• Genre: Science Fiction
• MPAA Rating: Unrated
• AMG Rating:
• Regional Coding: 1
  USA and territories, Canada

Tom Gregory (Robert Hutton), a Los Angeles-based sports reporter, is flying into L.A. and lands his private plane after a rough descent through some kind of opaque midair disturbance, only to find the airport deserted. He meets Professor Galvin (Robert Burton) and his two daughters, Bonnie (Judee Morton) and Lisa (Susan Hart), who tell him that the city has been overrun by huge, hulking slime-covered subterraneans called Slime People, who appeared out of the sewers and other underground water concentrations. Appearing out of a strange thick fog apparently generated by a device of their own, they've killed hundreds, possibly thousands, panicked the population, fought the army to a standstill, and have now cut off the city with a wall of solidified fog. Gregory doesn't believe them completely, despite the presence of slaughtered corpses on the highways and back roads, until he gets to the television station where he works and screens the news footage. The quartet also makes contact with a young marine, Calvin Johnson (William Boyce), who was cut off from his unit and left for dead by the creatures. They manage to elude the Slime People and try to work out a plan for survival, making contact along the way with Norman Talliver (Les Tremayne), an eccentric writer, who is soon dispatched by the creatures. They discover the Slime People are impervious to harm by bullets or other convention weapons, their skin sealing up any wound instantly, but they can be killed by their own hollow-pointed spears, which don't allow wounds to close. That helps in fighting them off one-on-one, and the professor's reasoning that salt would be effective against slug-like creatures gives them a second weapon against the Slime People. But clearing them all out and freeing the city requires an assault against the creatures' own stronghold, which becomes even more essential when Bonnie is taken prisoner. Gregory and Cal manage to keep the Slime People busy long enough for the professor to destroy their fog-generating device. Overwhelmed by fresh air and sunlight, the Slime People start to collapse dead in their tracks, and the army is soon back in charge, doing what amounts to a literal mopping up operation. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Bonus Features

• [None specified]

Actors

Director

Robert Hutton

Producer

Joseph F. Robertson

Suitable for Children

• Sound :
• Language :
• Subtitles :

• Screen : B&W
• Oar :
• Dar :

Review

The Slime People is the kind of horror-sci-fi movie that they used to make for the drive-in theater circuits. It was almost formulaic in its content: throw together a fairly icky if not necessarily gruesome monster, a couple of pretty girls, a brainy father figure, and one or two hero types. Keep those characters busy for an hour or so -- so that drive-in audiences could keep busy doing what they were there for, which didn't usually involve watching the movie -- and that was a successful feature. The movies didn't have to be good, just simply be there up on the screen, and that's what The Slime People is. It's there, 75 minutes or so of activity on the screen, directed by Robert Hutton, who also stars as hero, Tom Gregory. He tries to keep a level of tension and excitement going, but it's all he can do with this cast -- especially the female contingent represented by Judee Morton and Susan Hart -- to keep them from stumbling all over each other or their lines. Even Les Tremayne, a 30-year veteran of radio, television, and movies, seems uncomfortable in his all too brief appearance as Norman Talliver, a sort of stereotypical Los Angeles "crazy," an eccentric writer who insists on being rescued with his pet goat. And, yet, for all of its clumsiness and ineptitude -- parts of the movie look and play like they literally filmed a rehearsal -- The Slime People does work in very short spurts, as a reasonably enjoyable bad movie. It offers none of the delights of Edward D. Wood Jr.'s work, but as a specimen of a kind of cheap, popular entertainment of a certain era, it has its limited charm. There's also an intrinsic eeriness to watching a movie shot on such a low budget that all the action takes place inside cars or on such locations as a television studio, a deserted meat market (with freezers that have locks in the inside of their doors), and in empty fields. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

• Release Date : August 14, 2001
• Length : 76 Minutes
• Dvdsides : 1
• Dvddiscs : 1
• Upc : 603497148325