slugsSlugs
Director: Juan Piquer Simón
Cast: Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip MacHale
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons

I love this goofy, gory, silly nature-runs-amok flick. Yeah, it’s not high art — it’s about slugs with big, pointy teeth eating people — and that is wonderfully stupid and fun all rolled into one. That should be no surprise because this film is directed by Juan Piquer Simón under the name J.P. Simon, who also directed one of my all-time favorite and silly as hell slashers flicks, 1982’s Pieces. If you love Pieces, I’m betting you’ll love Slugs. If you love gory monster movies where nothing is treated too seriously, you’ll love Slugs. If you love quintessential 80s horror flicks the likes of which they don’t make any more, you’ll love Slugs. So yeah, I’m betting you’ll love Slugs. If not, there’s something wrong with you. But hey, if you need more convincing, then keep reading about this new Blu-ray put out by the cool cult cinema lovers over at Arrow Video.

Your old pal toxic waste rear its ugly head once again in this movie, turning an insane number of normal, icky slugs into flesh-eating monsters. The creepy crawlers then begin to assault a small town slowly. Oh so slowly. One of the more amusing bits of this flick is the amount of effort the victims have to put forth to make sure they can be in a situation where slugs are actually a threat. A health inspector becomes aware of the threat early on and he tries to warn the mayor, but the powers that be are not closing the beaches, or the water park is staying open, or they only moved the headstones and not the bodies, or whatever, so our hero’s story of killer slugs is laughed at by the city. And really, can you blame anyone for that? Eventually (after enough people die) some experts take notice and the whole thing is resolved with lots of glorious explosions — as how all problems should be resolved.

This movie isn’t as off-the-wall weird as Juan Piquer Simón’s Pieces. No Asian guy jumps out of the darkness, does kung-fu for a minute and a half, falls over, passes out, then wakes up and blames it all on bad chop suey. But Slugs does have its moments, like when a woman accidentally includes a slug as part of her salad or when a guy gets a slug in his glove and would rather chop his hand off with a hatchet then, you know, take the glove off. My favorite bit that always, always makes me laugh out loud is when a very awesome puppet-looking slug with big teeth snaps at our hero’s finger. God, I love that. Slugs also has gallons of gore, as the little, hungry slugs are very messy eaters, and a generous dollop of nudity, as all drive-in flicks from the 1980s should. Hell, sometimes Slugs combines the two, like when two teenagers start doing what all teenagers do in movies like this, only to be interrupted by the very rude slugs. The jerks. And don’t get me started on the overly dramatic, TV-from-the-1970s sounding score that is more often than not used at inappropriate times. Experience the thrill as someone drives their car at a leisurely pace!!!! All those slices of amazing, and more, await you in this movie — what more could you want?

Okay let’s slither on to the extras that Arrow Video has included in this new Blu-ray release. There is an audio commentary track with author Shaun Hutson who wrote the novel this funky flick with based on. Yes, this was a book before it was a film. I know, I was as surprised to hear that as you were. There is also a fan commentary with writer and filmmaker and one time editor of Fangoria magazine, Chris Alexander. In addition to the two commentaries, there are three interviews in Spanish with English subtitles. The first one is with actor Emilio Linder that’s seven and a half minutes long, an interview with special effects artist Carlo De Marchis that’s almost 11 minutes long, and a third interview is with art director Gonzalo Gonzalo that’s 12 minutes long. Lastly there is an interview with production manager Larry Ann Evans that is also a tour of the locations used in the movie that runs 21 minutes. And of course there’s also the ever present trailer included in the mix.

Slugs is silly 80s horror done right. It’s got the three B’s legendary drive-in film critic, and my personal hero, Joe Bob Briggs was always looking for in a good movie: blood, breasts, and beasts. If you can enjoy some check your brain at the door fun and gore, you’ll get a kick out of Slugs. If not, well that makes me sad, and you probably won’t. I can so do that, so I can recommend Slugs very highly.

About Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has penned stories that have appeared in the anthologies: Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ Weird Fiction line. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

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