Slugs

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!

From Juan Piquer Simon, the late, great director who also blessed genre fans with such unforgettable gems as "Pieces" and "Pod People", comes this ode to those slimy little animals, who have mutated and become carnivorous thanks to that old cinematic standby, toxic waste. The monsters start claiming victim after victim, and only a select few individuals are willing to do anything about the problem, including County Health Inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield).

Based on a novel by Shaun Hutson, and scripted by Ron Gantman, this movie is delicious...really. Who can see the scene with the lettuce and not feel hungry? "Slugs: The Movie" (named this way to avoid confusion with "Slugs: The Musical"?) is such good fun, and when watching it, it's hard to believe that Gantman, Simon, and company didn't have their tongues in their cheeks the whole time, what with the unrelenting delivery of so much priceless dialogue ("You ain't got the authority to declare Happy Birthday, not in this town!") and performances.

They also show their willingness to cast aside expectations in terms of one scene late in the game involving an attempted rape. One memorable sequence features two young lovers who get besieged by the titular killers, and the male of the pair quite prominently displays his backside for the camera. Of course, if you want a true highlight sequence, it has to be the one in the restaurant with the VERY unlucky David Watson (Emilio Linder), which is so very appropriately timed.

The gore and effects are quite fun to watch in this thing, and they're the work of Carlo De Marchis. The actors are all a hoot, especially Santiago Alvarez as John Foley, John Battaglia as Sheriff Reese, and prolific veteran Spanish actor Frank Brana in a brief cameo appearance.

Horror fans whose tastes include the silly & cheesy 80s material are sure to find this a real treat, right from its amusing beginning to its impressive conclusion where a lot of things blow up REAL good. It's 90 minutes worth of engaging nonsense.

Eight out of 10.

'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!

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.

What's the use of bashing this movie totally into the ground ? I think both cast & crew were perfectly aware that they weren't making a true masterpiece of cinema. They joined into the trend of making disgusting and utterly nasty mutated animal movies and - keeping that in mind - it's good for what it is. Besides, the director of Slugs - the Spanish Juan Piquer Simón - was the same guy who brought us the most hilarious "so bad it's good"-movie I ever saw !! He delivered Supersonic Man 10 years earlier and I'm still laughing when I think about that, so I can't be too harsh on him.

Slugs is a very easy to watch horror film. It's nothing more than a slideshow of bloody and gory scenes with an extremely thin plotline to connect it all. A whole lot of lousy characters are introduced and a few minutes later they're brutally getting killed by thousands of ugly slugs. That's it ! Meanwhile, a guy from the healthy department is running from one side to the other, trying to convince his little town that they're facing a terrible disaster. Don't worry too much about where the slugs come from and how they got this big, because the scriptwriters didn't seem bother much about that neither. Mutated flesh-eating slugs...period ! The acting is bad and the dialogues are ever worse...Pay no attention to what they're saying because it looks just like a lousy attempt to create a little atmosphere. Nasty killings and whole buckets of blood ! that's the only reason to give it a look.