space station, retitled Gamma Three, which had a similar design as the one in Margheriti's films. The US theatrical release includes a subplot involving Dr. Lisa Benson as a shared love interest between Rankin (a former flame) and Vince (her current fiance). The Japanese release version leaves out this subplot to make the film faster paced. Green Slime was shot in Japan with a predominantly Asian film crew and Western actors. Aside from Horton, Jaeckel and Paluzzi, the rest of the cast consisted of amateur and semi-professional Western actors living in Japan at the time. Yoshikazu Yamasawa was the cinematographer, and the film was edited by Osamu Tanaka. Toshiaki Tsushima composed the original score. Charles Fox re-scored much of the film for its release in United States, including the title song. Release The Green Slime was released in Japan in December 1968. The film premiered in the United States on December 1, 1968, receiving a general theatrical release on May 21, 1969. The Japanese version runs 77 minutes in comparison to the 90-minute version released in the United States by MGM, removing the arguments between the Rankin and Elliot characters. Home media The film's Japanese language version debuted in 2004 on DVD without English subtitles or dialog. On October 26, 2010, the American theatrical release debuted on DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection. On October 10. 2017, Warner re-released the film on high-definition Blu-ray. Reception Contemporary reviews of the film were mostly negative. Monthly Film Bulletin referred to the film as "junior league science fiction" that was "certainly schoolboy stuff". The review commented on the monsters in the film, stating that "the first appearance of the green slime looks promising, but the transformation of the lurid jelly into stock monsters is something of a let-down". Variety referred to the film as "a poor man's version of 2001", and described the story, script and special effects as "amateurish". The New York Times stated that the film "opens promisingly, keeps it up for about half an hour but then fades badly [...] the picture falls to pieces when the green menace becomes an army of rubbery-looking goblins". In a retrospective review, Stuart Galbraith IV discussed the film in his book Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, finding that Fukasaku's direction was "flat and uninteresting" and that the special effects by ex-Toho employees Yukio Manoda and Akira Watanabe were worse