| "The Splatter Classic and Midnight Movie Cult Phenomenon Slime City is Back!” |
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Slime City Grindhouse Collection
2 DVDS/APPROX. 300 MINS/2009/USA UNRATED
2 DVDS/APPROX. 300 MINS/2009/USA UNRATED
Slime City (1988)
Alex (Robert C. Sabin), a painter and student, moves into a new place in a run-down apartment building while going to school and working at the
local video store. His new neighbor is a gloomy, Goth chick called Lizzy (Jane Doniger Reibel) with a flair for the weird and enjoying having a new
overnight guest each night. One of Alex’s creepy neighbors invites him over for dinner one night (as he is rummaging through the trash outside)
and the two have a quaint meal of green and blue pudding with some weird green wine. Soon after, Alex starts awaking in slimy goo and starts to
go on a killing rampage when he encounters anyone.
Alex's girlfriend Lori (Mary Huner) is the nice wholesome girl and Alex automatically is drawn to the opposite in the wild and edgy clad in black metal-
Goth bad girl across the hall. When Alex sneaks into his new neighbour buddies' apartment and notices nothing but big wine bottles full of a
foreign liquid substance, he notices that things are changing more and more as his neighbors' keep dropping off more of the meal he had a few
days prior. Director Greg Lamberson has created a nice piece of Grindhouse trash that fairs better than most in its class.
The mood and style of the film resembled films that were shot on the East Coast, such as Street Trash and The Toxic Avenger, having that old
East Coast New York/New Jersey feel and look to them in that gritty Grindhouse fashion. Already a big fan of the aforementioned films, I was pretty
sure I was going to enjoy this film on at least some level, and I was right. The acting in these films is never great, but the creativity that goes into
the gore, slime, and comical dialogue and plot always makes for some big laughs, even if it is at the expense of the film and filmmakers. There is
one scene where an Asian hooker goes up to Alex's apartment with him while he is wearing a flesh-colored bandage wrapped around his head like
Claude Raines in The Invisible Man, yet the young woman finds this to be normal and even when Alex starts oozing slimy goo down and around
the bandages, she still does not notice. Yeah, the lights were off. It all makes sense now! The killing that follows is bloody and has some pretty
cheap effects, but you have to take the film for what it’s worth: a grimy, New York Grindhouse flick that played at drive-thrus and run-down
theaters for midnight showings. These films are meant to be fun, entertaining and of low-brow humor and grade.
At times, I felt that the movie could have moved a bit more swiftly along with shorter scenes of bad plot and build-up, but when the goods were
delivered they were fun and more importantly, fun-ny! I do not think Slime City is really in the same league as The Toxic Avenger and Street
Trash, as I feel those films are close to the top of their genres of B-films, almost classics in my view, but the film certainly exhibits many
characteristics of those genres and style. The creepy synthesized soundtrack definitely added to the ambiance of the whole sordid affair, portions
mixed with horns and off-beat rhythms. The film possesses lots of character and quite definitely the look and feel of a midnight classic, and that
might very well have happened if not for some scenes that had me longing for them to be over sooner than later.
The movie starts to pick up almost an hour into it with some hilarious gore and dialogue involving some street thugs trying to mug Alex when he
was in slimy goo mode. Remember never to stab a dude that is melting away...As always, I wish there had been some nudity in the film, as there
certainly were enough scenes that warranted it, teasing the viewer here and there. If one has a film with a slutty goth chick in it who is walking
around half-naked to begin with, she sure better shed some articles of clothing at some point. One interesting trait that Slime City had that some
of the greatest low-budget gutter classics have had in them were colorful gore that is not just blood-red! The scene where guts are torn open and
it looks like they used a yellow liquid with kielbasa sausage really had me questioning my tastes in film, as I really enjoyed it! Slime City taught me
the lesson that just because you chop one's head off, render him armless, and slice him down the middle of his torso, never assume the fight is
over! We all should have learned that in Re-Animator and The Evil Dead movies. The last 20 minutes of the film really quickened the pace and had
me content in the amount of gore and violence shown. The film ended on a very high note with me.
Undying Love (New York Vampire) (1991)
Our very first scene reminded me of Romero's classic Martin, and only because blood is drawn via a razor while sitting in a bathtub...any and all
other similarities don't exist, even though both are Vampire films. The film's soundtrack is atrocious; really atrocious. Throw in some terrible acting,
not much style, and really annoying characters and you got a Grindhouse flick with not too much style and almost zero appeal. Again, if a movie
really sucks, throw in wanton violence and tons of nudity- at least there will be something to look at.
The film stars Tommy Sweeney as Scott Kelly, the loser who tries to take his life with a razor to his wrist while soaking in the bathtub and fails, just
like this whole film did. After going to a party, he meets Carmilla (Julie Lynch) and has a 2 minute conversation with her, but it seemed to be
enough for him to be thinking of her while boning his girlfriend Leslie (Mary Huner) that is the reason for him not taking his pathetic life in the first
place. Some more really awful metal is being played while our leads screw each other in probably one of the worst sex scenes ever. Once again no
nudity; and yet again, no chance for being anything but a really waste of one's time if they so choose to watch this film. Throw it into the
Grindhouse category, but throwing the film into the wastebasket would be a more apt decision to be made.
Our director, Greg Lamberson, really has a knack in this film for making each and every scene very anti-climatic. I guess it does take some skill in
doing that. Some of the scenes had acting so atrocious that if the actors and actresses were reading cue cards held up in front of them verbatim,
they probably would have given better performances. This is one vampire tale that truly lacks any real kind of bite in the first half of the film. The
film does pick up a little bit towards the end, although it is too little much too late.
The introduction of Detective Wint (Lee Kayman) just opened up the door for some even more atrocious acting with lacklustre performances and
utterly dire delivery of dialogue. Detective Wint is trying to bust these little bloodsuckers to avenge an earlier crime we learn along the way. This is
where a bit of the action begins and things start to pick up a little bit, making the last 25 minutes much more enjoyable then the first 45-50
minutes. Again, throwing in a bit of gratuitous nudity and some over-the-top gore and blood just may have been enough to distract viewers from
the bleak, dull, lethargic plot and script that anyone who watched this film had to deal with. Lamberson's Slime City was a much funnier film with
decent gore and semi-competent acting and where this film fails is its lack of anything going on for long periods of time. Undying Love is just full of
craters of boredom and creeps along at an excruciatingly banal pace that brought pure elation in me when I started to see the credits slowly (as
slow as the movie's pace!) started to scroll down the screen.
Naked Fear (1999)
The story of Camden (Robert Sabin), who suffers from agoraphobia, takes in Randy (Tommy Sweeney), who suffers from claustrophobia. How
fitting- the two exact opposite in extremes- happen to room together. The only problem is that Randy is a serial killer. I found that this idea for a
film was fairly unique- if there is a film that has chose this as their plot I have yet to see or hear of it. The script for this film seemed a bit more
interesting and moved along at a far quicker pace and overall was a better effort than director Lamberson's prior effort in New York Vampire
(Undying Love). Camden becomes an agoraphobic shortly after his parents were shot to death by a junkie who robbed them.
I found that the premise for the plot was unique and I was interested in how the director was going to create the background for Camden,
showing the viewer just what his routines are and how he occupies his time. Most of his time is spent reading scores of magazine subscriptions,
watching television, peeping on anyone that happens to be on the streets below and waiting for all his deliveries to come. Keep in mind that this
film was made during the early '90s, before the world wide web was a force to be reckoned with and I am sure being an agoraphobic probably
really sucked!
Naked Fear moves along a very nice pace and the director wrote a script that was enjoyable and dialogue that was believable and competently
acted out. If one can get past the shoe-string budget show on video, it makes for a decent viewing. Our director also decided to show some skin in
this film and had some much better looking females cast in the film. The reason that this film can be taken much as a much more serious piece of
work is that there is time taken for character development and plot build-up. Although the budget is much cheaper than any of the other films on
this disc, I felt that the film works better than any of the others.
The music was used much more effectively on this film than any of his previous efforts and more than time was I reminded of John Carpenter's
piano score from Halloween. Some parts even had a hint of Goblin in them, songs played via a keyboard. Whether the director was going for that
feel or it just happened by chance, I don't know, but it really worked for the film. When there were scenes of bad metal, the songs didn't have
ridiculous lyrics. The songs were only instrumentals. As the film neared its end, the viewer is in for even more surprises. One really does not see
the claustrophobia of Randy at all during the film, except that he does not hang around the apartment all that much. We learn more of his disease
towards the end. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable watch for a next-to-no budget feature.
Johnny Gruesome (2007)
This very short film, directed by Greg Lamberson is based off of his novel by the same title. A dude is murdered by a coke head that is sitting and
chilling in the back of his car while the dude and his girlfriend are having some drinks from a bottle of hard liquor, which is normal enough, but after
the coke head kills the girl’s boyfriend, the girl then hooks up with the killer and does more drugs. I guess having her buddy get murdered was not
too distressing for her. Some good ol' hard rock is played though-out the short and the murdering coke head then proceeds to give it to the
murdered guy's (Johnny) girlfriend. Johnny then comes back from the dead as a zombie to enact revenge on everyone. Throw in a bit of nudity and
some cool zombie effects; it is a metal-head's kind of movie. It almost can pass for a music video, but it has a couple of different songs played
during the whole short. Drugs can kill ya in more ways than one I guess. Johnny also partakes in snorting some coke after getting his revenge. The
film was a fun little short and I dug it. Another really cool thing is that Misty Mundae plays a short role in the film as Karen, even though who knows
who the characters are since there is no dialogue. We get to briefly see her naked in the film and in some sexy lingerie, which is always a plus!
Extra Features:
Included on disc one of The Slime City Grindhouse Collection were Audio Commentaries for Slime City with Director Greg Lamberson and Robert
Sabin and also a commentary for Undying Love, again with Director Greg Lamberson and Tommy Sweeney.
There was a mini-doc entitled Making Slime narrated by Director Greg Lamberson and was far more interesting than some of the movies included in
the Grindhouse Collection. They showed the genesis of the films in the sex and went into detail on how some of the special effects and gore was
created. I found this to be very informative and quite interesting. I was happy to find that Slime City came out after all the history behind the film,
which one will hear about upon watching the extra features. It ran about 8 minutes in duration.
Undying Love: Making Love the Grindhouse Way is a mini-doc starring Greg Lamberson and he talks about the making of the film. Lamberson tells
us that the '80s were great for low-budget horror and that the '90's sucked for low-budget horror, and I think that the fact that Undying Love was
so bad, it probably did not help to make matters any better. An interesting bit of info was that it took 6 years to finally come out on video and it
probably would have been for the better if it never even came out at all. It runs about 9 minutes long.
There is an audio commentary for Johnny Gruesome, as well as a segment Johnny Gruesome: Meeting His Maker. This segment really goes into the
personal history of director Greg Lamberson. He goes into detail about the novel that the movie is based off of. It's about 7 minutes long.
Slime Heads: Interview with Robert Sabin and Mary Huner was very cool. I enjoyed seeing the actor and actress years later. They talk about Slime
City and how it was making the film and go into depth about certain scenes, as well as their other past and present projects, other Lamberson
films, and horror in general. It was a very cool segment and it ran about 45 minutes.
There is a Shock-O-Rama Trailer Vault with trailers for nine different films from Shock-O-Rama Cinema Collection and an ad for Alternative Cinema.
Alex (Robert C. Sabin), a painter and student, moves into a new place in a run-down apartment building while going to school and working at the
local video store. His new neighbor is a gloomy, Goth chick called Lizzy (Jane Doniger Reibel) with a flair for the weird and enjoying having a new
overnight guest each night. One of Alex’s creepy neighbors invites him over for dinner one night (as he is rummaging through the trash outside)
and the two have a quaint meal of green and blue pudding with some weird green wine. Soon after, Alex starts awaking in slimy goo and starts to
go on a killing rampage when he encounters anyone.
Alex's girlfriend Lori (Mary Huner) is the nice wholesome girl and Alex automatically is drawn to the opposite in the wild and edgy clad in black metal-
Goth bad girl across the hall. When Alex sneaks into his new neighbour buddies' apartment and notices nothing but big wine bottles full of a
foreign liquid substance, he notices that things are changing more and more as his neighbors' keep dropping off more of the meal he had a few
days prior. Director Greg Lamberson has created a nice piece of Grindhouse trash that fairs better than most in its class.
The mood and style of the film resembled films that were shot on the East Coast, such as Street Trash and The Toxic Avenger, having that old
East Coast New York/New Jersey feel and look to them in that gritty Grindhouse fashion. Already a big fan of the aforementioned films, I was pretty
sure I was going to enjoy this film on at least some level, and I was right. The acting in these films is never great, but the creativity that goes into
the gore, slime, and comical dialogue and plot always makes for some big laughs, even if it is at the expense of the film and filmmakers. There is
one scene where an Asian hooker goes up to Alex's apartment with him while he is wearing a flesh-colored bandage wrapped around his head like
Claude Raines in The Invisible Man, yet the young woman finds this to be normal and even when Alex starts oozing slimy goo down and around
the bandages, she still does not notice. Yeah, the lights were off. It all makes sense now! The killing that follows is bloody and has some pretty
cheap effects, but you have to take the film for what it’s worth: a grimy, New York Grindhouse flick that played at drive-thrus and run-down
theaters for midnight showings. These films are meant to be fun, entertaining and of low-brow humor and grade.
At times, I felt that the movie could have moved a bit more swiftly along with shorter scenes of bad plot and build-up, but when the goods were
delivered they were fun and more importantly, fun-ny! I do not think Slime City is really in the same league as The Toxic Avenger and Street
Trash, as I feel those films are close to the top of their genres of B-films, almost classics in my view, but the film certainly exhibits many
characteristics of those genres and style. The creepy synthesized soundtrack definitely added to the ambiance of the whole sordid affair, portions
mixed with horns and off-beat rhythms. The film possesses lots of character and quite definitely the look and feel of a midnight classic, and that
might very well have happened if not for some scenes that had me longing for them to be over sooner than later.
The movie starts to pick up almost an hour into it with some hilarious gore and dialogue involving some street thugs trying to mug Alex when he
was in slimy goo mode. Remember never to stab a dude that is melting away...As always, I wish there had been some nudity in the film, as there
certainly were enough scenes that warranted it, teasing the viewer here and there. If one has a film with a slutty goth chick in it who is walking
around half-naked to begin with, she sure better shed some articles of clothing at some point. One interesting trait that Slime City had that some
of the greatest low-budget gutter classics have had in them were colorful gore that is not just blood-red! The scene where guts are torn open and
it looks like they used a yellow liquid with kielbasa sausage really had me questioning my tastes in film, as I really enjoyed it! Slime City taught me
the lesson that just because you chop one's head off, render him armless, and slice him down the middle of his torso, never assume the fight is
over! We all should have learned that in Re-Animator and The Evil Dead movies. The last 20 minutes of the film really quickened the pace and had
me content in the amount of gore and violence shown. The film ended on a very high note with me.
Undying Love (New York Vampire) (1991)
Our very first scene reminded me of Romero's classic Martin, and only because blood is drawn via a razor while sitting in a bathtub...any and all
other similarities don't exist, even though both are Vampire films. The film's soundtrack is atrocious; really atrocious. Throw in some terrible acting,
not much style, and really annoying characters and you got a Grindhouse flick with not too much style and almost zero appeal. Again, if a movie
really sucks, throw in wanton violence and tons of nudity- at least there will be something to look at.
The film stars Tommy Sweeney as Scott Kelly, the loser who tries to take his life with a razor to his wrist while soaking in the bathtub and fails, just
like this whole film did. After going to a party, he meets Carmilla (Julie Lynch) and has a 2 minute conversation with her, but it seemed to be
enough for him to be thinking of her while boning his girlfriend Leslie (Mary Huner) that is the reason for him not taking his pathetic life in the first
place. Some more really awful metal is being played while our leads screw each other in probably one of the worst sex scenes ever. Once again no
nudity; and yet again, no chance for being anything but a really waste of one's time if they so choose to watch this film. Throw it into the
Grindhouse category, but throwing the film into the wastebasket would be a more apt decision to be made.
Our director, Greg Lamberson, really has a knack in this film for making each and every scene very anti-climatic. I guess it does take some skill in
doing that. Some of the scenes had acting so atrocious that if the actors and actresses were reading cue cards held up in front of them verbatim,
they probably would have given better performances. This is one vampire tale that truly lacks any real kind of bite in the first half of the film. The
film does pick up a little bit towards the end, although it is too little much too late.
The introduction of Detective Wint (Lee Kayman) just opened up the door for some even more atrocious acting with lacklustre performances and
utterly dire delivery of dialogue. Detective Wint is trying to bust these little bloodsuckers to avenge an earlier crime we learn along the way. This is
where a bit of the action begins and things start to pick up a little bit, making the last 25 minutes much more enjoyable then the first 45-50
minutes. Again, throwing in a bit of gratuitous nudity and some over-the-top gore and blood just may have been enough to distract viewers from
the bleak, dull, lethargic plot and script that anyone who watched this film had to deal with. Lamberson's Slime City was a much funnier film with
decent gore and semi-competent acting and where this film fails is its lack of anything going on for long periods of time. Undying Love is just full of
craters of boredom and creeps along at an excruciatingly banal pace that brought pure elation in me when I started to see the credits slowly (as
slow as the movie's pace!) started to scroll down the screen.
Naked Fear (1999)
The story of Camden (Robert Sabin), who suffers from agoraphobia, takes in Randy (Tommy Sweeney), who suffers from claustrophobia. How
fitting- the two exact opposite in extremes- happen to room together. The only problem is that Randy is a serial killer. I found that this idea for a
film was fairly unique- if there is a film that has chose this as their plot I have yet to see or hear of it. The script for this film seemed a bit more
interesting and moved along at a far quicker pace and overall was a better effort than director Lamberson's prior effort in New York Vampire
(Undying Love). Camden becomes an agoraphobic shortly after his parents were shot to death by a junkie who robbed them.
I found that the premise for the plot was unique and I was interested in how the director was going to create the background for Camden,
showing the viewer just what his routines are and how he occupies his time. Most of his time is spent reading scores of magazine subscriptions,
watching television, peeping on anyone that happens to be on the streets below and waiting for all his deliveries to come. Keep in mind that this
film was made during the early '90s, before the world wide web was a force to be reckoned with and I am sure being an agoraphobic probably
really sucked!
Naked Fear moves along a very nice pace and the director wrote a script that was enjoyable and dialogue that was believable and competently
acted out. If one can get past the shoe-string budget show on video, it makes for a decent viewing. Our director also decided to show some skin in
this film and had some much better looking females cast in the film. The reason that this film can be taken much as a much more serious piece of
work is that there is time taken for character development and plot build-up. Although the budget is much cheaper than any of the other films on
this disc, I felt that the film works better than any of the others.
The music was used much more effectively on this film than any of his previous efforts and more than time was I reminded of John Carpenter's
piano score from Halloween. Some parts even had a hint of Goblin in them, songs played via a keyboard. Whether the director was going for that
feel or it just happened by chance, I don't know, but it really worked for the film. When there were scenes of bad metal, the songs didn't have
ridiculous lyrics. The songs were only instrumentals. As the film neared its end, the viewer is in for even more surprises. One really does not see
the claustrophobia of Randy at all during the film, except that he does not hang around the apartment all that much. We learn more of his disease
towards the end. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable watch for a next-to-no budget feature.
Johnny Gruesome (2007)
This very short film, directed by Greg Lamberson is based off of his novel by the same title. A dude is murdered by a coke head that is sitting and
chilling in the back of his car while the dude and his girlfriend are having some drinks from a bottle of hard liquor, which is normal enough, but after
the coke head kills the girl’s boyfriend, the girl then hooks up with the killer and does more drugs. I guess having her buddy get murdered was not
too distressing for her. Some good ol' hard rock is played though-out the short and the murdering coke head then proceeds to give it to the
murdered guy's (Johnny) girlfriend. Johnny then comes back from the dead as a zombie to enact revenge on everyone. Throw in a bit of nudity and
some cool zombie effects; it is a metal-head's kind of movie. It almost can pass for a music video, but it has a couple of different songs played
during the whole short. Drugs can kill ya in more ways than one I guess. Johnny also partakes in snorting some coke after getting his revenge. The
film was a fun little short and I dug it. Another really cool thing is that Misty Mundae plays a short role in the film as Karen, even though who knows
who the characters are since there is no dialogue. We get to briefly see her naked in the film and in some sexy lingerie, which is always a plus!
Extra Features:
Included on disc one of The Slime City Grindhouse Collection were Audio Commentaries for Slime City with Director Greg Lamberson and Robert
Sabin and also a commentary for Undying Love, again with Director Greg Lamberson and Tommy Sweeney.
There was a mini-doc entitled Making Slime narrated by Director Greg Lamberson and was far more interesting than some of the movies included in
the Grindhouse Collection. They showed the genesis of the films in the sex and went into detail on how some of the special effects and gore was
created. I found this to be very informative and quite interesting. I was happy to find that Slime City came out after all the history behind the film,
which one will hear about upon watching the extra features. It ran about 8 minutes in duration.
Undying Love: Making Love the Grindhouse Way is a mini-doc starring Greg Lamberson and he talks about the making of the film. Lamberson tells
us that the '80s were great for low-budget horror and that the '90's sucked for low-budget horror, and I think that the fact that Undying Love was
so bad, it probably did not help to make matters any better. An interesting bit of info was that it took 6 years to finally come out on video and it
probably would have been for the better if it never even came out at all. It runs about 9 minutes long.
There is an audio commentary for Johnny Gruesome, as well as a segment Johnny Gruesome: Meeting His Maker. This segment really goes into the
personal history of director Greg Lamberson. He goes into detail about the novel that the movie is based off of. It's about 7 minutes long.
Slime Heads: Interview with Robert Sabin and Mary Huner was very cool. I enjoyed seeing the actor and actress years later. They talk about Slime
City and how it was making the film and go into depth about certain scenes, as well as their other past and present projects, other Lamberson
films, and horror in general. It was a very cool segment and it ran about 45 minutes.
There is a Shock-O-Rama Trailer Vault with trailers for nine different films from Shock-O-Rama Cinema Collection and an ad for Alternative Cinema.
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