The Green Slime (1968)

The sci-fi genre has been through many twists and turns. Back in the 60s you could have a great space movie with advanced special effects (Kubrick's 2001), or an attempt at a blockbuster, with very weak special effects, such as "The Green Slime". Although many sci-fi films of the day were of the same type, a chosen few achieved not to be dated. That was not the case of "The Green Slime". Maybe back then audiences were thrilled by the attempt at drama and horror, and maybe horrified by the creature, but today they simply will laugh at it, and laugh a lot. But this movie presents a curious fact. Without knowing it I started to see it and then I realised that it inspired 2 well known space movies. The first part is clearly "Armageddon", and the second "Alien". The movie starts at a command centre where they discover that an asteroid is about to hit earth. So a team is assembled, lead by Robert Horton, and off they go to the orbiting space station, whose commander is Richard Jaeckel (bad acting alert!), who also joins the mission. These man were once friends, but a past mission set them apart, and also the love of the station's beautiful doctor, Luciana Paluzzi (the reason why I seeked this movie out and watched it). So they go to the asteroid and blow it to bits. But a green stuff comes back attached to one of them. When all think they are safe, the green stuff grows (fuelled by electric power and humans), multiplies, and becomes a series of big monsters with tentacles, who spend the rest of the movie pursuing the humans, who try to kill them using laser guns and various tricks. Ok, so the special effects are awful. Ok, so they forgot that if you make a hole in a space ship, the suction would kill them all, and you just can't stand there with the hatch door open. Ok, the love triangle is lame. Ok, you can clearly see the motion of the man inside the monster suite. But does that really matter? You get Luciana Paluzzi, despite the rotten dialogue (poor girl, she tried to be a serious actress but never got much of a chance, maybe because of her breathtaking good looks?!). You get cheesy save the world lines. You get a drama that you can never believe because for you, today's viewer, the creatures are harmless. You get a bundle of laughs everytime the creatures appear or a special effect of a ship in space soars through the screen. What more could you want? Meant as serious, but never that good in the first place, this movie is now very much dated, whose interest comes from what movies it inspired and little more, except if you count a few laughs. But I have to admit, they do create a sort of tension, and they do save the day in style. By the way... Michael Bay... you are a hell of a copycat!