SLIME CITY (1988) Review

Directed by: Greg Lamberson
Written by: Greg Lamberson
Starring: Robert C. Sabin, Mary Huner, T. J. Merrick, Dick Biel, Dennis Embry

"A HORROR FILM WITH GUTS!"

SLIME CITY is a low budget trash classic that sits comfortably on the shelf beside the likes of BASKET CASE, BODY MELT and STREET TRASH. It's cheap, nasty and gory and not everybody's cup of tea but if you're a fan of Troma classics like THE TOXIC AVENGER and CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH then you'll definitely find something to like here. If slime, blood and a touch of the occult are what you're looking for then you've come to the right place.

Alex (Sabin) is a quiet, sexually frustrated artist who decides to rent an apartment with the aim of getting his girlfriend Lori (Huner) to sleep over. The landlady is happy to rent him the apartment, a little too happy in fact but Alex doesn't seem to care much as long as he has his own place so he can hopefully finally get some pussy. The other tenants in the building are a collection of weirdos and it's when one of these strange neighbours invites him over for dinner that things start to get really crazy. His neighbour Roman (Embry) feeds him some green 'Himalayan yoghurt' and a strange home brewed 'elixir'. Feeling a little worse for wear Alex stumbles back to his apartment, meets the seductive Nicole (also played by Mary Huner) and they end up doing the horizontal mambo. When Alex wakes up the next morning his body is covered with a thick slime so he goes out and beats a homeless man to death, as you do. After feeding this inexplicable bloodlust Alex goes back to his regular non-slimy self.

We learn not too long after that the 'elixir' Alex has been drinking is actually ectoplasm, brewed by a Satanist  named Zachary who (along with his followers) killed himself in the building's basement. The ectoplasm is a primer to facilitate the return of Zachary using Alex's body as a vessel. Will Alex be able to stop his body being taken over by an evil dead Satanist? Will he ever get his girlfriend in the sack? Well to be honest it's pretty easy to predict how the film is going to end, but it's a hell of a fun ride along the way. There's prostitute slicing, bum bashing, some weird erotic dancing, head smashing and much more to see. Sure the effects look cheap (the guts near the end look like hotdogs and scrambled eggs) but they look great in that really trashy kind of way, and the facial makeup on Alex when he turns is actually pretty decent.

SLIME CITY doesn't really start out very strong , in fact to be honest it's a bit slow and there's probably too many talky scenes, but peppered throughout the film are some great gore scenes. One of the more memorable ones sees a mugger stab Alex in the stomach before the wound becomes a mouth that bites his hand off, leaving him with a blood-spraying stump. And even better is the finale which is by far the coolest and goriest part of the movie. The entire film is pretty much made worthwhile by this final scene.
As you might expect the acting isn't anything to rave over, the dialogue is nothing special and even the editing and photography are pretty mediocre. It's a shame there isn't any nudity (especially in a movie with such an obvious sexual theme) but there is a kind of sexy, kind of weird lingerie dance.
SLIME CITY's meagre budget is obvious but so is it's ambition and it's easy to see that the cast and crew had some fun making it. It's easy to write off as just another low budget piece of shit but for fans of cult and trash cinema this is a must see.