Slime City (1988) — Triskaidekafiles

SLIME CITY

WRITER: Greg Lamberson

DIRECTOR: Greg Lamberson

STARRING: Robert C. Sabin as Alex

Mary Huner as Lori/Nicole

T.J. Merrick as Jerry

Dennis Embry as Roman

Dick Biel as Irish

QUICK CUT: The troubles one can run into when moving into a new apartment.

THE MORGUE

Alex - A young man getting his first apartment. He’s a friendly, genial guy, who is a bit too unsuspeting of offered foods.

Lori - Alex’s girlfriend, who is eager to move in with him, someday. She is the very typical good girl next door image.

Nicole - The opposite of Lori in every way. She’s a sex worker, dresses provocatively, and will seduce almost anything with two legs.

Roman - A poet who makes fast friends with Alex, and helps him out until everything gets set up in his new apartment.

Take me down to that old Slime City, where the slime is green and the girls ain't pretty

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We're wrapping up July's movies with a bit of a classic of the low budget gross out flicks of the 80s, Slime City. It's in the same vein as Street Trash and the Toxic Avenger, so let's check this out. Also, being all icky and slimy still feels right for midsummer.

The movie opens up with young lovers Alex and Lori, as Alex is looking for a new apartment, to have a space of his own. And hopefully, someday soon, a space for him and Ruby.

Alex is a bit hesitant, even though the price is good, the apartment is in good shape, but they seemed so sure he would take the place. And of course, he does.

I’ve done plays on better sets than this actual apartment.

Naturally, we spend the next little while meeting the rest of the cast living in the building, and also Alex's friend Jerry, as they move in. Alex insists the place is 'retirement city' but I thought this was SLIME City?

They immediately run into, disproving the claim, Nicole. She's a sexy young woman, who we will find out very shortly is a sex worker.

Alex settles in, and starts working on his art, while Lori tells him it's time he met her parents, taking that big step. He's still a bit hesitant, and this will be a minor plot thread throughout the movie.

Then there's Roman, and he looks nothing like a gorilla in a diver's helmet. Instead, he's a bit of a punk, or a bit goth, and into poetry. He’s forlorn.

So, this is a collection of artists and old people, I guess.

Roman invites Alex over for a nice dinner, since his place isn't all set up yet, and dinner is...most interesting. I think they imported it from a galaxy far far away.

And I get that Alex is open to trying new things, he says as much, but still, "Here, eat this strange food and drink this strange drink, it'll be fine!" is not his best decision.

"So how's your bowl of green?" "Pretty good. Enjoying your bowl of blue?"

Following dinner, Alex heads back to his place, but can't find his keys. Instead, he runs into Nicole, and she somehow has them. She lures him back into her apartment, and seduces him because reasons.

I mean...I SAY seduced, but Alex doesn't really put up much resistance beyond "I shouldn't be here" before instantly snogging Nicole.

Which would have been bad enough, but they waste no time to start having sex. And if that wasn't bad enough, Nicole even calls out the wrong name, shouting Zachary.

Wow, she fucked the colour right out of him.

Following his black and white dream, where he meets a strange person and drinks more of the wine this place has stored in the basement, he wakes up in his own bed, fortunately with colour restored.

But on the downside, he is covered in wet, slick, gooeyness. And hey, we've all been there. ...Right?

Alex does his best to clean up, but he's still constantly oozing, and it's sweating right through his clothes. Which all still feels very apropos for the summer.

He runs into a homeless guy, as his condition gets worse, to the point he is either covered in chunky slime, or looks like he rolled around in corn flakes and KY jelly.

Something urges him on, and Alex kills the homeless dude, instantly returning to a normal looking Alex. Is he like...a slimepire?

Also, it feels like this is the earliest we've had someone get killed in a movie, in a long time. And it's STILL 20 minutes in.

He runs into Roman as he comes home, and the poet who never shows it, hands over some more bowls of Green, since he had leftovers.

Lori calls and invites Alex to dinner with her parents, and since he hasn't been able to keep any other food down, he gobbles up some of that sweet, sweet green.

There's been some mention that all this stuff was made by the father of the building's owner, and we finally get a bit more of that when Alex has a chat with one of he older tenants.

We learn that Zachary was an alchemist, and he made all this food and drink before he died, and dude must have had some hella preservatives in this slop. And heeeey, I recognise that name. He and a group of people killed themselves in that very basement. I feel like that should've come up before signing the lease.

Ruby shows Alex the book Zachary wrote, called Flesh Control, and the picture on the back matches the weird dude from his dreams. She also mentions that he poured his soul into the book.

I have seen enough movies to know that could turn out to be literally true.

But finally, it's time for dinner with the parents! Unfortunately, Alex starts melting at the dinner table, and leaves faster than you can say, waiter, there's a slime in my soup.

Alex makes a quick exit, and his first impression with the girlfriend's parents has definitely not gone well. To be fair, he has an excuse.

On his way home, he picks up a girl off the streets and brings her back to the apartment, so he can reset his slimeness by killing her.

Did I stumble upon the long lost sequel to Science Crazed??

After his latest murder, Alex pays Nicole a visit, and sees an older picture of her, looking like your average nerdy high schooler in the 80s from central casting. He asks her who she really is, and we learn she used to be a girl named Lisa, but after eating the mush, she became Nicole.

See, Lisa is the name of the body, and Nicole is someone Zachary used to know, a member of his, let's just call it a cult. The strange food and drink is a means for his various cult members to reincarnate. And Alex is becoming Zachary himself.

In fact, there's this little detail that NO ONE comments on, and I wasn't sure it was even happening the first time through; after Alex eats the food, and kills his first person, his temples start turning grey. And they get greyer as the movie goes on. It's this nice...it's not exactly subtle, but it's a nice detail.

Meanwhile, Lori is contacted a small medium at large, because she senses that someone close to her is in danger. Lori gets freaked out, and uses a key Alex gave her to look around his apartment.

Dude took “eat your greens” to a whole new level.

She finds his box of junk where he keeps the murder weapon and the gauze and gloves he covers up in to keep the slime contained, as well as some women's clothes. Look, there ain't nothing wrong with...oh OH they're from the victim.

Alex is right there behind her when she stands up though, and he's none too happy. He gets angry and shoos her off, and it's not exactly clear how much of this is Zachary, and how much is Alex trying to protect her.

He then heads down to the basement, and encounters the building owner, and Zachary's daughter. He reiterates most of the plot mechanics up to this point, which isn't necessary, but considering this is all a bit weird, it's not unwelcome. But still, thanks Alex Exposition.

So I got the green mush, and the purple mush, and oh damn, I forgot the grey mush…

With that out of the way, Alex denies any part in this, and rushes back to his apartment. He tosses the bowls of green into the trash, and pours the elixir down the drain.

Unfortunately, as he's leaving the building, Alex runs into a cop asking about the woman he killed. So yeah, that's gonna be a problem no matter what, huh?

We then cut to later that night, where Alex is gooing up his bed, and Nicole dances for nobody in her apartment. Uhh, thanks for padding out the movie for like, five minutes of erotic dancing, I guess? SOME of us are TRYING to sleep, NICOLE!!

Later, Alex makes a delivery for his job, and while the girl gets his payment, he starts oozing out all over her apartment floor. Fortunately, he runs away before the bloodlust overtakes him.

If you don't have store bought mustard, freshly squeezed is fine.

Unfortunately, on his way home, Alex runs into some punks on the street, and they try to roll the bandaged up weirdo for whatever he's got. I'm sure this will go fine.

Zachary seems to exert a bit more control, and goads the leader into knifing Alex. The only problem is, his arm goes straight through, and deep into the gooey center of Alex.

The alchemist then, somehow, uses the wound to bite the leader's arm off and...look. I can follow the logic of how this works up to this point. It's weird, yes, but "people eat food with the essence of others and slowly turn into them in a bizarre form of soul transference" is something I can at least grab onto, conceptually.

However, suddenly having them have the ability to eat off limbs through wounds in the torso like this is The Thing? Stretches even my notoriously low standards of believability.

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, after all.

Alex rushes home, the wound has healed up, and he removes his bandages, giving us a real good look at how he looks without them.

Jerry arrives around then, equally concerned about how Alex is looking these days, and they yell a bit, before Alex chucks him out of the apartment.

The former Alex pounces on his friend, and bashes his head against the landing, until his brains are all over the place. I like the energy the actor brings to this, as he just goes for it.

After making plans to meet up later, Lori runs into the detective from earlier, and he has a few questions. Lori defends her boyfriend, saying he would never pick up a hooker, and had nothing to do with Jerry's disappearance!

Zachary, who is definitely more in control now, waits for Lori to stop by, and chats with Nicole for a bit. She fears the wholesome girl next door could ruin everything, but it's a risk Zack has to take, just to test himself.

The couple has dinner, they leave the room, and have sexy fun times in the other room, after Alex blows out the candle on the dinner table.

WOW that candle was really putting out a lot of light!

Following sex, Alex goes to take a shower and clean up, which seems like an eminently pointless move in this gooey, gooey movie. Made all the more questionable when Lori notices a puddle of slime on his pillow.

She shrugs it off though, and goes to the kitchen. Which is where Zalex finds her, going through the Flesh Control book at the kitchen table.

Alex gives her a shoulder rub, and admits he wants to kill her, and that he killed Jerry. He says if he liked killing Jerry, how much will he like killing his girlfriend?

She stands up and sees her boyfriend is not what she thought he was anymore, as the pineappling continues.

Who lives in a walk up on the lower east side? Slimeball! Squarepants!

The couple have another tussle on the kitchen table, which is a bad move for Zacharalex, since it gives Lori more than a few handy weapons to grab ahold of. She does so with a fork, and buries it in his side.

Unfortunately, that means Alex now has a weapon too, and he uses the fork on his girlfriend. The fight continues, and she eventually slices open his guts, literally spilling them out on the floor.

Zachery falls to the ground to put his stomach back in, and I would have laughed even harder if there was a random hand laying there too.

Awwh nuts, those are supposed to stay on the INSIDE!

Even though all this does make Lori pause for a moment as she tries to process it all, I must say...she is taking this all VERY well. Considering.

Lori eventually grabs a meat cleaver, burying it in his neck, and Alex begs for her to stop his pain. She pops his head off like it's a dandelion, and more mustard squirts everywhere. Again, this is such a gooey movie. Random aside, it would’ve been neat if the converts bled the same colour as the mush they ate.

But fortunately, now that his head has been removed, the threat of Zachary is clearly over and done with !

Aaaahahahaha, NOPE. Fucker is still alive like he's Monty Python's black knight, and his head tries to bite her ankles off.

What actually happens is, he still controls his body, and attacks Lori with it. She starts hacking limbs off, but that still allows the alchemist to grab a knife and try a few more swings with a Zack Attach.

During all this, the stomach wound reveals itself, and it has somehow grown teeth. Look, I have stopped bothering trying to make everything make sense, I am just enjoying the ridiculous gooeyness of it all. And make no mistake, I AM enjoying it.

The body parts seem to be losing steam though, or bodily fluids, whatever they are, and Lori gets the upper hand.

She grabs the knife, and goes for the head, like she's ready to carve it up like the Halloween pumpkin.

You would once again think this is the end of it, and you would once again be WRONG. Alex's skull cracks open like a walnut, and the brain crawls out trying to get away.

What even is this movie at this point? I mean, besides awesome??

Since the brain can't exactly move very quickly, Lori grabs the cleaver again, and turns it into a pile of ceviche.

We hastily wrap things up with the cop, Alex getting the, rightful, blame for all his crimes. The tenants don't know where he went, and Lori isn't talking.

The detective leaves, moderately satisfied, but not before he is offered the newly empty apartment to move into. Mwahahaha.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not great, but this is a low budget 80s flick. It looks how it looks, and that’s most of the charm.

Audio: Also not great, but about what you’d expect from this kind of thing. Everything is good and clear enough on the audiovisual front.

Sound Bite: “Why? So a Satanist who's been dead can take over my body while I fuck you? No thanks!" I...that sure is a sentence.

Body Count: I would’ve loved more deaths in this, but it’s a fair showing for a low budget.

1 - Alex beats the bum to death 22 minutes in

2 - A hooker gets her face and neck sliced by the slime citied fiend

3 - Mugger probably dies after losing his arm

4 - Alex bashes Jerry's head on the landing

5 - Lori kills Zalex.

Best Corpse: The hooker who gets her face slashed is a really nice effect.

Blood Type - A: I’d give this an A+ but the actual blood is a little light. But every other effect, and the copious use of yellow goo and everything else elevates this to a high mark indeed.

Sex Appeal: Mostly implied

Drink Up! Every time someone eats goo.

Movie Review: Oh I adored this movie. It is exactly what I like here. That right mix of a decent story, with lots of nasty gooeyness, and a bunch of people really trying their best. The movie is made with a lot of heart, and it shows. Now, it’s low rent, the acting is a bit dodgy, but not terrible, and above average for this sort of thing. Some of the dialogue is a bit matter of fact, but it works, especially with Alex. I really really like having the option of corruption or innocence that Alex is presented with, being the two women, and having them played by the same actress. It’s done so well, you don’t even notice it. This movie takes some big, big swings, and it really works, even if it is still very camp. Four out of five tupperware containers filled with green.

Entertainment Value: There’s so much goo, really nasty effects, very creative ideas, and the campiness of it all is just tons of fun. I didn’t know quite what to expect going in, and while it’s a bit rough around the edges, it is just very enjoyable if gooey sloppy stuff is your kinda thing. I really had a good time watching this, and look forward to the rest of Greg’s films. Four out of five escaping brains.