The Green Slime (1968)

This is a rather big cheat, as though i'm writing this for the Wildgrounds Japanese Blogathon it's actually an international production - though co-produced by Toei Company and lensed in Japan - with an entirely English speaking cast. That said, it was directed by the late, great Kinji Fukasaku (who had a long career directing genre films, but might be best known for helming Battle Royale) and features plenty of miniature special effects by Toei's usual Godzilla film crew, so i'm thinking it should still count. Add in the fact that The Green Slime has just been released in beautiful widescreen through the great folks at the Warner-Archive and I don't think the timing could be much better. Considering how long the film has only been available in muddy, painfully cropped VHS versions, this new version is practically a revelation.

Which isn't to say that this film is sterling. Even compared to the rough approximation of science expected in sci-fi films of the time, this one will consistently be having you scratch your heads. Despite coming out the same year as 2001: A Space Odyssey, the special effects in The Green Slime are more than a little rough around the edges, though have plenty of goofy charm. When you see a space station burning in space, sending smoke spiraling upwards you sort of just have to go with it. Combine with performances that run the gamut from stiff to uptight, and settings that represent that special 1960s view of the future (go-go boots, miniskirts and lots of flashing lights) and you're in for a very specific kind of pleasure.

It's the future and Commander Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) is pulled out of his impending retirement when some brainy science people at the United Nations Space Command discover an asteroid headed towards planet earth. Jack is plenty conflicted about his past - particularly his former friendship with Commander Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel from The Dirty Dozen) - but accepts the (apparently suicide) mission to plant charges on the asteroid, despite having to prepare for the mission on space station Gamma-3, which is currently Commanded by.. Vince Elliott. Are you getting all of this?

To make things even more complicated, Vince's current fiancée is Dr. Lisa Benson who used to be Jack's gal and still has rather obvious feelings for him, much to the perpetually intense Vince's chagrin. Despite the hard feelings, Vince volunteers to join the mission and the group successfully carry out their mission thanks to some heroics from Rankin. However, the scientist guy they brought along found a green slimy life form on the planet, and accidentally brought some of it back with him. You may be wondering if this slime feeds off electricity and rapidly grow into tentacled creatures that run amuck around the space station, and your suspicions would be correct.

Despite in-fighting, Jack and Vince decide to corral the creatures - who have the ability to heal themselves and procreate from a drop of blood - into a section of the space station and blow it up real good. When this proves only to litter the side of Gamma-3 with the creatures - realized in one of the film's crummier effects - Rankin makes the decision to evacuate the space station before demolishing the whole thing. There are lots of rubber suits, heroic sacrifices, and plenty of the titular green slime to go around.

I mentioned the goofy charm of the special effects in this and other late 60s Toho monster movies, and while this one doesn't have the wholesale destruction evident in the Godzilla movies of the time, there's still plenty of impressive (though totally unconvincing) model-work to be seen here. The actual green slime creatures are pretty terrific, with waving tentacles (often with visible guidelines) and a giant red eye that can blink, though we never see more than a handful on-screen (except for the rather poor looking shots of the outside of Gamma-3). Gamma-3 itself looks like something out of The Thunderbirds, and while it looks ok when it's spinning silently in the cosmos, once you add smoke and fire to the equation it's a bit difficult to take seriously - especially with a very visible wire holding it up. 

While the actual plot has echoes of many 50s science-fiction films - the unkillable creatures in a remote location bring to mind The Thing From Another World, while the character of the scientist whose wish to study the creature ends up nearly killing us all is a staple of the genre- the film's biggest flaw is that the main characters are simply too unpleasant. While Rankin is shown to be tough-as-nails and a quick thinker, he's also ego-maniacal and makes nearly as many bad decisions as Vince, who is a perpetual screw-up throughout. Luciana Paluzzi (best known as Fiona Volpe in Thunderball) as Lisa is certainly attractive, but is particularly unconvincing as a doctor (what is she doing with that stethoscope?). While the performances are stiff - and not helped by the sometimes shaky dubbing - the leads are fine, it's just the characters who have difficulty holding interest.

Blame for this has to go to the committee of television and b-movie writers who collaborated on the script, including Batman co-creator Bill Finger, who weighed down a fun, pulpy adventure film with unnecessary melodrama and cardboard characters. Director Fukasaku does the best he can keeping things moving, but it's sometimes at the expense of continuity as i'm still not quite sure I fully grasp some of the crew's plans in the final half hour. Much can be forgiven, however, thanks to the inclusion of one of the very best science fiction theme songs ever. Composed by Charles Fox, the psychedelic song plays over the opening credits and it is outstanding. The film's actual score is comparatively subdued, though is occasionally inappropriately cartoonish during what should be rather tense scenes. 

When developing the concept for what would eventually become Mystery Science Theater 3000 the creators used segments from The Green Slime to exhibit the kind of fun but ridiculous films they would be featuring, and it's easy to see why it was chosen. Full of ridiculous dialogue played totally straight and plenty of fun monsters and explosions, the film takes itself just seriously enough to remain enjoyable fun despite flat characters and inconsistent special effects. Lots to love for fans of monster movies, and thankfully given a wonderful looking DVD release that shows off its dated - but still wonderfully enjoyable - style.

Renaissance (2006)

Whether it be the outrageously proportioned women in the 1981 geek love classic, Heavy Metal, or the breathtaking mother of all anime, AKIRA, I think that it is pretty much understood that not all cartoons are for kids these days. I find it refreshing that a generation always manages to drag the trappings they feel most comfortable with along with it as it progresses, despite the insistance of the previous generation that such trappings are "childish."

I find it equally refreshing that when this occurs, it means that said generation hasn't forgotten the importance of having fun.

For my parents, those trappings were board games and soul music. For me, it is cartoons and video games.

When I first heard about the film, Renaissance, about a year ago, I was immediately excited. Not only was this a cutting edge animated film, but it featured the voice of Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Casino Royale) and drew some rather blatant parallels to one of my all time favorite dystopian science fiction movies, Blade Runner.

Then I heard that this was made by the French... Yikes....

Or not, since one of the greatest treasures that the France has given to the world was neither Statue of Liberty nor the Eiffel Tower.

It was a man by the name of Luc Besson..

Hell, either Cyril Raffaelli, David Belle, or Jean Reno could single handedly redeem the entire French population, so my initial fears that French involvement could ruin this production were put to rest for the time being.

Renaissance takes place in Paris, France in the year 2054 and follows French-Algerian detective, Barthélémy Karas (Craig), as he investigates the kidnapping of a beautiful and brilliant geneticist named Ilona Tasuiev (Romola Garai). In the course of the investigation, our intrepid hero naturally runs afoul of evil corporate dickhead, Paul Dellenbach (Jonathan Pryce), and eventually hooks up with Bislane Tasuiev (Catherine McCormack), the sister of the kidnapped scientist.

Rather predictably, Renaissance attempts to run the gambit between noirish action and moral relevance much like her predecessor, Blade Runner, did over two decades ago but was much better at it. The odd thing about this production is that even though the everything is done in black and white, the visuals are still very stark.

The Paris of 2054 worked better than I expected it to as far as dystopian settings go. It reminded me quite a bit of (what I assumed to be) the future London of Terry Gilliam's, Brazil: a city where you can't help but marvel at the complexity and still feel a chill run down your spine because you knew that somewhere, someplace... evil was hard at work..

What ultimately disheartens me about Renaissance is that it is a film that has only learned part of the lessons taught by similarly themed works.

Like Brazil or Blade Runner, the film relies heavily on visuals that bring big dividends. The film's innovative rotoscopy techniques and stylized illustration keep your attention fairly effortlessly. Renaissance accomplishes quite a bit through mere pacing and action, and does a great job of convincing you that the black and white lens through which you view this world is just as important to the story as the plot itself.

I would argue that if there is a project that really does successfully capture that intangible, surreal touch we all expect in comic book films these days then this is the one, even though Renaissance isn't based on any past or present illustrated hard copy.

As you watch this, you really get the sense that you're actually settling down with your favorite graphic novel, or kicking back with your ancient stack of Heavy Metal or Epic Illustrated magazines and losing yourself in those sci-fi alternities that Juan Giménez, Masamune Shirow, and Moebius created so long ago where women were hot and problems were solved properly via liberal use of small arms fire from cool looking automatic weapons.

I enjoyed savoring the irony of Renaissance as it presented a dysfuntional place where the lens of the world literally registers black and white, yet the spectrum of morality dwells in familiar shades of grey. Renaissance gives you a glimpse into a backdrop where absolute power does indeed corrupt absolutely, where purity and honor are ideals to be admired even if they do seem like liabilities, and where sometimes you have to do a terrible thing in order to preserve the greater good.

However unlike Brazil, Blade Runner, or even AKIRA, Renaissance does not take the time to build a foreboding sense of dread. The villains are acceptably threatening but Karas is such a badass that you're certain that he'll will eventually triumph over the sinister mega-corporate forces that dare to play God with the rest of humanity. For a dystopian work, Renaissance is hardly subtle.

There are a couple of very clever plot twists, but not enough tangible menace to fill a viewer's heart with any doubt that good will win in the end. That is a cardinal sin when it comes to dystopian literature.

In a despotic future society where things aren't as they seem, the worst thing you can inject into the plot is a feeling of positive surety. Whether it be the insurmountable bureaucratic power of Big Brother found in in Orwell's 1984 or Terry Gilliam's Brazil or the state-sanctioned mind control used by The Grammaton in the 2002 woefully underloved cinematic offering, Equilibrium, there always has to be something overwhelming and malevolent lurking just beyond the mind's eye that tests the protagonist's perseverance to the breaking point, if it doesn't grind him into dust first.

Overcoming nearly impossible odds is what makes dystopian plotlines so interesting in my opinion. The amount of hardship the hero has to overcome is so monumental that it makes even the most mundane victories memorable, and makes complete triumph truly remarkable.

Director Christian Volckman doesn't keep the narrative as tight as he should nor does he seem to trust the story enough to let the plot do its work. This disappointed me a bit because I've seen this movie twice now and after every viewing, I always get the feeling that something wonderous will literally jump out of the screen and force its way into my subconcious.

There is a film for the ages somewhere in the script of Christian Volckman's Renaissance, but sadly you will just have to settle for a popcorn muncher that is a tad too smart for its own good.

Fortress (1993)

Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) spent most of the early 90s being the best director churning out straight-to-video genre films for Full Moon Video. While movies like Castle Freak or The Pit And The Pendulum won't be winning any awards, they were good low budget fare, and superior to the Puppet Master series and similar ilk (Dollman vs The Demonic Toys!) coming out of the company at the time. Gordon's highest profile gig at the time, however, was the science fiction prison film Fortress, starring the always charisma-less Christopher Lambert.

It's the far-off future of 2017, and population control has made it illegal for couples to have more than one child. John Brennick (Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) get caught trying to cross the border, and are thrown into a futuristic prison run by the sadistic Poe (the always awesome Kurtwood Smith). Inside, Brennick is subjected to all the usual prison-movie troubles: assault, mind wiping, and the occasional anal rape attempts. Luckily he has help from fellow inmates Nino (Clifton Collins Jr.) and the super-geek hippy D-Day (the terrifically off-the-wall Jeffrey Combs), as well as Abraham (Lincoln Kilpatrick) whom Poe has used as a personal assistant for years. After Poe falls in love with Brennick's wife, Brennick makes an escape attempt while battling all sorts of futuristic weaponry (and a super neat flamethrower).

Fortress was likely the first Stuart Gordon film I recall seeing, and I remember well checking it out when it came out on video in the mid-90s when I was still a teenager. I remember being shocked by the outrageous gore, and some graphic nudity (both male and female) that was a bit shocking for the time. But I also recognized that it was something special compared to the cookie-cutter action films covering the shelves, and shared a lot more in common with the over-the-top actioners of the 80s like Commando or The Running Man.

Filmed in Australia, Gordon gets the most out of a low budget, using some impressive special effects to expand the scope of sets that might look cheap or flimsy in the hands of a less accomplished director. Unfortunately, he's let down by a script that is packed with interesting ideas, but is unable to present them logically or with much narrative flow. There are four writers credited with penning the screenplay, and the disjointed story reflects too many hands being involved.

Christopher Lambert makes a bland action lead, but we get decent supporting performances that keep the audience's interest. Kurtwood Smith is surprisingly restrained as Poe, though his character only hints at complexities and doesn't really attract sympathy. More fun is Jeffrey Combs doing his best burnt out Dennis Hopper impression, and the late Lincoln Kilpatrick doing his best Morgan Freeman impression.

As mentioned, the film was designed to be a hard-R, and it never holds back on violence. One memorable scene features an inmate's mid-section being completely blown away, leaving only a large hole that the camera pans down to look through. The squibs are appropriately juicy, and when cyborg-guards are introduced in the last quarter, we get some nice body explosions that are amusingly messy. The film also features "intestinators", which are small explosive devices which detonate when the inmates go beyond certain areas (shades of Battle Royale!), and which lead to a few memorably violent moments.

The Artisan DVD is a huge disappointment, featuring only a Pan and Scan fullscreen transfer of the film that hardly looks better than the VHS version I watched in the 90s. Furthermore, for a film that was quite financially successful on release, the DVD features nothing beyond chapter markers. Frankly, the film deserves better, and I hope we at least get a proper transfer at some point in the future. The Region-2 version of the film apparently features subtitles and an Anamorphic Widescreen version of the film.

Entertaining and violent science fiction action film with a weak script but some great over-the-top action scenes, Fortress was followed by a 1999 sequel that i've yet to see. Not a classic by any means, but incredibly fun and features strong direction from Stuart Gordon. Worth a watch for fans of schlock, but beware (or enjoy!) the surprising amount of gore.

Fiend Without a Face (1958)

The most interesting thing about the DVD release of Fiend Without A Face is, frankly, the company that released it. The Criterion Collection prides itself on releasing "important classic and contemporary films", and indeed the company pioneered "special edition" releases of the most well regarded films, ranging from Citizen Kane to The Seven Samurai.

Their definition of "important" has been criticized as they released films like The Rock, Armageddon and The Blob, however those films have a cultural importance (and fan-base) that justified their releases. Fiend Without A Face has quite a fan-base as well, collected from decades of television showings and blurry memories of the film's creature. That being said, while Fiend remains an entertaining, above average science fiction creature feature, i'm not quite sure it deserves to be among such luminaries.

Taking place on a Canadian based American Air-base (though actually filmed in England), the film centers on a series of mysterious killings that the locals are blaming on nuclear experiments (dealing with cold war missile control) taking place at the base. Faced with growing unrest, Maj. Jeff Cummings (Marshall Thompson) decides to research the incidents, leading him to Professor Walgate (Kynaston Reeves), a scientist with experience researching telekinetic abilities. After forming a relationship with the scientist's assistant (Kim Parker), Cummings discovers that the bodies of those killed have had their brains and spinal cords removed from their bodies. Christening the attackers as "mental vampires", Cummings discovers that Walgate's experiments have gone out of control, and their power is growing thanks to the nuclear tests.

The creatures themselves are truly unforgettable. Disembodied brains with antennae and a wriggling spinal cord behind them must have been an eye-opener for impressionable youth in the 50s, and the stirring, bloody climax of the film was something unheard of at the time. In fact, the film was edited for violence in both England and the United States, and banned outright in several other countries. Compared to films today the violence is certainly tame, but it's not difficult to see why audiences (and reviewers) were disturbed by the content in a pre-Blood Feast world.

The creatures are brought to life through some sub-Harryhausen stop motion effects that still remain effective, though charmingly dated. When shot, the creatures explode with blood and eventually melt gruesomely. However, almost all of these very amusing effects take place in the film's final 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, the creature is mostly what remains worth recommending about the film. The acting ranges from passable (Marshall Thompson in the lead), to laughably bad (Stanley Maxted as Colonel Butler), and the first 50 minutes of this 74 minute film move at a slow pace, the creatures remaining invisible when they attack. The direction by Arthur Crabtree is flat and pedestrian, and while the script (by Herbert J. Leder, director of some notable monster movies himself) throws out some entertaining scientific gobbledygook, the pacing is terminally slow.

There are also strange inconsistencies in the plot, particularly when it comes to the relationship between Cummings and the professor's assistant. She bitterly chides him for upsetting the professor in one scene, and then makes sympathetic eyes at him in the next. Such plotting errors are to be expected in genre films of the era, but one would hope that a film in the Criterion collection would be a cut above. Unfortunately this is not the case.

While I question the choice of releasing the film in the first place, Criterion (as usual) did a great job with the presentation. The film suffers from print damage in the first ten minutes, but after that the print is clear of significant damage and presented in its original 1.66:1 ratio.

They were also able to come up with some interesting special features, the most significant being a full length commentary (actually a conversation) between author Tom Weaver and executive producer Richard Gordon. The track is candid and genial and features some wonderful information regarding the film's production. I'd go as far to say that the commentary is often more entertaining than the film itself, as Gordon's memory remains sharp and Weaver is a good-natured interviewer.

We're also treated to an illustrated essay on British science fiction and horror film written by Bruce Eder, as well as trailers for The Haunted Stranger, Corridors Of Blood and The Atomic Submarine. Finally, there is a photo gallery with commentary from Gordon, as well as a gallery of vintage newspaper advertisements.

I don't mean to be harsh on what is actually a very memorable b-movie, I just feel that its reputation comes more from the messy, exciting climax (said to have inspired Night Of The Living Dead) then the hour or so that comes before it. Worth seeing, but don't go in expecting a science fiction classic.

The Brother From Another Planet (1984)

Aliens show up on Earth all the time, looking like you or me. The alien might be Jeff Bridges (Starman), David Bowie (The Man Who Fell To Earth), or one of the actors who, over the years, has fallen victim to the pod people (Donald Sutherland being my favourite of the bunch). Filmgoers are used to the idea. John Sayles may very well have asked himself: “How come all these aliens are inevitably white dudes?” Good question. The Brother From Another Planet simply changes the skin color of its alien invader, and in doing so turns this little subgenre of SF film on its head.



The film begins with the Brother (Joe Morton) having some problems with his low-tech spacecraft, the type you’d expect to see in a low budget 80s film. The Brother is forced to crash-land on Earth, and in no time finds himself in Harlem--specifically, at a bar owned by Odell (Steve James) and populated by a group of regulars who, while intrigued by the Brother, seem willing to accept him. The Brother cannot speak, but he understands. With a simple laying-on of hands, he can heal a wound or fix an arcade game. It turns out that he’s a slave, and that he ended up on Earth while avoiding capture by two Men in Black (John Sayles himself and David Strathairn), and that the reason for his slavery has nothing to do with his skin, but with the three big toes on his feet.


In literature, at least, there’s a long history of science fiction being used as a critical genre. Authors use the accoutrements of the genre to form social criticisms, or to give philosophical or theoretical concepts a physical (literal) shape. This is to say that the genre allows the reader to look at something normal in a new way, thus making it the genre of cognitive estrangement, for you grad school types. Unfortunately, this critical aspect of science fiction rarely translates into film. SF films are, inevitably, action or horror films with SF trappings--cool aliens, advanced weapons, great FX, but not so big on the critical or cognitive aspect of things. Not that I’m complaining--Aliens, for example, is one of my favourite films of all time. It’s just that there’s so much more that can be done.

Leave it to John Sayles to make such a film. The Brother From Another Planet manages to engage in a sort of cultural criticism, and because of its SF nature it manages to do it in a different way, while also remaining light-hearted and humorous. It works on a lot of levels. For one, the fact that the people of Odell’s bar choose to refer to the alien as “the Brother” points to a degree of social connection and identification that would be entirely lacking were the alien a white man who’d ended up anywhere else in the US. The people in Odell’s bar help the Brother because he is a brother.

It also becomes quite clear that they’re all brothers from another planet, and that that planet is Harlem. In one of the film’s better scenes, a street performer sits beside the Brother on the subway and shows him an elaborate card trick. He follows it up with an incredibly feat: on the last stop before entering Harlem, he makes all of the white people disappear. The SF nature of the film allows Sayles to tackle these cultural issues without, in most cases, seeming preachy.



One thing that this review, up to this point, might not have gotten across, is the fact that The Brother From Another Planet is a funny film. In fact, it’s at its strongest when it’s at its funniest, and falters when it focuses too much Sayles’ social message and ignores humour in the process. Sayles and Strathairn are hilarious as the Men in Black; their alien-ness shows through in their awkward posture, their odd walk, and (more obviously) in the fact that they shriek like injured cats when excited. Their interaction with the regulars in Odell’s bar (and later, their fight with the same people) is a fantastic bit of comedy. But Sayles and Strathairn aren’t the only ones who have a solid outing; Joe Morton, as the silent Brother, shows a great range of subtlety and depth in his performance, even though (or because), as a mute, he has to rely on facial expressions to get his character across to the audience.



The film’s not entirely a success, though. In the second half of the film the Brother gets involved with an aging R&B singer (which is just dull and sort of extraneous), and also confronts a drug-dealer face on, which is heavy-handed and a little unnecessary. It’s obvious, from watching most of John Sayles’ films, that he wants to engage with social realities head-on, but when he steps out of the context of the film to do so--or, more accurately, bends the narrative of the film to make it fit--the movie as a whole suffers. Sayles’ heart is in the right place, but here, as in some of his other films, he tries too hard to hammer the point home. These scenes aren’t funny, and in a comedy, well, that’s just never a good sign.

The MGM DVD of The Brother From Another Planet is a fairly run-of-the-mill offering. It comes with a commentary by Sayles, and a featurette with Sayles and Maggie Renzie, who produced almost all of Sayles’ films. My favourite part of the DVD comes a the start of the feature, where a very serious-looking black and white note states that the film has been maintained by The Anarchists’ Convention Inc. Makes the film seem tough.

Apparently, Anarchists’ Convention has dedicated a lot of time and effort to restoring Sayles’ early films, so I’d encourage anyone who is interested in the director to obtain these films in a nice and legal fashion, so that the right people benefit. The Brother From Another Planet is a great film, despite its few flaws, and it really stands out as an unique offering within American film.