The Original
Alex finds a cheap apartment in New York City. The place is wonderful and his new neighbors are so nice, sharing with him their stash of awesome wine and Himalayan yogurt. But things start to go bad when Alex starts secreting a horrible green ooze. He tries to deal with it, wrapping himself in bandages but he soon begins to want to commit murder. It’s soon revealed that the yogurt is ectoplasm and the wine is a catalyzing agent that gives a dead cult leader license to possess his body. The entire building is made up of people possessed by cultists and Alex is slowly succumbing to the cultist’s influence.
Slime City is a very watchable sort of bad movie. It’s slow and pretty shoddily made but some interesting effects and a bonkers finale make it memorable and worth watching. It’s a sleazy little New York-sploitation and if you enjoy stuff like Basket Case and Street Trash you’ll probably like it.
The Sequel
Slime City Massacre picks up 7 years after a dirty bomb has been detonated in the Slime City section of New York so that crooked mogul Ronald Clump can buy up the cheap real estate and flip it. Alex and Cory are draft-dodgers hiding out in Slime City’s burned out ruin, trying to find a way to survive. They stumble onto an abandoned apartment building and the stash of wine and yogurt from the first film. They and two others begin changing into slimy cultists as Clump sends in a team of mercenaries to eradicate the homeless population so he can buy up the real estate.
So ignoring the fact that the film shows a dystopian future where a Donald Trump analog apparently starts a war by dropping a bomb on friendly soil and eradicates poor people (this movie was 2010 so the political allegory is not on purpose) this is a movie about addiction. The wine and yogurt have euphoric effects on the victims and the movie makes it very clear that the main reason these people wind up in this situation is because they can’t help but want to get high.
We get some more back story on the cult and Alex’s girlfriend (played by a different actress) shows up to put some connective tissue between this movie and the original. It’s obviously made on the cheap and digital camera on a low budget film is never a good thing, but if you come in expecting an above average cheapo flick, it’s a good time.
Does It Hold Up?
Pretty well. Slime City is no masterpiece admittedly, but sequels made decades after the first rarely turn out as enjoyable as this. Slime City Massacre goes bigger than its predecessor. The effects are more elaborate, the story more involved. Slime City and Slime City Massacre are the rare original and sequel that complement each other.
This movie is also willing to be even more gross and weird than the original. One of the people doesn’t satisfy her urge to kill so she melts into a tub of orange goo. Later in the movie her boyfriend has sex with the tub of goo and later on drowns a man in his liquefied girlfriend. This movie is so endearingly trashy and goofy that I can’t help but love it. Your mileage may vary but I was pleasantly surprised.
Watch, Toss, Or Buy?
With the caveat that you should understand what you’re getting into, buy it.
Where Can I Find It?
There is a blu-ray of both the first and second movie coming out this December.