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Vintage Video: Slugs (1988) - Mutant, Carnivorous Crawlers Anyone?

The horror genre is comprised of multiple subgroups ranging from slashers, zombies, splatter and so forth. But every once in a while we turn the corner from those categories and come across a gutsy attempt from filmmakers to produce a horror tale with a fresh antagonist in a class of its own: Insects.

Spanish director Juan Piquer mon (Pieces) put a horrific spin on nature’s pests by mutating and pointing the finger as the culprit at your typical garden slug of the grisly, flesh-eating murders about to endure. Subsequently, Slugs: The Movie (1988) was hatched.



Loosely based on the novel of the same name by British author Shaun Hutson, mon’s slithery tale follows the county health inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) as he attempts to find out what could be caung the strange murders happening around his small town. nce the sheriff doesn’t seem to care about anything Brady has to say, the semi-charismatic health inspector turns to vigilante justice to track down this slimy trail of death.

As Brady affirms that the gruesome killings could not posbly be done by another human or animal, he puts the pieces of the puzzle together after speculating the steroid-laden, carnivorous slugs with his own eyes. With the help of his buddy at the sanitation department and a chemist (who conveniently happens to be a slug enthuast) to formulate a lithium-based solution, Brady devises a plan to obliterate the little bloodsuckers within the city’s sewers.



For a low-budgeter, Slugs actually provides a decent amount of gore including eye popping, a man destined to amputate his hand with an axe, and two teens being eaten alive following a lustful encounter. Evidently, you won’t find any CGI here and the clasc effects of good old-fashioned camera techniques and human “gross anatomy” made from scratch works quite well in mon’s favor. Even the mucal score radiates an eerie pulse at times.

Of course you must expect cheesy dialogue throughout with acting that falls well short of a performance to remember, although the sheriff does provide decent, unintentional comic relief. But if you disconnect your cerebral cortex from reality for the 89 minutes that ensues (especially the intro as we see a man get pulled into the water from his boat by the herbivore-turned-carnivores), Slugs is a time to laugh, cringe and become ckened all in one.

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Any fan of 80s horror should know that with director, and co-writer in this case, J.P. mon at the helm, it’s bound to be an entertaining time no matter its context.

good little piece here - this one makes for a great double feature when you watch it with the more contemporary flick Slither, which itself is a goofy little flick with some plot milarities.

Indeed Slither is a great contemporary comparison. And even looking in retrospect, make it a triple-flick night with one of my personal favorite insect horror films from '76: Squirm ~

The gore in this movie keeps me coming back.

The effects were great.

Without them I would have tossed this movie into the fire.

But because it excels at grosng us out, its one of my guilty pleasures, for sure ;)