Please Identify Slime Monster Films and non-Bradbury Story Appearance!

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CoriSCapnSkip

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Jan 16, 2015
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Can anyone identify one or more horror movies I watched around 1973? They were old then, 1950 - 1965. I can't say whether black-and-white or color as the sets on which I saw them were black-and-white and I am not sure whether all the scenes I recall are from the same film.

The one I most want to remember had some features in common with The Blob and with the short stories "It" by Theodore Sturgeon and "Slime" by J. P. (Joseph Payne) Brennan. I checked film credits for both Sturgeon and Brennan and this film is not an adaptation of either story. I am also quite sure it is not The Blob as I saw much of that recently and the ending in particular is completely different.

In this film, a huge rolling mass of sentient slime attacks a small rural probably Southern American community. This is not humanoid slime but in form more like the Blob but as I recall in appearance more like liver than raspberry preserve. There is something about a cave--I believe the slime originally oozes from there. There might be something about a guy trying to attack it with fire, or someone attacking him mistaking him for the slime monster, as there is a scene of a guy running from the cave screaming on fire from head to foot, who was not the monster but an innocent victim, either a mentally challenged man who hid out in the cave or someone who went there to combat the monster. This greatly upset me as a child. A little boy may or may not have been shot. In one scene, a lady with a distinct rural Southern American twang says how awful and horrible it was that "they shot that little boy," but I don't know whether a boy was actually shot or she just thought one was, or whether he was fatally shot or just wounded.

Naturally for much of the film, the monster is unstoppable. It is chased by military personnel with automatic weapons, tanks, etc. Towards the end it becomes entangled in a barbed wire fence and just sort of falls apart or dries up or is shot to pieces or all of the above. Anyhow, it dies.

What started this whole line of inquiry is some dude posted on the Ray Bradbury Message Board that he read this Bradbury story, again basically about sentient slime--a wad of pond scum, sticks, and the like, takes on physical form, wreaks some sort of havoc, and at the end dissolves at the bottom of a flowing stream. Three of us (Bradbury board members) told him we have read every well-known story by Bradbury and a good many rare and lesser known works, and Bradbury wrote no such story! One person said it was "It" by Theodore Sturgeon, which made me remember that in 1977-1978 I read that and another story I believe must have been "Slime" (though I can find neither story online and have none of the anthologies in which they are listed nor can I even identify where I may have read "It,") and the stories reminded me of this movie I saw on a pay TV at a bus station in 1973 and also the same film or one like it ran on TV, both before I read these stories. Anyhow, the dude INSISTS this is NOT a mistaken attribution because there was a little afterward in the book, asking the author why he wrote such a horror story and how it made him feel and he said he felt "cleansed" at the end which is "classic Bradbury" (which maybe it is but Bradbury did not write this). So anyway I emailed the Sturgeon trust official who is Sturgeon's daughter and asked if she can identify anthologies in which "It" appears not listed in the Locus Index to Science Fiction, as I recognize none of those, and it's not in any of the books I thought it was. I'm getting a bit irked because I spent a good deal of time today checking anthology contents and story summaries and am now bound to turn up where I read the story, if indeed I did, or how wrong my memory is if I did not, and in any case prove that sucker wrong!
 

CoriSCapnSkip

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Here is a much more complete bibliography for appearances of "It" than in the Locus List, from which I find I do have at least one book containing the story: Title: It

Here is a list for appearances of "Slime," which I seem to have read in Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum along with my very first Ray Bradbury story, "Homecoming": Title: Slime
 

CoriSCapnSkip

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Solved the OP's question and posted the following. Still have my movie questions.

And the winner is...Richard!

The story is indeed "It" by Theodore Sturgeon. The description of the monster melting in the water is found near the end. It is rather lengthy and I could find no preview giving the entire quote though I searched both Amazon's Sturgeon page and Google Books at length.

I hope you're happy now that I spent hours on this today. The correct story and notes on it can be found, among other places, in The Ultimate Egoist: Volume I: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. This is Book 1 of 13 in the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon Series. One of the Forewords is written by Ray Bradbury which should explain any confusion.

Here is a screenshot of part of the story notes which should settle this once and for all.

(Which again shows up great in the preview but not in the post!)

It_Sturgeon_Intro.png
 
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Blake

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Feb 18, 2013
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Can anyone identify one or more horror movies I watched around 1973? They were old then, 1950 - 1965. I can't say whether black-and-white or color as the sets on which I saw them were black-and-white and I am not sure whether all the scenes I recall are from the same film.

The one I most want to remember had some features in common with The Blob and with the short stories "It" by Theodore Sturgeon and "Slime" by J. P. (Joseph Payne) Brennan. I checked film credits for both Sturgeon and Brennan and this film is not an adaptation of either story. I am also quite sure it is not The Blob as I saw much of that recently and the ending in particular is completely different.

In this film, a huge rolling mass of sentient slime attacks a small rural probably Southern American community. This is not humanoid slime but in form more like the Blob but as I recall in appearance more like liver than raspberry preserve. There is something about a cave--I believe the slime originally oozes from there. There might be something about a guy trying to attack it with fire, or someone attacking him mistaking him for the slime monster, as there is a scene of a guy running from the cave screaming on fire from head to foot, who was not the monster but an innocent victim, either a mentally challenged man who hid out in the cave or someone who went there to combat the monster. This greatly upset me as a child. A little boy may or may not have been shot. In one scene, a lady with a distinct rural Southern American twang says how awful and horrible it was that "they shot that little boy," but I don't know whether a boy was actually shot or she just thought one was, or whether he was fatally shot or just wounded.

Naturally for much of the film, the monster is unstoppable. It is chased by military personnel with automatic weapons, tanks, etc. Towards the end it becomes entangled in a barbed wire fence and just sort of falls apart or dries up or is shot to pieces or all of the above. Anyhow, it dies.

What started this whole line of inquiry is some dude posted on the Ray Bradbury Message Board that he read this Bradbury story, again basically about sentient slime--a wad of pond scum, sticks, and the like, takes on physical form, wreaks some sort of havoc, and at the end dissolves at the bottom of a flowing stream. Three of us (Bradbury board members) told him we have read every well-known story by Bradbury and a good many rare and lesser known works, and Bradbury wrote no such story! One person said it was "It" by Theodore Sturgeon, which made me remember that in 1977-1978 I read that and another story I believe must have been "Slime" (though I can find neither story online and have none of the anthologies in which they are listed nor can I even identify where I may have read "It,") and the stories reminded me of this movie I saw on a pay TV at a bus station in 1973 and also the same film or one like it ran on TV, both before I read these stories. Anyhow, the dude INSISTS this is NOT a mistaken attribution because there was a little afterward in the book, asking the author why he wrote such a horror story and how it made him feel and he said he felt "cleansed" at the end which is "classic Bradbury" (which maybe it is but Bradbury did not write this). So anyway I emailed the Sturgeon trust official who is Sturgeon's daughter and asked if she can identify anthologies in which "It" appears not listed in the Locus Index to Science Fiction, as I recognize none of those, and it's not in any of the books I thought it was. I'm getting a bit irked because I spent a good deal of time today checking anthology contents and story summaries and am now bound to turn up where I read the story, if indeed I did, or how wrong my memory is if I did not, and in any case prove that sucker wrong!
I understand where you are coming from. I AM, an alcoholic from, Swedish descent. I had ten beers before I understood that Bradbury was half Swede life myself. I dont' shay nothing. My mother was a good lady. Life is a very stangle thing. As long as you don't get angry, I think you'll be findl. I miss my father, because I am very much like him gentically and thouthwise and (we are both SWEDISH).
 
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CoriSCapnSkip

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I understand where you are coming from. I AM, an alcoholic from, Swedish descent. I had ten beers before I understood that Bradbury was half Swede life myself. I dont' shay nothing. My mother was a good lady. Life is a very stangle thing. As long as you don't get angry, I think you'll be findl. I miss my father, because I am very much like him gentically and thouthwise and (we are both SWEDISH).

My Very Dear Sir, You are correct, life is strange and so was Ray Bradbury! His father's side descended from the very earliest settlers (not counting Spaniards which don't count) to these fair shores. One of his direct ancestors on that side was an accused witch. His mother, as we can't all and some of us don't, was born in a foreign country (Sweden) and immigrated as a small child. Together they gave birth to a force which will leave millions of lives forever changed even if he didn't write "It." As for my own ancestry, I understood I was almost 100% British Isles with a very little dash of French, German, and Native American. Since taking my DNA test, I have been declared 1% Jewish and while I was still getting used to that it was taken away and they never did give me my rightful dose of Native American! Also, it seems I have a fair helping of Scandinavian, last I checked it was Danish, but I could look again and that may change. I was unaware of your unfortunate condition which I pity greatly but I want to thank you very much for helping me. Yesterday I spent much of the day lamenting my sorry existence which today looks much better in contrast to some.
 

GNTLGNT

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CoriSCapnSkip

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Sounds like Caltiki the Immortal Monster, directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava. It was released recently as an excellent blu-ray from Arrow Video.


Kill it. Kill it with fire. That sounds right, but the setting seems all wrong. That does remind me, though, of a story a teenage boy used to tell us younger kids about Guajolote, a monster so horrifying that everyone who saw it died except for a three-year-old girl who was driven insane. As an adult online I Googled Guajolote hoping for a really great urban legend only to learn it is Spanish for turkey. This is one of many letdowns great and small in my life.
 
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Gerald

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Sep 8, 2011
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Kill it. Kill it with fire. That sounds right, but the setting seems all wrong. .

The setting is South American as in your description. How many films about Blob monsters in South America can there be? Not many. And there's a scene with a cave where the monster originates.
And the monster is liver-like: in fact it was tripe.


The whole film is on Youtube too, although the image isn't as sharp as on the blu-ray of course. I would check it out, because it sounds VERY similar.
 
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Blake

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When you come to think of it, there's not that many 'slime-monster' movies. The Blob obviously. The Thing( 1982) some parts of which could be classified as slime stuff. The Fly (1986), parts of which also is 'slimy' (I like that movie). The Toxic Avenger could be classified as well. I've never seen the short film, 'Grey Matter' based on KIng's short story. I watch it shortly.
 
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