#995. Slugs: The Movie (1988)

Directed By: Juan Piquer Simón

Starring: Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip MacHale




Tag line: "They ooze. They slime. They kill"

Trivia: The movie was banned in Queensland, Australia until the early '90s when the local Censorship Board was disbanded







Over the years, a number of horror films have dealt with the subject of killer bugs, from spiders (Tarantula, Kingdom of the Spiders) and bees (The Swarm, The Savage Bees) to ants (Them!, Empire of the Ants) and even worms (Squirm). So why not make a movie about homicidal slugs?

People are turning up dead in a small American town, and health inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) wants to know why. The answer comes to him one afternoon when his wife, Kim (Kim Terry), notices several large slugs crawling in her flower bed, one of which attempts to bite Mike on the finger! Convinced his community is about to be overrun by carnivorous slugs, Mike tries to warn everyone about the impending danger, but nobody believes him. So, instead, he teams up with his friend, Don (Philip MacHale), an employee of the local water dept., to stop the slimy insects before they take over the entire town.

On the whole, Slugs: The Movie is a fairly gory film. In one scene, teenagers Bobby (Kris Mann) and Donna (Kari Rose), who’ve just had sex on Donna’s bed, fall victim to thousands of slugs that somehow made their way into her bedroom. In a panic, Donna tries to run and falls to the ground, where she’s quickly devoured by the slugs (some of which eat her eyes). Another casualty is Ron (Stan Schwartz), a young professional who, the night before, accidentally ate a slug that had gotten into a salad his wife prepared. While at a business lunch the next day, Ron’s nose starts to bleed uncontrollably, and before his companions know what hit them, his entire face is gone. While the make-up and special effects in Slugs: The Movie aren’t always the greatest, they look good enough, providing the film with a handful of memorably gruesome sequences.

And it’s a good thing Slugs: The Movie has plenty of gore, because there’s not much else in the film to get excited about. The acting is bad from start to finish, and the first few scenes with the slugs, including one where they attack an elderly couple named Harold (Juan Majan) and Jean (Lucia Prado), go absolutely nowhere. But while Slugs: The Movie is far from a perfect film, or, for that matter, even a good one, I will say it’s a better than average slug picture.

Take that for what it’s worth.