My Mom gave me the gift of THE GREEN SLIME (1968) this Christmas… and I was a child again.
You don’t need to have seen the movie to get where I’m coming from, I don’t think.
If the charms of this Kinji Fukasaku/Toei joint were not self-evident, I would have lost you at GREEN SLIME. I mean, look at that clutch!
This movie is like the Major Matt Mason Space Station play set come magically to life! (A lot of 50-year-old guys are mentally high-fiving me right now.)
I haven’t seen GRAVITY (2013) yet but I’m guessing Alfonso Cuarón didn’t have the vision to repurpose his Dad’s clock-radio for deep space instrumentation.
Do kids today try to perfect their G-force face? No? Well, that’s too bad. I suffered a lot of uncertainty as a boy but I always knew how I’d look on reentry.
Boogers have always been frightening but THE GREEN SLIME really kicks the phenomenon up a notch.
I suppose somewhere out there some guy is sitting down to the same gift for the “So bad it’s good” factor.
I hope I never meet that guy.
When I watch THE GREEN SLIME, I enjoy it on the same level that I did when I was a kid. I recoil when the alien entity reveals its intelligence (so ugly! so smart!) and react with dread when the protagonists wander into harm’s way.
I want to be afraid. I want to be thrilled. I want to yell at the screen “Look out!” and “Run!” and “Fire! Fire all weapons!”
I want to feel these emotions primarily.
I want to be a fool. A complete and utter fool.
Like a newborn baby in his mother’s arms. Unable to reason. Unable to speak. Unable to discern. Able only to witness and react, with honesty and feeling.
Merry Christmas, GREEN SLIME. Merry Christmas, Mom.
THE GREEN SLIME is available from the Warner Archive Collection.