The Green Slime (1969) - Billups Allen

 The Green Slime opens with a 60s, psychedelic rock theme song that repeats the title of the movie over and over again as the chorus. That is a sure sign of an excellent film in my opinion. This low budget sci-fi movie combines all the best plot points of Armageddon (1998), Alien (1979) and Moonraker (1979). It starts with some scientists blowing up an asteroid heading towards Earth. For my money, this concept serves better as a half hour sub-plot. Then there is a “people disappearing off a space ship” plot that culminates into a “guys in space suits floating in space shooting at aliens” battle. All this is packed into a 90 minute running time.

Ex-Toho employees designed both the special effects and the monsters. By 1969, they must have been seasoned art directors. By seasoned, I mean you can no longer see the strings on spaceships and asteroids. It was a magical time for moviemaking when people weren’t concerned so much with the fact that things would burn and smoke in space. This film exhibits the best of those late 60s special effects where everything is painted with bright colors and, even though nothing looks real, the style of the film outweighs the lack of convincing special effects. The film is laden with bright colors and crazy spaceships. Besides all the plot lines from other movies, the aliens also look suspiciously like the aliens form The Simpsons. If I didn’t know better, I might be led to believe that this is one of the most influential sci- fi movies ever. Director Kinji Fukasaku directed a long list of films until his death in 2003. After his death, his son took over his last film production. How cool is that? 

 

The Green Slime - Monday, August 1st at 8:00 p.m.

It's MONDO MONDAYS at The Loft, celebrating weird, wild and wonderful flicks from the Mondo side of the silver screen! Admission is only $3.00, and don't forget to check out our yummy "Mondo Munchies" snack bucket ... fill a cup for a buck!

Billups Allen’s interest in writing began composing lyrics for punk rock bands. Lyrical duties led to an interest in writing poetry and short stories. Several of his short stories were published in a book entitled Unfurnished published by Florida’s now defunct Schematics Records. Allen currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where he writes Cramhole comic zine and writes criticism for Razorcake Magazine, the Tucson Citizen, and the Tucson Weekly.