Slugs, muerte viscosa

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.

The paint-by-numbers plot of "Slugs" is hardly innovative, even for a horror movie: chemical wastes generate mutated, flesh-eating killer slugs in a small community whose authority figures refuse to believe the stalwart head of the local health department until it is too late. Our heroes are on their own to devise a way to kill the beasties and do so with explosive vigor and sacrifice...except. And although the film was made after Roger Corman left New World, it has his trademark drive-in blend of teen sex, blood, and gross-out makeup effects.

But the direction is tight, efficient and never lagging, with good production values within its budget and mostly competent acting and dialog that lets the clichés roll. Special effects are quite well done (if generally repulsive), and the small town atmosphere (exteriors were primarily filmed in the upstate New York town of Lyons) is effective.

Slugs is an above average entry into the low budget eco-horror genre, good for those who still miss Saturday night at the drive-in.

'Slugs' definitely qualifies for the so bad it's good category. If a film is going to be this bad, it better make me laugh and have some decent gore. Slugs delivers the bad-goods! It really is bad though. Painfully awful. Some of the worst dialog and acting I have ever come across. But damn if it didn't make me laugh so freaking hard my eyes were watering! In addition, it delivers some awesome scenes of gore and carnage that have to be seen to be believed. Slugs is classic shlocky, sleazy insanity that entertained me immensely.

I really summed it all up in my opening paragraph, but I cannot reiterate enough how often this film made me laugh. There is plenty of bad acting, but the character that gave me more laughs than anyone else was Sheriff Reese. He is an A-typical, too often portrayed, grizzled, hornery cop character, but is WAY over the top with it. I mean WAAAAAAAAAAAAY over the top! He pretty much shouts his entire dialog and what comes out of his mouth is so bloody funny, I am starting to giggle as I'm writing here. Honest to god, I don't laugh this hard at most comedies! It's not just the dialog, acting and story that are painfully bad, the music is also truly awful! The 'Slugs' theme is this cool screaming thing, but every other music choice is so bizarrely inappropriate it can't be ignored. You don't actually see the first couple of kills which had me petrified, but when the gore comes, it is nasty, exploitative 80's fun. At one point, a teenage girl slips and falls stark naked onto a floor teeming with slimy slugs and writhes about covered in the creatures, screaming on top of her lungs as they eat away at her, dislodging her eye from its socket. That is just one example of the fine slug-related deaths you will be treated to. Anyone who is familiar with Juan Piquer Simón's film 'Pieces' will already know the man loves his gore. If you liked that film, then you will surely get a kick out of 'Slugs'. Painfully bad dialog and acting that will have you howling, injected with a nice helping of gore, and copious shots of squirming, slimy, fat slugs! I think there is a very small section of the population that would enjoy this epic crapfest as much as I do. If that's you…enjoy the heck out of this one! Recommended!

Why isn't Juan Piquer Simon celebrated for the repulsive cinematic magic he has created? No only did he makes "Slugs", he made "Pieces", too, and even took a crack at Jules Verne's "Journey To The Center of the Earth". I read Shaun Hutson's "Slugs" long before I experienced the movie, and I even read the sequel, "Breeding Ground", before seeing the movie. In three words, it is thoroughly disgusting entertainment, with echoes of Jeff Lieberman's great "Squirm". The Spanish/Mexican blending of scenes doesn't really work, but who cares? The film, like any Ed Wood or Rene Cardona film, is entertaining. The slug attacks are gory and unrestrained and Simon's direction of the little critters is better than his direction of the actors. Lap it up!

Slugs (1988)

** (out of 4)

Gory, dumb but fun "nature attack" movie about a small town coming under attack by mutant slugs. These slugs might move slow but that doesn't mean they don't like to eat some human flesh and it's up to one guy (Michael Garfield) to try and stop them. SLUGS comes from director Juan Piquer Simon who is best remembered for his cult favorite PIECES but this here is every bit as entertaining so we can really give him credit for two of the most fun bad movies of the decade. This one here wouldn't have worked even if Stanley Kubrick or Martin Scorsese had directed it because, really, who on Earth would even try to make a movie about killer slugs? No matter how much carnage they do, the viewer just isn't going to be scared of a bunch of slugs. With that said, instead of scares the director gives us some pretty wild and pretty over-the-top gore scenes and many of them have to be seen to be believed. The highlight of the film has to be a sequence where a couple gets done having sex only to find out too late that the entire floor is covered in slugs. The poor woman who falls on the floor makes for a very gory sight. Other highlights include a very memorable chain of events where one man unknowingly eats a slug. The aftermath has enough gore for two movies. There's no question that the death scenes are the highlight of the film and help it move along. The performances are a mixed bag with most of the cast giving pretty wooden work. Can you blame them considering they're in a movie about killer slugs? The pacing in the film is a bit too slow for its own good but there's no doubt that fans of silly horror films will want to check it out.