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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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4
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4 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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This
laughable piece of dreck was shown on one of the
earliest episodes of Mystery Science Theater
3000, and it's very easy to see why it provided
excellent cannon fodder for the cult comedy show.
When dumb-ass monsters, lame action scenes, awful
dialog, bad acting and clunky direction are the
best things one can point out about a movie, the
viewer is in for either (A) a tasty pan-load of
warm, gooey cinematic cheese, or (B) a serious
bout of deep hurting. The
Slime People leans towards the former —
provided your tolerance for schlock runs very
high. God knows mine does.
Invisible
Invaders' Robert Hutton (who also directed
this thing without using a pseudonym for some
reason) stars as Tom Gregory — professional sportscaster,
amateur pilot and soon-to-be monster slayer. He's
a stiff, middle-aged '50s movie kind of hero who
always wears a tie, no matter what. (He also wears
the dorkiest pair of "highwater" slacks ["floods"]
since Mr. Spock went mufti in 20th Century Earth
attire. We're talking Michael Jackson pants here!)
Flying a small single-engine private plane, Tom's
arrives over Los Angeles to find the city blanketed
in an impenetrable dome of fog. He's only briefly
able to raise someone on the radio then loses
contact. After almost crashing Tom manages to
land at a deserted airport. Not a single soul
is around and the phones are dead. Then a station
wagon carrying two young women and an old guy
in a business suit pulls up to the tarmac. They
insist that Tom come with them. A terrible catastrophe
has taken place! (Though by later accounts the
crisis must have been going on for at least a
day or more, Tom has no idea what's going on.
He was flying his Piper Cub to L.A. from Papua
New Guinea, perhaps?)
Tom's new companions are Prof. Galbraith (Robert
Burton), a scientist, and his daughters Lisa (Susan
Hart) and Bonnie (Judee Morton). They try to explain
to him that an army of murderous creatures dubbed
"Slime People" have emerged from the sewers and
taken over the city. Reptilian, with skin like
frogs and (supposedly) covered in slime, the Slime
People use spears as weapons. Citizens not killed
in the rampage have been evacuated by the military.
The monsters somehow generated a dome of fog that
covered the city and then transmogrified into
a solid wall (!), trapping those humans remaining
inside, like the Galbraiths. Tom's understandably
skeptical at first, particularly when the doddering
egghead begins his spiel with one of the most
incredibly dumb rhetorical questions ever posed
in a B-movie monster flick: "Now we've always
known there are fish in the ocean, haven't we?"
(Rather than skeptical, Tom should be insulted
for being taken as a complete moron.) The sportscaster
quickly comes around when he's shown destroyed
buildings (stock footage) and dead people lying
in the street with spears stuck in them. Galbraith
explains that so far the monsters only emerge
at night; once the temperature within the fog
dome reaches dew point, however, they'll be able
to roam around at all hours. For safety Tom directs
them to the TV studio where he works, hoping they
can barricade themselves inside to wait out the
night. They'll also be able to check the initial
news reports about the creatures and perhaps broadcast
an S.O.S. to the outside.
When they get to the TV station they run into
Private Cal Johnson (annoying William Boyce, who
looks like Conan O'Brien), a Marine Corps rifleman
who's the lone survivor of his wiped-out unit.
Within five minutes good ol' boy Cal is making
time with Bonnie while Tom pairs up with Lisa.
The professor formulates a plan to try various
chemicals on the fog wall in an attempt to break
through. While rounding up supplies the next day
the group runs into Toliver (The
Angry Red Planet's Les Tremayne), a crackpot
writer first seen holding a live goat. (Which
he refers to as "my little love" — fortunately
the flick doesn't explore this any further.) Checking
the drop in temperature, Prof. Galbraith realizes
that they have very little time left. Soon the
Slime People will be able to roam within the fog
dome at will, hunting down the last survivors.
With an inane plot like that, one should have
a knee-slapping good time. I certainly did — when
I could see what the hell was going on, that is.
Clouds of fog purposely obscure much of the action,
either generated by smoke machines or added to
the film afterwards. It gets so bad at times you
can hardly make out what's happening. (No doubt
this was done to cover up the cheesy monster suits,
which, surprisingly enough, aren't as bad as some
I've seen. Inevitably the slapdash editing results
in scenes where the fog waxes and wanes significantly
from one cut to the next.) When I wasn't squinting
at the screen, however, there was enough silliness
to keep me amused. The dialog contains a number
of howlers; the scenes with the drunken looters
in the theater and the group taking refuge in
a butcher shop (bacon at 3 lbs. for a dollar —
wow!) are amusingly inept. Newscasts detailing
the crisis, which Tom plays for our benefit at
the TV station, should also provoke mirthful derision.
The badly staged fight scenes — yes, heroic Tom
and Cal are able to achieve what the entire U.S.
military could not, against all three of
the monsters (that's all that are ever shown in
a single shot at one time) — are also funny.
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is a budget release from Rhino retailing for under
$10, so don't expect a stunningly re-mastered DVD
edition. (Who'd really care?) There are no extras
— not even a trailer — though it does come with
an onscreen chapter menu. Picture is pretty grainy,
with occasional print damage, but the film generally
looks better than it did on VHS. (Not that you can
see anything half the time anyway.) Audio is occasionally
muffled but this is more likely a symptom of the
movie's original poor-quality sound recording; for
a film of this (ahem) caliber it's more than adequate.
All told, for hardcore cheese lovers the disc is
a decent value considering its low price. I just
wish Rhino had issued this as a Mystery Science
Theater 3000 DVD, which would feature both the
MST version of Slime People
and the original film on a single disc... all for
only a few bucks more.
8/26/01 |
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