After a perilous mission to a huge asteroid, a crew returns to its space station, unaware a bit of ooze from the asteroid clings to a crewman’s uniform. The green goop grows – into murderous, tentacled monsters. And as station members fight to live, gunk from the monsters’ wounds turns into more monsters! That’s the story. Now enjoy as our heroes fight to preserve Earth and, unintentionally, our own senses of humor with a movie that Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called “one of the funniest made-in-Japan sci-fi monster movies ever.” Kinji Fukasaku, whose later work was championed by Quentin Tarantino, directs. The world would be a far more bleak and joyless place without marvels like The Green Slime.

****

Designed as an unpretentious fantasy adventure for sci-fi and action fans, The Green Slime was a fun Saturday matinee in its day but compared to contemporary films in the same genre, it looks more and more like a parody. "The Green Slime" are clearly actors in monster suits - some of the goofiest you'll ever see - and the dialogue is consistently leaden with such cliched moments as the station's doctor (Ted Gunther) trying to save the slime from destruction: "Don't kill it, it's a magnificent discovery!" It also doesn't help that the film is burdened with a romantic triangle subplot - Gamma III nurse Lisa (Paluzzi) is torn between former boyfriend Jack (Horton) and current beau Vince (Jaeckel) - that continually brings the action to a grinding halt.

On the plus side, the special effects, miniature sets and art direction have an almost childlike innocence about them; the theme song is a catchy psychedelic rock 'n roll number by Richard Delvy (someone needs to release this as a single); the go-go party scene conjures up fond memories of sixties hairstyles and fashions; and Robert Horton and Richard Jaeckel deserve some kind of award for playing their roles absolutely straight without laughing.