jaekyl, Lucianna Paluzzi. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
When someone asks me, "What's one of your favorite science fictions films that are also bad?" I mention this film, and get an odd shrug, even from people who might have seen it.
In a really useful book on Japanese cinema called MONSTERS ARE ATTACKING TOKYO (by Stuart Galbraith, Feral House 1998, and OOP), the director of this film has recollections of the films inception...Kinji Fukasaku says..."THE GREEN SLIME was about three times the average Japanese budget...Instead of using three Japanese actors we used three foreign stars....and then amateurs from the local military base." (page 105) Other revelations included the news that the film was about Vietnam, with Americans discovering and involving themselves with something they could not understand and could not control.
The film really tries to be different and meaningful, but the one eyed unpurple people zappers undermine the whole production as something promising to be scary, but getting further away from its actual intent with the accumulation of too many off centered details.
Back to the beginning: an asteroid is heading towards earth. It has come out of no where, no previous coordination known, and heading straight for earth. Not too much time to stop it, so a crew is quickly assembled to blow it to bits. It is named Flora.
The love triangle that involves Elliot and his ol' girlfriend and her really married to him new boyfriend never graduates beyond the level of high school play. And Richard Jaekyl's hair is prefect. He fights, he takes off his helmet, his is thrown against a wall, and his titanium welded hair is still intact. A bomb could go off next to his head, splatter his brains all over the universe, and all those hair follicles would be intact and ready to go.
What is amusing is some of the set designs that don't match common sense. The big burly Americans are seen drinking out of teacups (on a spaceship?), clocks with analog dials are seen on the walls, with plugs coming out.There's a 1960's teletype. The spaceships emit vapor and smoke in a vacuum, the walls shake frequently. The space station is a large torus, but all the rooms seem to be square. The spaceships catches on fire and tilts towards the earth, and explodes when it "hits" the atmosphere.
And as for those rubbery flabby electricity munching aliens who hitch hiked a ride from the atmospheric asteroid...they seem kind of funny looking. I have seen the film a few times, and I keeping wondering if I'll ever see a pair of sneakers near the floor holding up the costume.
This is a great bad movie. It tries to tell a story, but loses control of it
Robert Whitaker Sirignano Customer Rating: Summary: Rubber Wigglies In Outer Space: A Hilariously Bad "International" Production Comment: Most bad movies are simply bad, but now and then you encounter one that is ludicrously bad and therefore quite entertaining to watch. THE GREEN SLIME, which used to be a favorite on the CBS late movie back when CBS actually had a late movie, is so relentlessly absurd that you'll giggle, grin, and occasionally drop your jaw throughout its entire ninety minute run time.
The story is pure sci-fi pap. An asteroid is moving dangerously near earth and a crew is dispatched to blow it up. They succeed--but they also pick up a tiny bit of green gunk in the process. Once back on board the space station, the gunk grows into a bunch of rubber suits, each one looking like one of those 1970s rubber finger puppets only with a single red eye and tenacles that thrash around and eletrocute any one they touch.
This is in theory an "international" production, and it is true the cast is a mixed bag, but the production is pure Tokyo all the way, which means you get a lot models and a lot of rubber suits. That in itself is rather fun, particularly re the rubber suits, which are so obviously what they are that it's impossible to suppress a giggle. The fact that some, but not all, of the cast are obviously dubbed adds to the fun.
More amusing, however, is the "swinging sixties" atmosphere that pervades the film. The movie opens with a guitar-heavy theme song that is pure 1960s psychedelia, and you'll go far to find another bit of music that is quite so cheesy. Later, when the asteroid is destroyed, the crew decides to celebrate: the men jump into shiny leisure suits, the women break out shiny mini-dresses, and everybody sways around on a dance floor the space station just happens to have handy. All the women are young and sexy and work as medical personnel, and everybody has dangerous hair. For a time I wondered which was going to prove the most deadly: the rubber suits, the unnatural hair styles, or the leading man's excessively chisled chin, so sharp it might cut your throat if you got too close to it.
Now, the thing about "so bad it's good" movies is that they don't appeal to just anybody, so if your taste doesn't run to finding amusement in this sort of absurdity THE GREEN SLIME will be about as welcome to you as root canal. But if you tend to laugh at Ed Wood, drive-in dreck, and such B movies as THE WASP WOMAN, this film's for you. At present it is only available in the out of print VHS and in cheap-o DVD collections of equally bad films that mostly of the "just plain bad" variety, but for fans of the genre it's worth hunting down.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer Customer Rating: Summary: Classic sci-fi Comment: I saw this movie at a drive-in theater (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go ask your folks) and have wanted to get it in DVD. Could only find it in VHS, got it anyway! Terrible acting, terrible special effects, and rubber suited monsters, but it scared the crap out of me as a kid back then!!!! It's a nostalgic thing to sit and watch it, remember how I felt and now laugh at it's story and special effects....and I use the term loosely!!!! Classic 60s sci-fi!! Customer Rating: Summary: Luciana Paluzzi Comment: It has Luciana Paluzzi in it. Mandatory 5 stars. She could be getting chased around by actors dressed up in old Maytag washers and it would still be great.
I saw this movie in the post theater at Torii Station on Okinawa when I was 19. I loved every cheesy frame. I wish it was out there on DVD.
