Trailer

The Green Slime (1968)

G   |    |  Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi

The Green Slime (1968) Poster

After destroying a giant asteroid heading towards Earth, a group of scientists unknowingly bring back a strange green substance that soon mutates into a monster.

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  • The Green Slime (1968)
  • The Green Slime (1968)
  • Robert Dunham in The Green Slime (1968)
  • The Green Slime (1968)
  • Robert Horton and Luciana Paluzzi in The Green Slime (1968)
  • Robert Horton in The Green Slime (1968)

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User Reviews
4 November 2001 | Bruce_Cook
A movie too funny to be an accident!
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.

Critic Reviews

Did You Know?

Trivia

The UNSC headquarters on Earth shown near the beginning of the film is called "Lowry Field" in the foreground subtitle. In real life "Lowry Field" was located in Denver, Colorado and was better known as Lowry Air Force Base. Science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein also used Lowry Field as a rocket base in his novel "The Man Who Sold the Moon," which may be where the script writer for The Green Slime got the idea. In real life, Lowry Field/Air Force Base was an airfield, a base for ICBMs and a military and naval intelligence analysis center. Lowry AFB was mostly closed beginning in the late 1990s (except for a DFAS building serving veterans and service people at Buckley AFB) and has since almost entirely become a "planned community" featuring mostly upscale single family homes and condominiums.

Quotes

Dr. Hans Halvorsen: The blood cells of these creatures act like seeds - they can spawn new creatures from its own blood!

Goofs

Although the asteroid Flora appears not to have an atmosphere, both billowing rocket smoke and liquid water are present, indicating air pressure. However, smoke shouldn't billow as shown in the movie when the rockets are used in the airless vacuum space.

Alternate Versions

Although "The Green Slime" was released in the U.S. as a 90 minute version, director Kinji Fukasaku and his editor prepared a much more tightly edited 77 minute version (called "Gamma III: Big Military Space Operation") for release in Japan. This "Japanese" version eliminates the Robert Horton/Richard Jaeckel/Luciana Paluzzi relationship triangle, and is much more "militaristic" in tone. Several scenes are edited differently, additional alternate music cues are used (which are less "sci-fi" sounding than the "Amercian" version), and the rock and roll theme song is omitted entirely (replaced by a military march theme). The ending before the credit roll has additional scenes inserted with Paluzzi and Jaeckel, which change the tone of the ending from optimistic to downbeat.

Soundtracks

Space Rock
(uncredited)
Music by Charles Fox

Storyline

Plot Summary

Genres

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi

Details

Release Date:

19 December 1968

Language

English, Japanese

Country of Origin

Italy, Japan, USA

Filming Locations

Toei Tokyo Studios, Tokyo, Japan

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