SLIME CITY

Alex (Robert Sabin, I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE) finds what he thinks is the perfect appartment in down-town New York, and moves in hoping that his girlfriend Lori (the gorgeous Mary Huner, LETHAL JUSTICE) will soon join him.

However, wholesome Mary is dragging her heels ... not only is she reluctant to commit to living with Alex, we discover via a conversation with his best buddy Jerry (T.J. Merrick) that the year-long relationship has yet to be consummated.

Alex's frustrations are hardly helped by the fact that a sexy goth slut lives across the hallway from him, the seductive Nicole (also played by Huner).

At first, Alex is capable of resisting the flirtatious Nicole - until, that is, weird neighbour Roman (Dennis Embry) invites him to his place for tea.

Roman serves a strange green yoghurt and Alex, being a polite and unassuming young man, eats the odd concoction with little question.

Before long, Alex has bedded Nicole and discovered that somewhere along the way he has become possessed an occultist named Zachary (Daniel Frye) who lived, practised and died in the same building many years earlier.

Zachary's greatest legacy is his addictive wines and yoghurts, kept in the building's basement. And now, along with the other tenants, Alex is hooked.

Which is all good and well, only Alex becomes prone to sweating copious amounts of thick oozing slime whenever he craves his elxiir!

And when Alex oozes, he finds that killing is the only thing that makes him normal again ...

SLIME CITY makes no sense whatsoever. Obviously.

But it hardly matters. This is good old-fashioned gore-soaked fun that zips along at top speed, reeks of sleaze in the best possible way and ends with a delightfully deranged climax that won't soon be forgotten.

Cheap in look and feel, the movie benefits from some BAD TASTE-style gore FX, the likes of which we just don't see anymore. But here it all is - stumps spurting geysers of gore, disembowellments, heads being explicitly caved in with iron bars ... aah, the 1980's!

The script is daft, the acting is lousy and the camera work is pretty ugly. Who cares? Director Gregory Lamberson (UNDYING LOVE) keeps things pacy and short, at 75 minutes, with the movie coasting from one hilariously tasteless set-piece to the next.

Shock-O-Rama boast on the sleeve of this release that SLIME CITY has been newly mastered from the original film elements, under the supervision of Lamberson.

It certainly looks a LOT better than it did on VHS, but still looks a little rough and grainy considering it only dates back to the late 80's. This is no doubt due to the film's 16mm origins.

Images are generally sharp though, and considerably lighter than ever before. The 1.78:1 frame (preferred ratio by the director, in this case) has been 16x9 enhanced.

The mono audio track is problem-free.

All in all, the film looks and sounds better than ever before and is presented in it's definitive "director's cut" (slightly shorter than the theatrical cut - longer than the previous special edition US VHS release).

In terms of gore, grue, slime and all the other sick shit onscreen, the film remains uncensored.

Shock-O-Rama serve up a plethora of extra features on this disc ...

First up is an audio commentary track from Lamberson and Sabin, which is filled with as much mirth as it is technical info. Lamberson covers almost every aspect of micro-budget filmmaking, while Sabin has plenty to say about the gruelling FX shoots.

MAKING OF SLIME is an 8 minute featurette narrated by Lamberson, and containing some interesting behind-the-scenes footage.

Next up is another feature-length offering from Lamberson, the shot-on-video NAKED FEAR.

This weird little pot-boiler stars Sabin as Camden, a young agoraphobic haunted by the senseless killing of his parents.

When Camden takes in a new lodger, the claustrophobic Randy (Tommy Sweeney, UNDYING LOVE), little does he know that he's a serial killer!

But Camden isn't that wet behind the ears either, and what follows is a rather knowingly ridiculous low-rent variation on FREDDY VS JASON (although Lamberson prefers to compare it to the Universal monster flicks of the 30s!!).

Violence, gore, nudity ... NAKED FEAR at least remembers to tick all the boxes!

There's even a commentary track, provided by Lamberson, Sweeney and Sabin.

Extras are completed by four trailers (including one for SLIME CITY that spoils the ending!), and SHOCK-O-RAMA: A YEAR OF SHOCKS - a pretty good brief documentary which seems to be featuring on all new Shock-O-Rama releases.

Lamberson's liner notes are good too, before I forget!

SLIME CITY is certainly not indispensible, and some may be turned off by the film's cheapness (it falls somewhere between BASKET CASE and DEADBEAT AT DAWN in look). But it's huge fun - and Shock-O-Rama have given it an excellent DVD debut.

Review by Stu Willis