Movie Info
Movie Name: Slugs
Studio: Dister Group
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movies
Release Date(s): February 5, 1988
MPAA Rating: R
Slugs stop by for a bite
A small town has a slug problem. Fueled by toxic waste, the slugs have taken a liking to human flesh. As health inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) tries to track down what is killing people in his neighborhood, the slugs are growing bolder and hungrier. The slugs must be stopped before they spread and the killing continues!
Directed by Juan Piquer Simon, Slugs (Slugs, Muerte Viscosa) is an American-Spanish horror film. The movie is based on the 1982 novel by Shaun Hutson, and the film gained a cult following over the years.
I actually knew the book Slugs before I knew the movie. I loved drugstore horror novels (particularly the covers) and would always look at them even if I couldn’t get them. I never read Slugs, but I remember the menacing cover of horrifying slugs…killing! I never got to see the movie Slugs either, but through the magic of the internet, Slugs is readily available.
The horror…the horror…the laughs
Slugs is so goofy that it has become a gif. The biting slug is worth looking up if you haven’t seen it, but the majority of the film involves the characters either being killed by parasites in the slimy creatures or falling into a big pile of them. It has a bit of Jaws mixed in (the city is trying to make a big business deal), and the film develops as you’d expect plot-wise.
The cast is…odd. You get a mix of English speaking actors and foreign actors that are dubbed (badly). The conversations are stunted as a result and the acting in the movie has no flow. None of the leads are particularly strong actors to begin with, but it feels like the language is sometimes a problem as well (plus, you have a lead character named Mike Brady which just has you thinking of Brady Bunch getting consumed by slugs the whole time).
Oh…I guess I have a shellfish alergy
The movie also is put together oddly. You have the rather non-threatening creatures which everyone fears (and could easily step on in the beginning of the invasion) and the characters pretty much have the slimy things place on them and begin bleeding profusely. You have scenes like the man’s head blowing up in the diner scene due to parasites, and some of the gore led to censorship for the film. In addition to the non-threatening threat, you have strange music cues that just pop over scenes. It doesn’t usually make sense.
Slugs is so bad it is good. It is one of those films that is great for group watching. The movie sometimes takes directions you don’t expect (a girl avoids a sexual assault at a party only to be eaten) and is full of weird fringe characters that are killed before they are even established. The novel was followed by a sequel called Breeding Ground in 1985, and I would told see a sequel if they ever decided to make it.
