Slugs: The Movie

Director: Juan Piquer Simon (1988)
Starring: Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip MacHale
Find it: IMDB

Slugs: The Movie, as opposed to slugs: the animals, I guess. You have to be pretty bad at life to get yourself killed by slugs, of all creatures, but that hasn't stopped Slugs: The Movie from making a film out of such a series of occurrences. Writer Shaun Hutson (upon whose novel this film is based) even managed to get two books out of the idea. It's a more daffy idea than most creature features, but Slugs has its icky charms.

As in the books, the death sequences in Slugs all have the feel of a pre-credits Casualty injury. There's the horny teenagers having sex (well, maybe you might find that in Casualty After Dark), the grumpy old chap in his greenhouse and the young woman preparing dinner. Each of them come to a grisly end thanks to the slugs, which alternate between looking like actual slugs and black turds with teeth.

I was putting the bins out, a few weeks ago, and I stood on a slug whilst wearing only socks on my feet. Slugs: The Movie manages to replicate that feeling throughout. It's a credit to the species' inherent nastiness (sorry, slugs) that the film manages to feel utterly repellent while also being really bad at the same time. I found myself itching all over several times, particularly during the opening credits and the sex scene. As cops pour over the aftermath of the sex/death by slugs scene for evidence, hero Mike Brady remarks on the slug trails left all over the floor. It is shocking that nobody makes a jizz joke. Wasted opportunities aside, I maintain that the film is properly nasty at times.

The rest of the time, it's hilarious bullshit. The exploding greenhouse scene is just great, as is a bit in which a slug eats a poor unsuspecting hamster. The acting is atrociously bad, all monotone deliveries and terrible monologues. A scientist gives a lecture on slugs to our heroes, describing the creatures as though no-one has ever seen a slug before in their lives. Mind, the film was made in 1988, long before the advent of Wikipedia. If you wanted to research a subject in those dark days, you had little option but to ask a scientist. A useless scientist, to boot. Even I could tell you that all you need is a bit of salt or a few half-full beer cans to be rid of the lettuce-munching menace, and I'm no Alan Titchmarsh. But no, I suppose blowing up the sewers beneath your own city is so much easier.

Slugs: The Movie is not very good. Its more gruesome scenes are very well done, but there's no escaping from the fact that slugs are a pretty rubbish threat (unless you're an idiot or a vegetable) and that the heroes could easily solve the problem with a few salt shakers and some common sense. That poster there though, redeems everything.