Green Slime (US/Japan 1968)

Rating: **
Review Date: 6/20/99
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Cast: Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel, Luciana Paluzzi

Ridiculous rubber monsters, cheezy special effects, sickening macho heroism, and beautiful space babes fill this B-grade sci-fi horror film that's highlighted by an absolutely dreadful "so bad you've gotta love it" theme song. Green Sliiiime!!! One of the first American/Japanese film collaborations, it looks and feels like a cross between an episode of "Star Trek" and a bad Japanese monster movie. The film starts out with an asteroid hurtling toward Earth on a collision course. Retired hard-ass military man Robert Horton is called upon to fly out to the asteroid and blow it up (sounds a little bit like "Armageddon," eh?). Of course, when he and his team get there, they unwittingly pick up some green slime and take it back to their space station, Gamma 3. There, the slime grows into several ridiculous looking rubber suit monsters with big eyeballs and lobster-clawed tentacles. They feed on energy and can electrocute people to death. There's also a really stupid rivalry and love triangle sub-plot between Horton, the commander of Gamma 3 (Richard Jaeckel), and Italian babe Luciana Paluzzi which dominates the last half of the film. Boring... The first half hour of the movie is actually marginally entertaining, and Toei's miniature work looks great. Unfortunately, the film runs out of steam once the aliens show up and the testosterone starts to flow, and the last hour just slows to a crawl.