Slugs (1988)

Toxic-mutated, man-eating slugs descend upon a small US town, consuming everything human in their path. The town's health inspector, Mike Brady (Michael Garfield), is convinced by the threat, but even as the body count multiplies, the mayor and his businessman cronies won't listen. It's up to Brady to find a solution to end the slaughter and save the town. Shifting the action from Shaun Hutson's Britain-set novel, "Pieces" filmmaker Juan Piquer Simón writes and directs, following formula all the way. I mean, the hero is virtually named Chief Brody and the upstanding-professional-versus-blinkered-authority schtick was done miles better in Steven Spielberg's Jaws 13 years earlier. "What'll it be next," scoffs the sheriff, "demented crickets?" He's got a point. Convincing the authorities that there's a shark in the water is a far cry from carnivorous gastropods. But the premise actually works okay – its inherent silliness is a reasonable argument for scepticism, after all. Slugs: The Movie (to give it its full title) is dumb as hell but not without merit. It's well made and swiftly paced, and there's just enough characterisation to make you care about the community under threat (even if those characters tend to be identified by a single feature: she's a drinker; he's an Englishman etc). The special make-up effects are good, gradually ramping up in grossness. These little bastards are mean, happy to munch the flesh and the eyes off their victims. There are hints of the Piranha movies in the creatures' swarming nature (although the quality of filmmaking is a step up from James Cameron's cack-handed sequel). But a more appropriate comparison might be Fred Dekker's equally squirmy Night of the Creeps, which two years prior did a better job of embracing the camp 50s monster movie vibe.While there are probably too many scenes involving people walking into offices and receiving phone messages (if ever there was a movie to be fundamentally altered by cell phones, it's this), the narrative structure is solid, and decent production values allow for a surprisingly exciting and large scale ending – even if Brady's final plan is preposterously reckless.Slugs delivers few surprises, simply transposing its icky threat into a stock plot for a genre not used to posing such slow-moving threats. But it's fun and disgusting and worth a go for the post-pub slot in the run-up to Halloween.

If you go into this with an open mind, you'll see that this movie has just enough of everything to keep most people happy and entertained for the duration; mutant bugs, gore, bad dialogue, bad dubbing, sex, nudity, yet another toxic waste site, explosions, cheap thrills; you name it and you'll find it in Slugs.Apparently a mutated form of slug has turned into ravenous bloodthirsty killers and is picking off random towns people in fairly gruesome ways.The only one who seems to have some kind of clue as to what is going on is the local health inspector who puts all the pieces together and concludes that the slugs are to blame, however all of his warnings to the mayor and the police chief go unheeded so he and a friend of his decide to take matters into their own hands.Now before anyone asks how can slugs, (even mutated slugs), be able to kill people, we learn that not only can they bite, but their slime has some kind of paralysing neurotoxin, so these things literally eat you alive. Given that fact, the death scenes are fairly gory, in particular the business man who's eyes explode out of his head with blood flukes, and the young couple eaten alive after a session of gratuitous love-making.The movie is also not without its flaws and annoyances though. As part of this was filmed in Spain, the dubbing in parts is quite obvious. The police chief tries in vain to be a straight and narrow hard-nosed cop, but just comes across as rude and annoying. The whole segment of the old couple who are blown up in their greenhouse was just too ridiculous even for a B-grade horror. One of the slugs had crawled into his gardening glove, and yet he doesn't notice it's presence as soon as he puts it on? It's only after the slug starts to bite that he freaks out and then for some reason he's unable to get the glove off again. Solution? Cut of your hand with an axe! I don't get the need to have highly corrosive acid in a greenhouse, but when the bottles fall over and eats its way through power cables, it's clear that this is not going to end well.Slugs is a movie that's fit for a late night horror marathon. Some sources claim that kids who watched Slugs in the 80's or early 90's have remained scared of slugs ever since. So while it's an incredibly silly movie, it's also a lot of fun and you can decide for yourself whether or not it's safe to go back into the garden.

I have never been extremely creeped out or even grossed out before. This film tackled that. The skin crawling factor was through the roof. Seriously on being grossed out, I don't get queasy through certain scenes of gore but I had to stop the film and watch it later due to me wanting to eat. I personally found the film enjoyable but what I previously said enhanced the viewing experience. I completely went into this film blind and found something I would like to own. The acting doesn't really stand out but it's fine for what kind of film this is. No one is expecting an Oscar caliber film, but if you like gory creature features, give this a try.

Killer slugs on the rampage in a rural community.Believe it or not, the story behind the screenplay started as a book. In the original novel, the titular slugs were not caused by radiation or any such thing, but actually on author Shaun Hutson's knowledge that there were three species of carnivorous slugs. (The book's success apparently was enough to get the author the gig to write "The Terminator" novelization.)If you love the late J. P. Simon's "Pieces" (a true cult classic if ever there was one), you may also love "Slugs". It has some of the same great things going for it: incredible special effects on the gore, a great 1980s mentality and some of the worst dialogue ever to hit a screen near you (which may be due to the fact that the actors are not proficient in English).The film is best enjoyed by taking it as not seriously as possible. I mean, thousands of slugs that come and go in unison, eat people and apparently have the ability to plan ahead? Not very plausible. A high school teacher who has his own lab for experiments? Not likely.But I personally love this movie. I think it is so unbelievable that it is just perfect for a good film with friends, some Tootsie Rolls and a soda. And if you have the legendary horror historian Jon Kitley lurking around making slug-shaped chocolates, that just tops it off. This Spanish film made in America featuring Italian actors is a must-see.The Arrow Video Blu-ray is jam-packed. We have audio commentaries with "Slugs" author Shaun Hutson and filmmaker Chris Alexander. The Hutson commentary is interesting in that he never actually met any of the film's producers, actors or director, so the focus there is much more on horror literature. There are also new interviews with actor Emilio Linder, special effects artist Carlo DeMarchis, art director Gonzalo Gonzalo and production manager Larry Ann Evans. The last one, with Evans, is really very insightful and tells you more stories about the making of the film than you're likely to hear anywhere else.