THE GREEN SLIME (1969)
Article #215 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-17-2001
Posting date: 3-2-2002

A strange mold from a wandering planet gets taken aboard a space station, where it grows into hideous energy-eating creatures.

You know, this Japanese/American coproduction wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t have a few problems; 1) the sets and special effects are unconvincing and cheap, 2) the monsters are rather silly-looking, especially the mushy red masses on either side of their eyes, 3) the two men who hate/respect each other and love the same woman are enmeshed in one of the most hackneyed subplots I’ve seen, and 4) the acting throughout is none too good. Other than that, not too bad. I do like late-sixties quasi-Jimi-Hendrix-psychedelic theme song.

I also can’t help but notice that the movie does anticipate one area of life that will improve immensely in the future, and that is the efficacy of post-ballistics projectile weapon tossing, that strategy whereby one finds a last-minute use for a firearm devoid of ammunition by throwing it at his foe. I can’t help but notice that in most movies where this technique is used, the results are pretty pathetic, but in this one, it seems to be the best way of handling the creatures; once those ray guns can zap no more, tossing them at the slime creatures invariably results in hitting them squre in the eye, causing them to shriek horribly. Since the ammunition did no damage itself, one wonders why they just didn’t skip that step and toss their firearms from the beginning.