ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Don’t be fooled by the titles!

The Green Slime is supposed to be a serious movie . . . but it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys that have long floppy tentacles!

Marooned is not a feature length version of Lost in Space.

Night of the Big Heat is not about a nocturnal rendezvous that gets very passionate.

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The Green Slime (1969 U.S./Japan)

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__________________ The Green Slime trailer


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________________ Green Slime music video


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Yeah, this is a pretty fun movie and it moves quickly. Right from that crazy song near the start, it kind of grabs you. A large circular asteroid is detected bearing down on Earth and we have about half-a-day to stop it (blow it up). Now, it may just be me, but this resembles the plot of later films Meteor (1979), Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998). The difference is that once the huge rocks in those later films are blown up, those films are over; here, it just caps off the first 3rd of the film. Also, is it just me, but does the surface of the asteroid Flora here resemble parts of the factory in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? We see these reddish pools, like the chocolate river in Willy Wonka . . . never mind.



Now, the FX here . . . are pretty bad. I'm not sure why, but it's never been more apparent than in this film that the asteroid, the space station and various other objects are tiny models.

Sure, other low-budget sci-fi films have obvious cheap model-work, but it's SO MUCH more obvious in this film. Was it done purposely? You can apply terms like 'psychedelic' here and maybe even surrealistic. At the same time, the film is ambitious. This takes place sometime in the future, with an entire futuristic ambiance set up to present the story.

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A subplot involves the different approachs to command that the two lead characters have (played by Robert Horton and Richard Jaeckel). Horton feels that Jaeckel's commander is too nice a guy. Jaeckel is the type who would try to save one man, possibly sacrificing 10 others in the process.

It's a fairly strong narrative and the characterizations are strong, even with melodramatic dialog.

The main plot involves bringing aboard an alien spore onto the space station which rapidly expands by absorbing energy. Before I watched this, I always had a problem figuring out the plot, based on summaries available. The stills would show these one-eyed biped creatures — I would think, "What happened to the slime?"

Well, I guess it mutates into these creatures . . .

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BoG's Score: 6 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
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Marooned (1969)

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co-starring LEE GRANT - NANCY KOVACK - MARIETTE HARTLEY as the wives and SCOTT BRADY



I have a Laserdisc from the nineties on this one, in widescreen. From what I can tell, this one did strive to be accurate. It's been said that it has an almost documentary-style feel to it. Obviously, it came out in the same year as the actual moon landing (though this story takes place in Earth orbit).

At one point, at about the three-quarters mark, Peck's character makes a somewhat inspiring speech about how the moon is only the first step and mankind will continue in this direction, colonizing other planets. Back then, it seems everyone took for granted that Mars was next, probably to be stepped on by men in another decade or two. Crenna's character states he will be too old by then.

Things have not gone in that direction in the real world.



The film is a bit on the dull side. It's big budget and impressive for its time, with a great, first-rate cast, but I think the effort to be realistic and emulate some scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey worked against it.

Many scenes lack a needed energy, as if the actors were all tired or something. And that fatigue figures into the plot. The 3 stranded astronauts are running out of air and spend much of the film slowly withering away.

Even the ground crew, led by Peck & Janssen (who pilots a special rescue ship later), comes across as worn out. Still, if you're a fan of watching astronauts doing their thing above the atmosphere (as many on this site are), you'll be enamored of at least a few scenes.



Some of the later scenes do have tension and drama. One of the astronauts decides to sort of attempt repairs outside the orbiting capsule, and then one of the wives has a tense talk on the phone with Peck.

Peck is something of an automaton in the first two-thirds of the film, all slide rules and equations, and Janssen gets royally annoyed with him at one point — that's the extent of the dramatics.

Things look really bleak as a hurricane hits just as a planned rescue ship is to take off and the launch is aborted. But, moments later, a possible ace in the hole is noted. The whole thing ends a bit abruptly after a ponderous two hours

BoG's Score: 6 out of 10




BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
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Night of the Big Heat (1967 England)

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aka Island of the Burning Doomed starring CHRISTOPHER LEE and PATRICK ALLEN * JANE MERROW * SARAH LAWSON and PETER CUSHING * directed by Terence Fisher - color - 94m.

_ Night of the Big Heat Music by Malcolm Lockyer


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The final film in the Sci-Fi trilogy from director Fisher and Planet Films, after Island of Terror (1966). Much of this follows along the same lines as the previous film.

There's an alien threat to the inhabitants of a British island. As indicated by the title, the weather has become uncommonly hot, and pretty soon certain people are hearing a strange noise in the countryside as a prelude to their deaths by extreme heat. There's also some standard soap opera revolving around a few characters.

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Christopher Lee, acting very grim, is a scientist outsider who is the only one aware of what the threat is.

Cushing is a local doctor in a briefer role (I think he may have acted in this as a favor).

This has a slower pace than Island of Terror, with Lee (for example) doing a lot of walking about and setting up some tests. The climax fails to capture that tense, desperate sense of a gamble in Island of Terror, being actually a deus ex machina ending courtesy of nature. The deaths, as well, are not as creepy as those in the previous film (but then again, how could they be?).

But it's a solid Sci-Fi alien invasion thriller, with some scary moments.

BoG's Score: 7 out of 10

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A final note on the trilogy: All the activity/action in each of the films is centralized around a local inn/hotel. The surviving characters always seem to group together at these familiar locations.

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As far as I know, this is only available on PAL DVDs and perhaps not even on VHS tapes here in the States.


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)