The Green Slime 

I am taking a risk here and reviewing a movie which exists on You Tube. The link has been up for 11 months so I take this as a positive sign. I had War of the Gargantuas in my review queue and then all the sudden, there is War of the Gargantuas on flippin’ Comet! So I pivoted to another semi-obscure but amazing film, The Green Slime.
What’s cool about it? Well, the title music is absolutely the best, maybe one of the top ten super cool just for the movie opening credit scene musics ever done. It pops up about one minute into the hot opening.

This was directed by Kinji Fukasaku, who directed mostly gangland (Yakuza) films prior to and after this. It was a co-production with Toei and MGM studios, which meant the film ended up having that Japanese monster film sensibility, bright colors and beautiful cinematography with an all-American cast. Speaking of those bright colors (and clean sets), I blame Star Wars for the whole ‘dirty space world’ look.

This was based on a short story by Ivan Reiner, who also did The Wild, Wild Planet  and War Between the Planets. The screenplay was done by none other than Bill Finger, the co-creator of Batman.  This explains why this movie plays like a comic book. Which is great! It’s all action with sparse dialog meant to serve as character development. Most modern critics this film is considered terrible. Seriously? I can find a five movies worse by throwing a dart. This did spawn a Green Slime award at Bubonicon, and also was the very first movie spoofed by Mystery Science Theater, so there is that. Sadly getting spoofed by Rifftrax or Mystery Science Theater can make it difficult to find the original film again. So here we are, watching the original on YouTube.

Robert Horton is square jawed Commander Jack Rankin. He was in TV westerns, and even did a cover of King of the Road.
His uniform looks like the Dickies outfits I had to wear when I did auto repair. Thick, gritty and uncomfortable. Seriously he just needs a little captain hat and a rake to look like he just finished cleaning up the lawn. But enough about the male actors! Look at Luciana Paluzzi  as Dr. Lisa Benson in this film! Holy Cow! She is still kicking about, no doubt due to her yoga regimen. She was also in the James Bond movie Thunderball. Her hair is perfect even when the Green Slime attacks and the space station is in disarray.

Our monsters tonight are green, but they are not slimey, nor slime like. The monsters did get their own action figure and are legendary in their own right, mostly for being stupid looking monsters.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s movie, I am compiling all the suggestions from last week and building out a plan for the next few months.  Watch this!  Or don’t!  Everything is voluntary!