Free Horror

The plot is nothing Oscar worthy, but is revolves around two guys and his girlfriend. They move into a New York City apartment where they meet their weird Satanic Neighbors give them this green goo-like pudding shit (and he actually eats it!) that turns him into a slimy, zombie-like creature. After which he goes around town bandaged like Darkman and claims victims to quench his thirst. One scene in fact reminds me a lot of the motel scene in The Burning.

One of the bright spots of this movie are the special make-up effects. Everything from the prosthetics, animatronics and make up look pretty professional at times and not something you’d see in a larger budget movie. It’s too bad that some of the effects weren’t shown more and not cut away from so quickly, but then again maybe that’s why they looked so good.

One of the movies low points is the acting, but really with movies of this caliber it’s exactly what we expect and have grown to love. The leading man (Robert Sabin) gave a solid performance as well as the leading lady (Mary Huner). Otherwise the rest of the cast seemed like a bunch of friends and extras. Mainly the portly “friend” that looked much like Shelly (Larry Zerner) from Friday The 13th: Part III.

One of the finest features of the Retro Shock-O-Rama DVD are the extras.
Slime City was a favorite of mine since I was in Middle School and was
very pleased with the DVD. We get commentary by the leading man Robert Sabin and director Greg Lambertson, which was a great ride through making the film and making low budget films in general. Pretty much everything from the cameras, the editing and locations to the making of the special effects were discussed.

We also get a nifty mini documentary on the making of the film which includes behind the scenes bits on the animatronics and special effects. As far as I am concerned the DVD is worth the price for this for all fans of the movie. Last, and most certainly not least we have a bonus movie (Naked Fear) by director Greg Lambertson with audio commentary.

In short, Slime City is a fun, gore-soaked trek into 1980’s (well, pretty much 1990’s) low budget cinema. The movie is well put together, well edited, well directed and cleaned up/remastered and feels like a modern movie. For some reason the green pudding shit reminded me a lt of Troll 2, however I think this film is much better– and not in a “so bad it’s good” way.

The bonus movie “Naked Fear” isn’t as entertaining as “Slime City” but it is as equally well put together.

A woman working at a biological research facility becomes ill when she contracts a deadly, new virus. Sometime after, she becomes a half-monster beast and kills her old co-workers. Some time later, a group of teens go into the old research facility to have a party and come face-to-face with creature. Okay, so this doesn’t sound like Hitchcock and ended up being a typical Brad Sykes movie, so why was I so let down? I was speechless, after watching this movie and wanting to gouge my eyes out I only spotted 2 things I liked, and they were the blood (there was a lot of it) and Tiffany Shepis. Although not her best role, she looked wicked.

If you have seen other Brad Sykes movies I guess the shiftiness of this would not come as a big surprise. You get his prerequisite bad directing, horrible camera work, tons of blood and a crappy script. The genius of Sykes is that he can take all of that and add something worthwhile to his movies which makes it hard to turn it off. This was no different- and I watched the entire movie even though I wanted to take out the disc and chuck it.

I don’t know if anything could have saved this movie. It seems they used their entire budget on the killer and the gore, which were both great. It would have been nicer if Tiffany Shepis could have had a speaking role, and not just a mindless killer. The actors that were chosen were horrible, absolutely horrible. The kills were really bloody and violent, and that made the death scenes worth watching, of only to see the shitty actors die brutally. If you like blood, boobs and bimbos this movie is right up your alley.

It’s the last day of school, and the “popular” girls are planning a slumber party. When the geek of the class, “Science”, who is the brunt of the popular crowd’s torture and jokes gets a whiff of it, he dons a surgeon’s gear and plots a murder scheme for his revenge. Meanwhile at the same time, the local nut “Maniac Randals” has escaped from the mental ward dons his own surgeon’s outfit and goes on his own murderous rampage and coincidentally ends up at the same house.

This movie, well I am at a loss for words. The movie was just so poorly written, directed, edited, acted and photographed that I could not help but laugh the entire 70 minute run time. Other than that, what does this movie have to offer? The killer “Maniac Randals” was not intimidating, no matter how much he made that “fake insane” face, it just came off as bad– so bad it was almost funny. The kills were horrible, most of them were slashes to the neck with a surgical scalpel, and very poorly done (in some scenes you can tell the dull side was used for the cut, and even sometimes the actual wide side was used). The acting was “Z” rate, and that is even with giving them a few points. The plot, very bad. The first killer “Science” was dressed exactly like the “Maniac Randals” killer, in an attempt to set somebody up as a “Red Herring”. It didn’t work. The killer spent most of his day in the one girl’s bedroom hiding, and so poorly that the people just walked by the guy without noticing. In some scenes it would have been impossible NOT to stumble over him, yet he was undetected. Finally, the movie was confusing. A dream in a dream in a dream, it lost me. The movie obviously had a lot of scenes removed from it, and some scenes were repeated a few times to make up for it.

I don’t know what happened to this movie. The quality of the film goes from pretty good to F- in the matter of seconds. Some scenes are clear, others are dark with what appears to be 20th generation dubbed video. I am not sure if this film was just thrown together from a movie that was filmed and never edited and mixed, or what. Parts of the movie were missing which created GIANT plot holes. The scenes that were in place, were repeated many times. The killers “insane” look was repeated every time he killed somebody, that got old fast. The movie was only 72 minutes, and I am not sure if I could have handled an 85 minute version of this movie. Perhaps the fact that this thing is missing scenes is a blessing in disguise, I guess that is what you get when the same guy directs, writes and stars as the main killer. You get a homemade crap film that is nothing more than a fan film. Whoever edited this should retire. I have seen better editing in fan films.

This movie comes on DVD in a double feature with another turd “Terror At Tenkiller”. Both movies are so fucking bad that it’s impossible to stop watching. I really have to suggest this movie to people who love these types of movies- it’s definitely an acquired taste.