THE GREEN SLIME
Japan - U.S.A. - Italy | 1968
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Starring
Robert Horton
Luciana Paluzzi
Richard Jaeckel
Color | 89 Minutes | G
Format: DVD-R (NTSC)
Warner Archive Collection
Music from the film
Title Song (Extended)
MP3 format - 1.5 MB
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Review by
Brian Lindsey
Film:6
DVD:4
Replaces EC's review of the 1998 MGM/UA VHS edition
Commander Jack Rankin is an asshole. And he's the movie's hero.
    A vain, overbearing officer of the United Nations Space Command, Rankin (American TV veteran Robert Horton) is put in charge of an emergency mission to save our world. There's been a sudden change in the orbit of a huge asteroid named Flora — which looks just like a giant plastic meatball — sending it on a collision course with Earth. With only 10 hours left to avert the ultimate cataclysm, Rankin will lead an expedition to plant nuclear bombs on Flora and destroy the asteroid before impact. Prior to the mission Rankin will take command of U.N. space station Gamma 3 and assemble his team there.
    Time to insert dopey love triangle. Gamma 3's current honcho is Commander Vince Elliot (consummate character actor Richard Jaeckel), an estranged friend of Rankin and now engaged to Lisa (Thunderball's Luciana Paluzzi) — the fiery Italian redhead who's the station's chief medical officer and Rankin's former lover. The two buddies had a serious falling out after Rankin ratted out Elliot before a board of inquiry over a command decision that resulted in crew fatalities. Lisa's turning to Elliot after the end of her relationship with Rankin has only made things more awkward. Rankin could care less, however. With his perfect hair helmet and cocksure attitude, Cmdr. Hard-ass knows Elliot's a wuss and that he and Lisa'll be knockin' boots in no time.
    But first things first. Rankin's got a job to do, and it begins with the spray-coiffed alpha male asserting authority over Elliot's command. (Even wearing a space helmet can't muss Rankin's 'do.) Within minutes of docking at Gamma 3 he and his team are aboard one of the station's space cruisers, heading for the asteroid with Elliot and scientist Dr. Hans Halverson (Ted Gunther) in tow. They land on Flora to wander an alien landscape set even cheesier than those on original Star Trek. (Gravity on the asteroid, for some reason, is the same as Earth's.) While the bombs are being planted, Halverson discovers a bizarre form of life — a pulsing green ooze that generates an illumination within its sludge-like surface. Despite Elliot's objection Rankin almost abandons Halverson at blast-off when the scientist is tardy for the rendezvous. He satisfies himself with smashing Halverson's bio-sample instead. "You can't take it with you!" he barks, hurling the sample case to the ground and shattering it. But that's exactly what they end up doing.
    With asteroid destroyed and Earth saved, Rankin and the team return to the space station. Unknowingly, a small chunk of the gelatinous ooze is brought back on the spacesuit of one of the men. (Because idiot Rankin broke the sample case.) While the station's jubilant crew party like it's 1999 — and Rankin puts not so subtle (or tactful) feelers out to Lisa — the slime is growing and multiplying, soon to break loose as a lumbering horde of maladjusted Sid and Marty Krofft characters who can electrocute humans on contact. The very lives of the crew at stake, Rankin sees his cue to show everyone who's got gonads of steel...
    The Green Slime, a Japanese/U.S./Italian co-production without a single Asian in the cast, is a treat for lovers of cornball sci-fi schlock. Watching capable actors spouting ludicrous dialog and playing ridiculous scenes with totally straight faces is always a ton of fun. The flick features some of the crappiest FX I've had the pleasure to snicker at; these include vehicle and building models that look like children's toys, rockets that smoke just like in the old Buck Rogers serials, humorously Freudian spaceship docking and rather lame rubber monster suits.
    The best special effect is actually Horton's hairstyle, which is impervious to any and all adverse forces. Example: With an automatic door coming down behind him, our hero has one chance to save himself from being trapped with the creatures. With split-second timing, Rankin —  clearly shown wearing a strapped-down helmet — turns and does an acrobatic dive-and-roll maneuver to make it through the doorway in time. When he jumps up from his roll, the helmet is nowhere to be seen. And his hair is perfect.
    One can't let the movie's groovy rock 'n' roll theme song go unmentioned, either. I give this so-bad-it's-good cheese log a hearty Rankin-style thumbs up!
Rejoice! After a wait of more than a decade, The Green Slime finally comes to home video in its original widescreen aspect ratio. The not-so-good news? This isn't a true DVD, but rather a "made on demand" (MOD) offering from the Warner Archive Collection — which means it's basically an overpriced DVD-R. Available at Warner's in-house WBShop since late October, as of this review's posting the disc is now up for pre-order at Amazon.
    Happily the anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen transfer looks pretty darn good, boasting snappy, vivid colors and fairly sharp detail. There's some negligible print damage on occasion but this never becomes distracting… The main thing here is that there's even more psychotronic sci-fi cheese to gawk at. (Buh-bye, crappy Pan & Scan VHS tape!) Audio is a standard digital mono track, sonically unimpressive but at least clean. There are no supplements, not even a trailer.
    NOTE: Warner's MOD discs are high quality DVD-Rs, it must be said; they come with professional-looking labels and packaging. But they're still burned rather than pressed. (Playback in some PC/laptop drives can be problematic.) There's simply no defensible reason why such a product should cost more than a regular DVD, which is why I automatically deduct at least 1 point from my Disc Rating. If this title cost ten bucks less I'd give it a score of "5" instead of "4". 11/11/10
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