Tuesday 27 March 2012

DVD: SLIME CITY MASSACRE (2010) -7 DAYS OF HORROR, DAY 3

This is a sequel to Slime City (1988). Is this a record between original and sequel?  But while there are no doubt in jokes referring to the first movie, this one stands on its own. Now I'll be giving away a few spoilers but don't blame me because they are already given away in text and in images on DVD case's jacket. It's on the American Shriek Show label which specialises in low budget grindhouse-style sleaze and horror DTVs. 

One of the four leads is Debbie Rochon who seems (from reading her entry in IMDB) to have appeared in dozen movies or more a year (mostly in cameos) for the last 20 years. She can also act and the other three are okay as well. We also get an early cameo, mugging to the camera as usual, from Troma mastermind Lloyd Kaufman who is thankfully disintegrated within seconds of his appearance. Also appearing is Robert C Sabin who had the lead in the original Slime City but not as the same character (I think).

The beautiful Debbie Rochon as she really is and, below, with makeup.

So, there's ongoing black and white flashbacks throughout the film about a 50's cult in New York. Then five years before the start of the main action, a dirty nuke destroys much of New York causing the rise of a totalitarian state and refugees from it tend to head for and hide out in NY's remains. Unscrupulous businessman Donald Crump (one consonant away from a massive law suit) visits, sees it as a business opportunity and orders in a death squad to clear the out the rubbish, though they don't turn up until near the end. Meanwhile our four heroes find a load of home brew and primary colour indefinite-life yogurt in the basement of the long-gone cult and consume it with gusto. This has the unfortunate side-effect of permitting the free-floating spirits of the cultists to briefly possess their now slime-covered bodies and use them for sex, murder, and other fun stuff.
Our slimers with director Gregory Lamberson.
Basically it's all good fun but just a little too restrained. Even at the climax there's only one truly over the top image of broken bottles jammed into the sockets of a bad guy's eyes with blood pouring out of the top of the bottles. But it never has the glorious mind-boggling manic fervour of movies like Evil Dead 2, Reanimator, Street Trash, or From Beyond. If anything the end is a bit confusing and too silly what with its rubbery homicidal brains with eyes and teeth. Brains have teeth?

This is labelled as a special edition (and is actually probably the only edition) and has a second disc of extras. Most notable is a selection of interviews (more mugging from Kaufman) and background stuff each shot on a different day of filming and a making of which I didn't watch.

All in all, to slightly misquote a famous magician: I liked it, not a lot, but I liked it.

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