Slime City

College student/video store employee Alex (Robert C. Sabin) gets an apartment with the hopes the privacy will allow him to get it on with his virgin girlfriend Lori (Mary Huner). Things change, however, when his neighbor Nicole (also Huner), a goth temptress, seduces him and makes him drink this green elixir. Soon Alex starts sweating orange slime and the only thing that can return him to normal is human blood. Turns out everyone in the tenement are occult followers of a guy named Zachary and Alex's body is going to be the host for his return.

This is really cheap and makes something like BASKET CASE (1982) look slick by comparison. But like Henenlotter's film, there is a certain charm in the capturing of sleazy era 1980s NYC. The highlight of the film is definitely the effects work by Scott Coulter and some of it (especially the end meltdown) is totally gross. Director Gregory Lamberson, unfortunately, lets the effects down with his really flat direction and the film would have benefited from some STREET TRASH level inventiveness (that film's director, Jim Muro, worked on this as a steadicam operator). Sabin is an odd choice for a lead, mostly because he has a lisp that makes him sound like Sylvester the cat when he gets mad. Huner really surprised me as I had no idea she played both lead female roles until the end credits. Lamberson recently completed the sequel SLIME CITY MASSACRE, which brings Sabin back.

This movie is so fun!! Every scene is good, they connect to each other well, and the gore effects are just outstanding. Many camp movies are unwatchably boring, but this one entertains start to finish. I recommend it highly if you like low budget gore.

"We could use some fresh blood around here," claims a punk-poet inhabitant of the low-rent boarding house where most of SLIME CITY takes place.

As Alex (Craig Sabin) gets settled into his new apartment in Flushing, New York, he meets strange neighbors under the spell of the resident ghost, Zachary. Alex soon learns that Zach has replaced their personalities with those of his long-dead buddies. Alex is warned that he'll be next, and that Zachary was a malevolent mystic and wrote a book of alchemist's recipes called "Flesh Control."

Instead of leaving, Alex eats "Himalayan yogurt" -- some sort of flavored ectoplasm -- and the next morning awakes in a pool of slime. Alex roams the streets and kills people. Among the other flat characters are Nicole (Mary Huner), who dresses in fishnet stockings, works strip joints, has clothed sex with Alex, and murders a one-night stand. Alex's straight-laced girlfriend Lori (also played by Huner) is unaware of Alex's newly acquired personal hygiene problem right up until the point where he tries to kill her.

In the closing sequence, Alex and Lori battle it out. She chops him up but the various disembodied parts start attacking. As Alex's head barks orders, his arms, hands and even internal organs attempt to get her. The wild action is funny at times but poorly staged. Originally shot on 16mm.

My review was written in May 1988 after a midnight screening in Greenwich Village.

"Slime City" is a minor horror title with spoof elements, shot in Brooklyn on a $50,000 budget. Currently unspooling midnights in Greenwich Village, it is destined for fringe audiences.

Title promises more than is delivered, in a tale of an apartment building whose denizens aren't what they seem. Student Robert C. Sabin moves in and after dining with a poet neighbor starts dripping slime from his forehead, his face starting to look like a pizza via makeup effects. Goopy look is only temporary but returns and Sabin turns into a murderous monster.

An occultist named Zachary was the cause of the problem, having turned the inhabitants of the building into monsters who possess their victims' bodies. Pastel-colored concoctions stored in the basement do the trick.

Pic climaxes in a repulsive, extended scene of grotesque makeup effects where heroine Mary Huner awkwardly hacks Sabin into little pieces but he just won't die. The fact that when his entrails spill out they look just like a breakfast of sausage and eggs appears to be tongue-in cheek.

Lighting and sound recording are amateurish but the film plays acceptably, with tolerable acting. A harsh jump-cut (scene deleted) during a dinner scenes with the heroine's paretns is jarring and ineffectual.

Sabin is a bland antihero, but Huner shows promise in her dual role as heroine and contrasting vamp in black Nicole, who seduces the hero.

I agree the numerous comparisons with "Street Trash" are very justified, but personally I think "Slime City" is a far more interesting and 'better' film because the characters in this film are at least sympathetic and the overall elaboration is definitely more appealing than "Street Trash", which is – in my humble opinion – a hideous and nearly unwatchable production. At least "Slime City" benefices from a much more pleasant & cheerful atmosphere, greatly inspiring music and the light-headed direction by Greg Lamberson! This is a terribly poor and laughably inept film, of course, but it certainly doesn't fail to entertain fans of cheap 'n cheesy 80's smut. The camera-work and editing are rudimentary and very amateurish, but the gore effects are incredibly grotesque and the storyline is too demented for words. The promising young painter Alex moves into an old apartment building, unaware that the other tenants are reincarnated disciples of a Satan-worshiping alchemist who committed suicide in the building's basement. Through eating bright-colored pudding, drinking vaporous wine and enjoying sexual contact with the luscious neighbor, Alex mutates into a sticky monster who kills homeless guys, prostitutes and ghetto hoodlums. His only hope for rescue lies in the hands of his virgin girlfriend Nicole, but she loves Alex too much to ever hurt him. "Slime City" surpasses the average 'so-bad-it's-good' 80's horror film; it's a genuine trash and crap FEAST! We're talking characters (like the hilarious prostitute) that patiently wait around for monstrous Alex to kill them, obtrusive spiritual media that pop up unasked and out of nowhere, incompetent police detectives that couldn't even prevent a crime if it happened right under their noses and body parts that continue to function after being separated from the torso. The climax is particularly outrageous (in a gooey way) and over-the-top hilarious. The acting performances are abominable, but you wouldn't expect it any other way, the whole thing is simply too insane to feature any tension and the vintage 80's soundtrack is too fabulous for words. If you like Troma films, Frank Hennenlotter's Indie-flicks and other no-budget crap from the 80's, "Slime City" is the ideal purchase for you. It would be a crime against good taste to rate this movie any more than 5 out of 10, but this is one of those times you shouldn't exclusively focus on the rating.