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!
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ma-cortes5 October 2012It's a monster film's homage with lots of man-eaters slugs and loads of blood , including revolting , repulsive scenes. This chiller with middling budget packs thrills, chills , some good action , gore , horror and few funny moments. It's a hybrid of monster movies from the 50s and modern American production in B series style . People are dying mysteriously and terrifyingly , and nobody has a track what the cause is . Only health inspector named Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) finds a possible origin , but his theory of murderous slugs is laughed at by the authorities . When his wife named Kim (Kim Terry) is attacked , he discovers that spilled toxic waste is being helpfully cleaned up by the slug population and causing countless deaths . Only when the slugs are mutating into blood-thirsty man eaters and the body count begins to rise , the police goes into the action . A slug expert from England begins snooping around does it begins to think Mike had the right idea after all.
This humdrum adaptation based on Monster movies from the 50s results to be a special version based on the bestseller titled ¨Slugs¨ by Shaun Hutson with screenplay written by also producer José Antonio Escrivá , Ron Gantman , and the same director Juan Piquer Simón (as J.P. Simon) . The thrilling screenplay is a bit yawn-inspiring but nifty special effects will keep you from dozing off , its author is Emilio Ruiz , he's a nice creature effects designer, a perfect craftsman who made effects , monsters , miniature and matte shots in ¨Pan's labyrinth ,The Devil backbone , Dune , Conan , Cat's eye¨ and many others . There're gruesome killings , rip-roaring action , thrills , chills and results to be briefly entertaining . Plenty of repellent images , it was X classified in England and was banned in the Australian state of Queensland until the early-'90s when the Queensland Censorship Board was disbanded . Average main cast with unknown actors as Michael Garfield and Kim Terry . There appears usual secondary actors seen in co-productions of the 60s and 70s , Spaghetti and Terror genre , as Frank Braña , Manuel De Blas and Patty Shepard . It's a slight fun with acceptable special effects by Emilio Ruiz Del Rio supported by Benito Cortijo and Juan Mirame , passable set decoration , functional art direction and none use of computer generator . The slugs monsters are the real stars of this production , being rightly realized , some of them are authentic Asturias (Spain) slugs and others are made by plastic miniature ; it has numerous "older technique" special effects such as matte paintings, rubber-suited monsters, Piquer uses the standard film technique of reverse-footage to create certain effects .
The fable is silly and laughable ,though the effects and action are professionally made . Among the most spectacular of its visuals there are some deeply shrouded caverns , several monsters roaring menacingly towards the camera , the colorful backgrounds of the sewers and slaughters and massacres committed by the horrible slugs . On the whole this is a suspenseful and tense thriller especially at the amazing ending tableau when Michael Garfield and his helper have to tackle the massive slugs at the lair in the final . Some scenes are clumsily shot but the movie has some good moments here and there . Some illogical parts in the argument are more than compensated for the excitement provided by the slugs , though sometimes are a little bit cheesy . Highlights of the story includes a roller-coaster ending , some terrifying frames in a restaurant and many others . Functional cinematography by Julio Bragado , being filmed the interiors in Madrid and exteriors in Lyon , (New York) , a population about 5.000 inhabitants . The motion picture was middlingly realized by Juan Piquer Simon . Piquer who recently passed away was a good craftsman , he owns his own studio and created and/or designed many of the simple special effects sequences you see in any of his many imaginative undertakings . Juan who was director of the Mostra of Valencia (Spain) , displayed a professional career and specialized on all kind of genres as Terror (Slugs, Piezes , Cthulhu ) and Sci-fi (The rift , The new Extraterrestres, Supersonic man) and made some adaptations about Jules Verne novels ("Fabulous Journey to the Center of the Earth" , "Mystery on Monster Island") . While his films have been universally panned by the prestigious reviewers, they have a kind of quality that must be endured to be fully appreciated . -
kapecki-5103611 January 2018The 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. -
The movie "Slugs" is unique because the titular vermin are actually the good guys in this horrific tale of nature gone awry. You see, these poor slugs have been mutated through the pollution of evil humans and don't mean to do anything malicious, they're just slugs- slugs with sharp teeth who eat flesh and excrete poison, but slugs none the less. The real bad guys are the humans, who either actively try to destroy our beloved slugs, or overreact when they encounter them.
For example, take the scene where the guy puts on the glove full of slugs. They were just hanging out in a comfortable work glove when out of nowhere this giant hand came at them, and they reacted instinctively, defending themselves and biting the guy. Now, instead of seeking medical attention for his slug bite, this guy runs around his greenhouse screaming like an idiot, spills some highly volatile chemicals, starts a fire, knocks a bookcase over on himself, and cuts off his own hand- then the fire and volatile chemicals mix and his house explodes. How can you blame that on the slugs?
This movie paints a portrait of humans that is less than favorable. The characters in this movie include the dumb sheriff who hates everybody, the drunk hick who's mean to his dog, and the lumpy sidekick whose wife is at least forty-five years older than him. There's also a set of drunken teens
that get attacked while copulating, and we have to see the skinny long-haired freaks' genitals. Meanwhile, there's a guy who looks like a demonic Leslie Neilson who yells "You don't have the authority to declare happy birthday!" for some reason. Finally, this parade of loathsomeness is rounded out by the guy from the MST3K classic "Pod People" whose face explodes after eating a slug-laces salad (another easily avoided fate blamed on the helpful, harmless slugs).
Humans are portrayed as greedy, stupid, racist, alcoholic, and, in one pointless scene, as would-be rapists. In the movie's climactic scene, the villainous humans try to burn the slugs who are cowering helplessly in the sewers, Well, since they're idiots, the humans succeed in BLOWING UP THE ENTIRE TOWN. They alone do more damage than the slugs ever did!
If you hate humans, and I know I do, you'll appreciate "Slugs". If you're a fan of bad cinema, you'll also appreciate this crapfest from the director of "Pieces" and "Pod People". There's enough bad acting, silly dialog, illogical plot twists, lame special effects, pointless scenes, and poor dubbing to hold your attention. -
gavin694219 February 2012Killer 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. -
Coventry27 November 2003What'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. -
GoregirlsDungeon22 September 2009'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. -
sgfirecracker9 November 2001Just kidding! This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen! It was so bad though, that it was hilarious. My friend and I purposly rented it because it looked so bad. Cheesy old horror flicks are always good for some laughs. The plot stunk, some of the voices were dubbed, the quality was horrendous. But I sure had a blast watching it!
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Leofwine_draca23 December 2016Here's an example of that rarity, an enjoyable late '80s horror film. This is B-grade film-making at its finest, with a derivative monster movie script which harks back to the late-night classics of the 1950s but with lots of added gore and general gruesomeness to shock and disgust modern, jaded audiences in equal measure. Of course, the film is easy to watch because it strikes the right balance between being campy and serious, and I guess it's impossible to make a totally serious film when killer slugs are your main ingredient.
I quite liked the depiction of small town suburban America in this movie. Ironic, as it was actually made in Spain with a half-Spanish cast. The characters are developed before being messily dispatched and despite lots of trite dialogue, you end up caring for the people involved. Another thing to enjoy is the old-fashioned over-the-top score which really dramatises the slug attacks, and almost makes them believable. There's an almost palpable sense of impending danger at the film's climax as our two have-a-go heroes attempt to dispel the threat by literally blowing up the town's sewer system with a chemical concoction.
Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon's direction is always interesting and keeps the action moving at a fast speed, making this a fun film to sit through. Right from the beginning as the mystery thickens there is no slowness in the build-up of the tale as with similar monster flicks, it's entertaining and watchable right from the start. The acting is generally good with some memorable characters popping up (the weird British scientist, the crazy mayor) and strong performances from the two leading guys.
Another thing I loved was the excessive, gratuitously slimy slug attacks which really go over the top. In one scene a gardener finds a slug inside his glove and is forced to lop off his hand with a hatchet before his greenhouse explodes! It has to be seen to be believed. The film's most infamous moment sees a loving naked couple get bloodily dispatched by rampaging slugs which invade their bedroom and isn't for the squeamish. Other highlights include lots of shots of writhing, fat, slimy slugs, plenty of mutilated bloody corpses and a disgusting highlight of a man's head bursting apart and loads of parasitic worms flying from the eye sockets.
It may be silly and sometimes juvenile but when it comes to the slug attacks the film delivers what you could hope from the title. Obviously a suspension of disbelief is required, i.e. in scenes of slugs dragging away the corpses to their lair. Imagine the kind of power these creatures would need to be able to drag a body mass hundreds of times larger than their own and the dynamics of such an operation and you'll realise just how untrue it is. However, in all SLUGS: THE MOVIE is just about all a fan could hope and expect from a B-grade horror film about killer slugs and therefore it gets a thumb up from me. -
Uriah4311 May 2015Deep in the sewage system of a small town in America, slugs have become contaminated by toxic waste and begin to consume everything in their path. Unfortunately, because the first victims are so completely devoured, the supervisor of the health department, "Mike Brady" (Michael Garfield) is completely unable to identify the cause. To make matters even worse, once he does suspect what is behind the killings the elected officials of the town are reluctant to believe him. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be. Although some of the acting wasn't that good and the script could have used some improvement, I feel safe in saying that this is not your everyday killer slug movie. That said, provided the viewer can take the overall story with a grain of salt-or possibly a few beers-a person might be able to enjoy this film to a limited degree. It's certainly nothing special but I suppose if a person has nothing better to do then it may help to fill the time-in a somewhat marginal sort of way. Accordingly, I rate it as just below average.
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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. -
PredragReviews18 March 2017The premise behind Slugs sounds ultra cheesy - mutated killer slugs. But it actually turns out to be quite fun and better than any regular "nature-run-amock" horror flick. I was expecting another god awful cheesy, campy bug movie along the lines of Ticks or Skeeter. In other words, I didn't expect anything good at all, who would ever be scared of a slug? I mean, it is one of the slowest creatures in the world after all!. Imagine my surprise then, when I found that not only is this movie not that bad, but.... it is actually pretty damn entertaining and good! Actually, the best word to describe Slugs is FUN! Sure, it's pretty damn cheesy and the general idea is pretty laughable, but with the delivery, Slugs actually turned into a decent little horror movie. Not only that, but it does even manage to...ahem, get under your skin a bit. Plus, for those gore hounds out there, there's a ton of that as well.
This is a very highly rated horror from the 80's, a fantastic movie with a well paced out plot and a great budget for effects, a good cast and an erratic tension building soundtrack, you wouldn't think slugs could be scary but they are now, only in the 80's could they get away with a creature feature like this, its chock full of amazing effects, plenty of marvelous stand out bloody gore moments throughout, if you're big on 80's horror then this is a must have!
Overall rating: 7 out of 10. -
rooee11 September 2016Toxic-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. -
warsystem0420 December 2012"Slugs", directed by the same man who brought the world the classic slasher flick "Pieces", as well as memorable MST3K fodder "The Pod People" falls somewhere in between both. Surprisingly gory and even a little sleazy, this movie definitely doesn't lack in entertainment value.
The age old tale of radiation mutating a species, in this case, slugs is the name of the game here. The film pulls no punches and slugs start eating the flesh off people from the get go, with TONS of blood sprays throughout. The acting is some of the worst I've seen in a while, especially the sheriff (and I've seen some TERRIBLE sheriffs), although the unintentionally brilliant and hilarious one liners more than make up for it. The scene in the restaurant is anticipated highly and is probably my favorite, as you know exactly what is going to happen at least 20 minutes before. It does not disappoint, and really, neither does much of the movie. The Halloween party sub plot though is utterly useless, especially the weak attempted rape, and detracts from the otherwise pretty linear plot.
"Slugs" is somewhat of a hidden gem, and anyone into extreme gore, anthropods, nudity, or a combination of all three will find it to be fun from start to finish. -
Juan Piquer Simon is a director who doesn't have much to brag about. The majority of his films have been relatively bad and show no true sense of authenticity. Yet for a movie like this, even though it still isn't a great movie, it seems like a little more time and care went into producing it.
Based on a novel with the same name by Shaun Hutson, Slugs is about a breed of killer gastropods that acquire an appetite for human flesh. Those are the main characters here. The actors that play their parts are OK but they are nothing to be remembered by. This movie has almost the same characteristic as Fright Night but nowhere as entertaining. The lead role belongs to a town man who suspects that there is a specific reason to why people are being killed in such horrific manners, and nobody believes him.
The acting isn't that good either. Yes they act, but there are times where it's weird and doesn't sound normal to say. There are two parts to the death scenes. One part is good, and the other, improbable. The improbable part is that many times during death scenes victims will struggle and won't be able to resist the power of the slug. People get dragged away, while others get pulled down; are the slugs really that strong? I doubt it. These slugs are supposed to be supernatural so they have to have some other mutation besides teeth.
The good part to the death scenes is that there is plenty of blood. No doubt will gore hounds get their fill. And although the scenes are predictable, it's still good to watch. What surprised me the most was the volume of slugs that were used for the movie. And it's not like they were prop slugs either. This was live footage of hoards of slugs! Some of these scenes were inside houses too; could you image the mess that had to be cleaned up afterward? I'm sure people are fine with cleaning up fake blood, but real slug ooze? Not sure.
The sound that was added to the slugs was a nice addition too. Much of it sounds thick and gooey, just how slugs should sound! The sound and special effects department must've worked hard for this because this was the strong element of the film. And that's good too because after all, this is a horror flick! Tim Souster, the composer of the music, had a good feel for what he was doing too. It actually retained some pitch from what used to be 1950's horror movies with its constant base line of brass and screaming string instruments. Not really effective in creating fear, but nostalgic to say the least.
This is one of the very few films that director Simon did with a little more effort. The dialog is weird but the sheer magnitude of live slugs that were used should grab the viewer's attention quite nicely. -
This is a cautionary tale about the folly of mankind, and the slow-moving doom brought upon our species. Flesh-devouring SLUGS have commenced their fiendish flensing, and no one is safe! Health Inspector, Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) soon finds himself on the slime trail of these slippery slayers. Can he uncover the cause of this plague before our dear planet is crawling with these wiggly bringers of death?
Packed to capacity with robotic characters spouting dialogue that was apparently made up on the spot, this is the most spectacular movie about rampaging terrestrial gastropods ever conceived!
BEST SCENES: #1- The greenhouse self-annihilation scene! #2- The post-coital massacre, complete with black floor tarp standing in for slugs! #3- The "big healthy salad" aftermath scene! #4- The town-exploding, final sewer showdown!
Drop everything and watch this immediately!... -
I first saw this in the late 80s. Revisited it recently. Wht can u expect from a horror film based on mutated killer slugs? But the salad scene was awesome.
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BandSAboutMovies10 January 2020Known in Spain as Slugs, Muerte Viscos, this movie is based upon the novel Slugs by Shaun Hutson. You may think, do I really want to watch a movie about slugs? And then you see who directed it: Juan Piquer Simón, the director of Pieces, one of the most insane pieces of cinema ever filmed.
Trust me, you want to see this. You want to see it right now.
When a rural town discovers that black slugs spawned from the disposal of toxic waste have infiltrated their water supply, all bets are off. Only a health inspector named Mike Brady has a chance to save any of them, but the authorities ridicule him at every turn.
You're not watching this for the story. You're watching it for the moments when slugs come ripping their way out of human bodies, like the guy who has them come out of his nose while he's toasting a client or the unfortunate couple whose post-coitus comes with a nasty case of murderous mollusks.
Slugs don't have teeth and certainly don't kill people like they do in this film. Screw that - these slugs are awesome. This is the kind of movie that I will force you to watch when you visit, yet I'll be jealous that this isn't my first time watching it. -
BloodTheTelepathicDog10 November 2008This could have been a rather entertaining film, but instead it ranks with other duds like Leeches and Rest In Pieces at the bottom of the cinematic food chain. Had they played this flick tongue-in-cheek, it could have been a very entertaining film, like Re-Animator or Dead ALive, but Juan Piquor Simon plays it tongue-in-cheek in spots but straight more often.
The premise of this film is a small community that is besieged by mutated slugs. There is an abandoned toxic waste dump near a sewer line that mutates the slugs into aggressive, meat-eating monsters - albeit monsters that move slowly and can be squished under your boot. Health Inspector Michael Garfiled and two accomplices are the only people that seem willing to fight the slugs while the sheriff and mayor think they are crazy. The climax is a laugh riot - unintentional at that - which makes you scratch your head as to how stupid (actors and screenwriter) the scenario of destroying the slugs is.
STORY: $$ (No new ground charted here. Simon seems to play the gore elements tongue-in-cheek but the dialogue is straight. Had Simon worked with a clever script - one with plenty of one-liners and eccentric characters, this could have been a cult film).
VIOLENCE: $$$ (You won't be letdown here. We get plenty of exploding chest cavity scenes as well as a grand head explosion in the middle of a fine Italian restaurant. The blood and guts, that many horror film watchers enjoy, is in full swing here. You also get corpses of people who have been picked clean by the slugs and plenty of slug smashing scenes).
ACTING: $ (Wow! Michael Garfield seems to know that this script is a stinker and he delivers his lines with a facial expression that suggests he knows how preposterous this film-making endeavor is. Kim Terry, as his wife, does an adequate job even though she does little beyond the hold-your-face-while-you-scream bit. The "teenagers" were all horrible actors - no exceptions. Man, this film could have used Bruce Dern or Jeffrey Combs!)
NUDITY: $$ (Two teens get naughty in bed before they get dispatched - in a poorly done scene - by a horde of slugs that crawled into the girl's bedroom. Both male and female nudity here). -
Boba_Fett11389 November 2011Sometimes it's hard to tell if a movie is simply just bad or if it's deliberately being bad and silly and very self-aware. I think that in this case the movie knew what it was doing. It knew it was going to be bad, so it simply decided to go and have some fun with it while they were at it. And I must say it really paid off. As bad and silly as this movie gets at times, it remains a perfectly fun and entertaining watch.
It's listed as an horror but it could so easily be seen as a comedy as well. It goes over-the-top with its action, horror as well as its acting. It's therefore already quite hard to take this movie very serious in the first place.
But it's not like the concept is making the movie any more believable. Killer slugs...that does not sound like the most scary or credible movie 'monsters', now does it. And of course they aren't but it does provide the movie with some excuses to come up with plenty of creative killings, that also are extremely gory at times.
Never knew your head could blow up, once you swallowed a slug but according to this movie that is the case. It should tell you something about the stuff this movie comes up with at times and how incredibly random, over-the-top and just plain silly things can get at times. And yes, also gory, although it's still not exactly remotely the most gory genre movie I have ever. The movie does has a couple of good moments but it seems to got restrained by their budget to go truly all out.
It was an American/Spanish co-production, which already is quite an odd thing on its own. It also means that the movie is filled with plenty of Spanish actors, who either got dubbed or are speaking English with a very thick accent.
So the acting is also most definitely not the most impressive thing about this movie but so aren't its characters. It's a bit disappointing that the movie is not really having a good main character in it. The movie is focusing on far too many characters, that too often don't even add anything to the story at all. They are just in it to get killed or nude at one point, or a combination of these two things.
As far as, deliberately bad or not, horror movies go, this one really isn't that bad. I at least had plenty of fun with it!
6/10
http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/ -
MartPol26 July 2000Number 1: Slugs do not move very fast and therefore are not very frightening.
Number 2: However, they somehow manage to congregate their thousands on a couple's bedroom floor in between them entering the room and finishing making love. Either these slugs do in fact move very fast or the couple have some kind of incredible sexual stamina.
Number 3: The line "we'll get naked and we'll get crazy" should not be used in a movie in which mutant slugs are taking over a town and have killed, in various unpleasant ways, several people personally known to the woman being addressed. -
Juan Piper Simon, that dependably shameless Spanish schlock shocker expert who blessed us with the staggeringly sleazy collegiate slasher swill "Pieces" and the horrendously lame pseudo-Lovecraft loser "Cthulhu Mansion," really outdoes himself with this flamboyantly foul, slimy, gore-soaked, grue-drenched, hell, flat-out outrageously splatteriffic bastardization of Shaun Hutson's sensationally squalid best-selling novel. A mutant strain of your average inveterate garden pests develop an insatiable craving for human flesh and subsequently start snacking on the deserving dipstick denizens of a heretofore dreary and uneventful snobby upstate New York suburb. The plot's every bit as trite and predictable as the above synopsis suggests. The cardboard cut-out characters are dull and nondescript. The performances from an uniformly atrocious cast are wooden enough to give your DVD player the TV equivalent to Dutch Elm disease. The dubbing simply stinks. Both the script and direction are very plodding and inept. However, the profoundly uncomfortable sense of unceasing, stomach-knotting vileness which permeates every last fetid frame of this gross, grimy, hideously ghastly fright flick makes it perversely enjoyable just the same. And the extravagantly gory'n'grody slug attack scenes certainly make this putrid picture a top-rate trashy winner. A poor handyman has to hack off his own hand with a hatchet after a slug crawls into his work glove. Another hapless fellow inadvertently eats a slug that somehow wound up in his salad (!) which later causes the guy's nose to bleed profusely into a glass of water and baby slugs to explode forth from his eyes. Two horny teens furiously fornicating their sweaty socks off get chomped in the nastiest example of celluloid coitus interruptus you are ever likely to witness in a killer mankind-munching carnivorous slug flick. Moreover, another little girl also gets graphically devoured and one luckless dude even falls into a sewer full of the murderous mollusks. Sure, this movie possesses no redeemable artistic attributes to speak of (and frankly who really cares about that pretentious high-falutin' nonsense?), but it's definitely so laughably bad and shoddy (not to mention downright ridiculous) that it overall cuts it as a good deal of righteously gruesome and lovably ludicrous cheeseball creature feature fun.
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Minus_The_Beer22 October 2016As you may have suspected from the simple title and accompanying promotional poster(s), "Slugs" is exactly the sort of film it appears to be. Mashing the creature-features of the '50s with an '80s body count sensibility, the film about sinister slugs snacking on the unsuspecting delivers on its simple premise. Looking for gross bugs, gnarly special effects, sometimes silly characters and equally ridiculous plotting? It's slimetime.
Director Juan Piquer Simón's film (which is also known as "Muerte Viscosa" due to its Spanish origins) is certainly a special kind of late-night treat. While admittedly light on plot or compelling characters, the main stars of the flick remain the ugly black slugs who leave a trail of carnage in their wake. If you've just eaten dinner, this may not be the best film to watch. Even by '80s low-budget standards, you really won't find more sickening special effects elsewhere. Even today, a scene where two lovers are pulled to their doom by a bedroom floor full of slugs is hard to choke down. Likewise, a poor patron at a restaurant who would have been well advised to not drink the water. I sincerely hope somebody wrote a negative review on Yelp for that one.
Sure, the film can be a little bit laggy between the outlandish scenes of carnage. And yeah, nobody in the film is terribly interesting to watch (though a lead character named Mike Brady might elicit a snicker or two). "Slugs" plays to the strength of its titular stars, and there's nothing wrong with that. Best viewed late at night, slightly intoxicated and/or as a double-feature with the likes of "C.H.U.D." or "Sssssss". -
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.