THE GREEN SLIME (1969)

"You mean this stuff reproduced itself inside the decontamination chamber? And as we stepped up
the current it just – it just grew?"
"Precisely! And these creatures could be developing
on any part of the station…."

Director: Kinji Fukasaku

Starring: Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel, Luciana Paluzzi, Bud Widom, Ted Gunther, Robert Dunham, David Yorston

Screenplay: Charles Sinclair, William Finger, Tom Rowe

Comments: ….or Attack Of The Killer Snot, as it was sometimes referred to in my younger years. (Oh, all right, I’ll confess: it was referred to as that last night.) Back in the halcyon days of the Encore Cinema in Sydney, every Friday night they ran triple, or quadruple, or occasionally quintuple bills of horror and science fiction movies. It was here that I first saw most of the Cormans, and many a Godzilla movie. The first time I saw The Green Slime it was gloriously triple-billed with The Blob and Beware! The Blob (aka Son Of Blob). Having thrilled to "Steven" McQueen and his equally geriatric teenage pals battling red goop from outer space, and cheered as various obnoxious comedy relief characters got blobbed (for more on that subject, I recommend you take a look at the "B-Fest 2000" reports elsewhere), I thought the evening couldn’t get any better. I was wrong. I was about to witness the first ever Japanese-American co-production in film history! Actually, watching this film, you can’t help but feel that Kipling may have been on to something…. An irredeemably goofy mixture of Japanese monsters and models, American actors and Italian actresses (all of whom appear to have been dubbed, by the way), The Green Slime has something that assures it its own little piece of cinematic immortality: the second coolest theme song in the history of motion pictures!! Screeching electric guitars, a manic drum beat, and some funky dude wailing, "GREE-EE-EENN SLII-II-II-IIME!!" The second coolest? you may ask, hearing this description. Well, I still give it to The Blob’s theme song, if only by a short half-head ("It creeps/and leaps/and glides/and slides/across the floor/and through/the door…."). And I got to hear them both in the space of three hours!!!! Oh, my Lord, what a night that was!

Okay, to business: The Green Slime opens with that always popular plot device, an asteroid on collision course with the Earth, due to hit in less than ten hours (and they didn’t detect it any earlier?? Oyyy….). General Thompson, in spite of the protestations of his subordinate (this unidentified red-haired guy spends most of the film contradicting and smart-mouthing the general, oddly enough without reprisal. Whether he’s Thompson’s illegitimate son or his brother-in-law we never do learn), reacts by sending for the one man he believes capable of saving the Earth: Commander Jack "I’M A SMUG BASTARD" Rankin. Even by the usual standards of "designated heroes", this guy’s a doozy. He goes through the entire film sporting an infuriating "I-love-me-who-do-you-love?" grin, while his hair is so drenched in glue-like oil he never has so much as a follicle out of place despite all the running around and explosions. Every second phrase is either "I’m in command here!" or "That’s an order, mister!", and in the event that something or someone actually meets with his approval, he signifies this by raising an emphatic left thumb. (By the fourth or fifth time we had to witness this gesture, I was raising a digit at the screen myself, only it wasn’t my thumb.) Rankin and Thompson reminisce about the early days of the space program, and about Vince Elliott, who was Rankin’s partner and best friend until Rankin "ruined it". "No-one’s ever accused you of that!" interjects Thompson quickly, just in case anyone thought that Commander Jack "I’M A SMUG BASTARD" Rankin could possibly be guilty of doing something wrong. Rankin is on the verge of resigning from the space program for reasons unspecified, but as soon as the situation is made clear to him he volunteers to lead the mission to Flora, agreeing whole-heartedly with General Thompson’s belief that he’s the only man capable of saving the Earth [*grin*]. Thompson tells him that the mission will start from the space station Gamma 3, warning him that the station is now under the command of Vince Elliott. "I guess this is my lucky day," observes Rankin [*grin*].

On Gamma 3, Vince Elliott is also less than thrilled with the situation, as indeed is his fiancée, Lisa Benson, played by Luciana Paluzzi ("Lisa Benson"??), an Italian actress who has mastered the mysterious and ancient art of frowning without actually wrinkling anything. Lisa remarks on the unfairness of Rankin being put in command, then tells Elliott that he hasn’t the slightest reason to be jealous of Rankin, as he doesn’t mean anything to her anymore. (Uhh, Lisa? A hint? Don’t volunteer information like that.) Rankin flies into Gamma 3 and docks by driving the nose cone of his ship into a metal ring [*clang*]. The former friends and now adversaries meet and shake hands, and Elliott announces that he and "space consultant" Dr Halverson (an hysterically overblown performance from Ted Gunther) will be joining the mission. The crew arrives safely on Flora, and splits up to plant their explosives. The teams drive to their designated sites in the cutest little carts and, with an entire asteroid to choose from, decide to stop in puddles of something that looks like rancid tomato soup ("This is as good a place as any!"). As the teams drill the necessary depth into the asteroid’s surface (i.e. about six inches), Halverson discovers a mysterious green substance. He pounces excitedly upon a slab of the goo, picking it up with long forceps. Then, seeing an even better slab, he drops the one he’s holding and pounces on that one, not noticing immediately that the initial one has splattered all over his Geiger counter (I love people who take good care of their equipment, don’t you?). When he does notice, he finds that it has grown around the machine, and is pulsing with energy. Meanwhile, his bomb planted, Rankin gets the unwelcome news that Flora is accelerating, and that the detonation time has been moved up. "You know what you’re asking?" Rankin demands of Thompson. "I know what I’m asking," responds Thompson. That settled, Rankin orders everyone on board. It is pointed out that Halverson’s not back, and Rankin says that’s too bad for Halverson. "You’re not going to leave him here!" cries Elliott. "You made this mistake once before," pronounces Rankin ominously. At that moment, Halverson comes dancing up with his specimen jar. "It’s alive!" he announces in the best mad scientist tradition. "Get rid of it," says Rankin without missing a beat. "But this is a major discovery!" objects Halverson, not unreasonably. Rankin responds by grabbing his jar and smashing it on a nearby rock. The contents are sprayed all over the place – including on one of the crewmen’s pants leg.

Now, can we stop and think about this scene for a moment? Halverson’s green goo is the first discovery of life in space – so yes, I think everyone could agree that it is a major discovery; rather more than that, in fact. All Halverson wants to take back is a small specimen in a jar. So why won’t Rankin let him take it? They’re abandoning their equipment, so weight can’t be an issue. Halverson’s ready to go, so time isn’t either. So what exactly is behind Rankin’s childish smashing of the specimen? Is it just that he didn’t find the stuff, or that taking it back wasn’t "orders"? Lord knows. But consider this: Halverson had his specimen safely contained. In his hands, it may never have received the energy jolt it needed to grow and multiply. It is because the splashed goo is on the loose when it goes through the decontamination procedure that it gets the energy it needs to break free and take over. In other words – everything that happens in this film is the direct fault of Commander Jack "I’M A SMUG BASTARD" Rankin!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! But, God damn it – he still gets out alive at the end! (Hope I didn’t spoil anything for you.)

The alteration to the detonation time means the crew has only three minutes to clear the blast area. With so little time, you’d think they’d go in a straight line, not do a huge wide turn around the asteroid, but never mind…. Rankin orders top speed but the pilot objects, afraid the ship will break up. (Um – why give a ship a top speed it can’t handle?) Rankin, in full if-you-want-anything-done mode, fights his way through the "10 Gs" already being exerted and grabs the acceleration handle. As the ship plunges forward Rankin is thrown back into his seat, gashing his arm on the way. "Activate the force shield!" he orders, but the pilot, being inevitably a lesser man than Rankin, can’t fight the gravitational force to push the button. (Hey, Jack, wouldn’t activating the force shield first have been a better idea?) So of course, he-man Rankin fights his way back to the front of the ship and activates the shield in the nick of time. Flora explodes, and the ship is showered in debris, but makes it through. On Gamma 3, everyone breaks into a wild celebration, while on Earth, General Thompson mops his sweaty brow. The ship arrives at Gamma 3 and the crew is greeted by cheering crowds. Rankin thanks them but says, "The job isn’t over yet." Elliott, realising this means Rankin isn’t leaving, gives him a look that says louder than words, "Oh, bugger." At that moment, Lisa Benson throws herself into the room, and is immediately reprimanded by Rankin for breaking into quarantine. She, Rankin and Elliott exchange various significant looks and she withdraws. Rankin then puts Halverson in charge of decontaminating everything, and orders him to do it three times. Elliott objects, saying the station can’t spare the equipment for that long. Rankin is forced to remind him (as if anyone was in danger of forgetting) that "I’m still in command!" and chews him out, advising him sarcastically to "bone up on the regulations". Elliott gives him another look, this one suggesting he’s thinking of another sentence with the expression "bone up" in it, but remains silent.

And this is pretty much how it plays out for the rest of the film: Elliott never opening his mouth except to say something wrong and be contradicted by Rankin, or to give an order that Rankin countermands, or make a decision that turns out to be wrong, while Rankin’s turns out to be right. This would be hard to swallow even if Rankin were vaguely likeable, but he’s such a SMUG BASTARD that all this is even more unstomachable than the "alpha male" squabbling that goes on between Michael Caine and Richard Chamberlain and/or Bradford Dillman in The Swarm. So be warned.

Safely out of Elliott’s hearing, Rankin gives orders that the mission report be filed in his name and Elliott’s [*grin*]. "I get it!" exclaims his subordinate, with huge beaming smile to show he appreciates the gosh-wow-swell guy that Rankin really is under that SMUG BASTARD exterior. That done, Rankin takes himself off to the infirmary to get his gashed arm seen to, and here we discover that Lisa Benson is, believe it or not, a doctor. Not just a doctor, in fact, but despite the size of the space station, seemingly the doctor. We certainly never see another one (which makes her breaking quarantine even stupider). Moreover, Lisa seems to be the only one of the numerous women on board who is any kind of position of authority. Welcome to the future. Lisa responds to Rankin’s injury by doing just what I’d like to do: splashing antiseptic all over the gaping wound. Savour this moment, folks: it’s the only time in the film that Rankin’s expression is anything other than square-jaw-serious or SMUG-BASTARD-grin. After some verbal sparring, Rankin angers Lisa by suggesting that it isn’t "all over" between them, after all. Elliott interrupts the scene, leaving Lisa looking worried (but not wrinkly).

That evening, the crew of Gamma 3 is having a party. Not just any party, either! – a knock-'em-down, drag-‘em-out, psychedelic, get-down-and-boogie, I’ll-meet-you-at-the-Frug-A-Go-Go-when-I’m-done-at-the-cyclotron-baby PAR-TEY. Champagne corks pop, lights flash, and women with weird hair-dos, too much make-up, incredibly short skirts, coloured tights and spike heels start shaking their bodies around to electronic music. It was about this time that I realised that The Green Slime differed from most of its contemporary science fiction films by not opening with a narrator telling us that "The year is…." This is a great shame, as I’d really like to know how long the film’s writers thought it would take for human fashion and music to evolve into an exact replica of 1969. The other thing we notice in this scene is that there are a lot of women on Gamma 3. Since, other than Dr Benson, a few nurses and a couple of technicians, we never see any women doing any work, the only reasonable assumption is that they’re there to, ah, keep the men company. Lisa and her two men are at the party. Elliott’s busy getting drunk, while Rankin lures Lisa onto the dance floor and proceeds to put his hands where they aren’t wanted (or at least, so I assume from her reaction – pan & scan print, so I can’t be sure). Rankin says that Elliott is "too nice a guy" to be a commanding officer (well, if that’s the criterion, Rankin is certainly A-grade command material). Elliott’s "blunder", it transpires, was trying to save one man, and losing another ten in the process. "That’s a pretty stupid mistake," concludes Rankin (hello-oo-oo….can anyone say "Saving Private Ryan"?) and then he gets personal. "You’re not in love with Vince. You pity him. You’re in love with me," he announces [*grin*]. Lisa accuses him of having an incredible ego (Rankin has the gall to look surprised) and stalks off. Meanwhile a lab tech is busy finding out that Commander Jack "I’M A SMUG BASTARD" Rankin’s decision to put everything through decon three times was a really, really bad one. The poor schmuck’s screams echo all over the space station. Finding the body burned, Lisa announces that he was electrocuted. Rankin gives orders for the station to be searched, and a second schmuck has a fatal encounter with something with red claws, one glowing red eye, and green tentacles. This guy’s screams are also heard (Gamma 3 has great acoustics). As the body is being inspected, the command team is summoned to the main power room, where we get our first clear look at a whole Slime Guy – and it’s a real little cutie! Rankin, of course, goes for a gun – a laser-gun, actually. At that moment, Halverson comes rushing up in a right old tizzy. "Don’t kill it! It’s a magnificent discovery! We must try to capture it!" Again, this isn’t wholly unreasonable, despite the casualties, but Rankin just wants to blast it. Immediately, Elliott disagrees, ordering gas bombs to be fired at the critter. "I’ll take full responsibility!" says Elliott, and we’ve seen enough of the film to know what that means. Two dead guys later, Rankin announces that from now on, he’s in charge, and starts blasting away with his laser-gun. Slime Guy is trapped in a dead end corridor. Halverson finds some green blood on the floor and takes it to his lab. Some time later, Halverson summons Rankin and Elliott (via a phone-call, which the long-suffering Captain Martin, who seems to do most of the actual work on Gamma 3, tries to answer through his helmet). Halverson has discovered that in response to any energy, the Slime Guy’s blood will multiply and grow. This means that not only was putting Slime Guy through decon a bad idea, so was shooting it. Sadly, no-one has the nerve to point this out to Rankin. Halverson has also discovered that apart from absorbing energy, Slime Guy discharges it – hence the electrocutions.

In the infirmary, Dr Lisa is checking her patients (hey, she must be a doctor – she’s got a stethoscope!) when she hears a strange noise. Next thing we know, Slime Guy’s in the room! Much screaming and rushing around and waving of tentacles ensues. Slime Guy is shot, and bleeds copiously, before Rankin can revoke the original "shoot to kill" order (might have been a good idea to put that over the P.A., hey, Jack?). Rankin and Elliott use the infirmary’s beds – metal-framed beds, mind you – to keep Slime Guy at a safe distance while everyone else escapes the room. Rankin takes off his metal helmet and chucks it at Slime Guy before doing something almost as irritating as his grin – a spectacular duck-roll-somersault to get himself out of harm’s way. They trap Slime Guy in the isolation ward (heh!), and then Halverson points out that the spilled blood is already growing. They lock it in the infirmary. Rankin calls for the "monitor car". The monitor reveals that Slime Guy is busy healing itself – an ability that with its replicating blood means that Slime Guy may be impossible to kill. Moreover – in a scene guaranteed to make any audience go "Eeewww!!" – Slime Guy’s blood has congealed into disgusting boogery stuff and is crawling all over the walls and – dum, dum, dahh – into the station’s ducts. (As Sigourney would say, it’s always ducts.) Elliott orders the power in the infirmary cut off. "Smart move, Vince," approves Rankin [*grin*].

Lisa is checking her considerably increased patients (most professional stethoscope work. Really.) when Rankin wanders in. He pauses to ask one patient "How’s the hand?" (hilariously, he responds to the injured guy’s helpless gesture by raising that damn thumb again! "Hey, look what I can do!") then tells Lisa that the station has been completely quarantined, so that she will not be able to send the badly injured to Earth for treatment. Rankin and Elliott devise a plan to lure the Slime Guys into a storage room, where they can be confined. The lights are shut off all over the station, and the lights on a "power beam search car" used as bait. But the Slime Guys have ideas of their own, and burst in on Lisa’s patients (who are really having a bad day!). More screaming and bed pushing follows. Lisa invokes her "Heroine’s Death Battle Exemption", as she is clearly whacked across the head with a tentacle, but not electrocuted. Rankin orders all lights doused, gets the attention of one of the Slime Guys by chucking a large flashlight at it (he just loves chucking things), then uses another one to draw the Slime Guys after him. This manoeuvre traps him between two Slime Guys, but duck-roll-somersault gets him out of it. Lisa evacuates her patients and shuts an airlock between them and the Slime Guys. Meanwhile, Rankin is surrounded by Slime Guys, but Elliott saves him by drawing them to him. The rest of the procedure goes to plan and the Slime Guys are trapped. But just as Rankin is going from square-jaw-serious to SMUG-BASTARD-grin, they hear a noise. Oops! Guess you forgot about the Slime Guy in the isolation ward, hey, big shot?

Rankin decides to drop another airlock and isolate all of "C" section. Elliott objects for no apparent reason, other than to give Rankin another excuse to diss him. As Rankin is ordering the section abandoned, Halverson comes charging in in yet another tizzy, crying about "my files! All my work!" Rankin tells him to forget it, but Halverson charges onwards anyway. Poor old Martin is ordered to "get that idiot out of here!" But at that moment, Slime Guy breaks free! The next moment, all of its fellow Slime Guys burst from the storage room. And it’s everyone for themselves back up the corridor! Men and carts go everywhere, until disaster inevitably strikes. Halverson emerges from his lab at just the wrong moment and gets hit by a cart, which crashes into another cart, which nearly runs over someone who accidentally hits the airlock button – and the door descends, trapping Halverson on the slimy side. (I don’t know how this masterpiece of confusion plays in widescreen, but in pan & scan, it’s hilarious.) Rankin is also on the wrong side of the door initially, but a swift duck-roll-somersault takes care of that (rats!). When it is realised that Halverson is trapped, Elliott’s all for raising the airlock, while Rankin’s attitude is, Ah, screw him! (And I have to admit, for once I agree with him.) Elliott makes for the airlock control, and Rankin pulls a gun on him. Elliott gives a look more of sorrow than of anger, and goes ahead anyway. He opens the airlock, and there’s Halverson, nicely toasted. And the next second, there’s a dozen Slime Guys, too! Nice work, Vince! Eventually, everyone manages to get past the next airlock, and the door is lowered. Unfortunately, the section the Slime Guys are trapped in is where the inflammables are stored. KA-BLAMMO!!!!

Gamma 3 on fire is one of the film’s funnier sights. The special effects guys really overdid it here: the whole station looks like it’s engulfed in flames. For all that, the airlock door confining the Slime Guys remains undamaged. Impressive. Using the "monitor car", it is discovered that some of the Slime Guys are actually dead. It is concluded that although they can absorb most energies, intense heat will kill them. However, there are only a few Slime Guys there. Most of them, to Rankin and Elliott’s chagrin, are on the outside of the station, calmly healing themselves in the rays of the sun. Rankin tells Lisa to get her patients together and ready to be moved (again?), then announces that the entire station will be evacuated, and the station itself destroyed. Elliott goes berserk, and Rankin has him put under arrest. Elliott snaps and swings an almighty punch at Rankin – and misses! (Aaarrgh! Vince, you useless, useless---) Everyone starts being loaded into the cruisers in which they will return to Earth, but it is discovered that the escape hatch won’t open. Why? Because it’s covered in Slime Guys! Rankin orders a team with lasers to go up and blast a few. Overhearing, Elliott – not in any kind of confinement, you notice – decides he’s the man for the job and takes Captain Martin’s place. When Lisa begs him not to go, he abuses her, accusing her of still being in love with Rankin. Lisa looks deeply wounded (though not wrinkly) and fiddles with her stethoscope. Anyway, Elliott and co. go outside, and much blasting of Slime Guys ensues. The escape hatch is opened, and the first evacuees can leave. Elliott goes on blasting until his gun runs out of power, and then, of course, he throws it at a Slime Guy. And here, oh gentle readers, we must pause for a moment’s awed silence – because it works! The laser gun impales the Slime Guy through its eye and it drops on the spot! ALL HAIL VINCE ELLIOTT!! Not content with this minor miracle, Elliott scoops up a wounded teammate and carries him to safety. On Gamma 3, a watching Rankin, secure in the knowledge that Vince can’t see him, shakes his head with an admiring, rather than smug, grin. (Well – actually, it’s still pretty smug.)

As the last evacuees leave, Rankin asks Space Central to activate the station’s "remote guidance system" but learns to his horror that the station’s power is too low for this to be possible. (The audience would no doubt also be horrified, were it ever explained just why this is necessary.) Activating the system manually means getting through the remaining Slime Guys to reach the controls. Martin offers to round up a detail, but Rankin announces that he’ll do the job himself. Lisa protests vociferously, sending Rankin into complete SMUG-BASTARD-grin mode. He orders the evacuation of all remaining crewmen, and prepares for his mission. The last cruiser leaves, and Elliott and his team fly up to meet it. Elliott notices Rankin’s absence, and Lisa tells him that Rankin stayed behind. Elliott immediately suits up again and goes to Rankin’s aid. Meanwhile, Rankin is blasting his way through Slime Guys, and when his gun runs out of power, he too impales a Slime Guy by throwing it (but Vince did it first!). Rankin gets himself temporarily out of trouble using duck-roll-somersault (which is not easy when you have a power pack on your back!) but then finds himself cornered anyway. Just as all looks lost, Elliott arrives, blasting away and allowing Rankin to get to the "remote guidance system" controls. Alas, Elliott’s heroic act is his last, as a Slime Guy takes him into its fatal embrace. Gamma 3 begins to hurtle towards Earth. Rankin grabs Elliott’s body, makes it to a door, and jumps out – at which point he and his cargo are travelling a great deal faster than the station they’re leaving. Rankin executes an impressive left-hand turn, and flies back to the waiting cruiser. Gamma 3 bursts into flames for no apparent reason (perhaps because of entering the Earth’s atmosphere – but if the "remote guidance system" was supposed to return the station to Earth, this outcome suggests it was just as well they never actually tried it) and then explodes. On board the cruiser, Rankin reports to Earth, recommending Elliott for the highest possible citation – "posthumously". Lisa looks as sad as she can without moving a facial muscle, while in an immensely poignant moment, Rankin gazes at Elliott’s body – and raises his left thumb. (There ya go, Vince, ol’ buddy: all you had to do to win Rankin’s approval was sacrifice your life for his!) Rankin’s not one to grieve too long, though. About ten seconds later, that SMUG-BASTARD-grin is firmly back in place. "All right, Lieutenant – take her down," he says, and it’s The End – but not without a second playing of The Green Slime’s theme song over the credits. YES!!!!

Footnote: I’ve provided the lyrics to The Green Slime’s theme song over at "Immortal Dialogue", of course, but it just isn’t the same without the music. So I suggest that you guys now boogie on over to Badmovies.org, where along with his review, Andrew Borntreger has provided a sound clip! You da man, Andy! You da man!

• Check out all the details of this movie on the IMDB
• Buy The Green Slime from Videoflicks
• Immortal Dialogue
• Second Opinions from The Bad Movie Report | Badmovies.org