Slugs

Mrs. C. Hulmes

at 2:57 pm

For all Shaun Hutson fans out there the “Slugs” DVD is a must have for your DVD library of horror films. This film is as it states on the DVD was adapted from the novel “Slugs” by Shaun Hutson.
Rating: 5 / 5

stuart

at 7:19 pm

After a series of unexplained disappearances, Health Inspector Mike Brady, (Michael Garfield) and his wife Kim, (Kim Terry) are called in to try to figure out the cause of them. After finding a slaughtered person with Sheriff Reese, (John Battaglia) on a call for an eviction notice, they find that the sewers are also backed up. Meeting up with Don Palmer, (Philip MacHale), the County Sanitation Supervisor, to clean out the pipes, they find that it’s the breeding ground for a species of mutated slugs, and are using the water pipes to enter the homes and feed on the population in the town. Working together with John Foley, (Santiago Álvarez), a scientist friend of Kim, and Don from the sanitation department, they race to find a way to kill the thousands of killer slugs infesting the town’s sewers before they kill the entire population.

The Good News: This is a really nice and pleasant surprise. There is a lot to really like in this one. One of the things it gets right is that the title creatures become a threat over the course of the movie. It’s got slugs, lots and lots of them. They’re pretty much your typical run-of-the-mill garden variety, only enlarged and kill en masse. Whenever someone’s killed, not just one or two slugs get ‘em, but thousands somehow always manage to sneak into a room containing a victim without anyone noticing or seeing them. It’s a little unbelievable the first time around, but after awhile, it gets a little creepy and there’s a couple moments of dread built up through them. The other scene that builds up dread nicely is where a slug crawls into a bowl of lettuce being prepared and is messily chopped up and put into it without being noticed. It’s payoff results in one of the best deaths of all time, where the victim later on attends a fancy dress party, and after suddenly convulsing, their head explodes as thousands of tiny slugs fly out into the room. A close-up afterward shows them eating the brain, which is a really great shot, and just adds to the panic and hysteria caused. In general, though, the deaths are quite creative and really over-the-top. There’s one character who has the most spectacular death ever, where after putting on a glove with an unnoticed slug in it, begins flailing around the room and tries to cut off his own hand before knocking these chemicals off a table that start a fire, then knocks a shelf on himself, and finally gets blown up when the building explodes. It’s pretty hilarious, and really becomes comical after a while. Easily the film’s best scene is the sex scene. As this young couple are going at it, the slug army can be seen massing together on the bedroom floor. During the course of it, the girl falls, naked, onto the floor, rolling and screaming in pain amongst the slugs. We get to see a bloody naked woman roll around with carnivorous slugs as she scream’s in ecstasy. It’s a really memorable scene that really sticks out and comes off really well. While the other deaths won’t be mentioned, they are no less creative or extremely gory, and the gore here is well done as well, making them even more realistic and quite believable. The slugs here are also very well done, looking almost exactly like real slugs with the addition of a set of fangs that allows for some great blood-letting and giving them an great look as well. The pace in here is really a big plus, moving along with little down-time to stop for useless subplots and keeping the focus on the slugs and the race to discover what they are and how to stop them. That it’s never really a boring film, with plenty of attacks and action set-pieces almost assuredly keeps the film in a straight-line pace, and is remarkably watchable. It turned out to be a quite surprising and entertaining creature feature.

The Bad News: There wasn’t a whole lot to dislike here, and most of what’s here is purely subjective anyway. The biggest issue no matter what is that the film doesn’t display a whole lot of intelligence. The motive for the slug’s appearance is hinted at, but is never given as to why the behavior changed as well, and it can be a real hindrance. The absolutely-clichéd appearance of the relationships between the various workers in the town, from the disbelieving mayor who wants to conceal their existence to the shady public figures are all too familiar and don’t really show much intelligence to come up with something new. The other major striking point is the film never allows the characters to walk away from the creatures, who aren’t the fastest ones in the world, and set up a trap for them when they follow. They continue to allow the creatures to come up on them, and it becomes a little repetitive to keep on using that same style sequence over and over again. These really belong with the film no matter what, as the other problem is the cheesy nature of the film. It’s not something that will hinder those who love to seek these kind out, but for those that don’t like a really cheesy film will be put off by the level of it in here. Still, this was a really entertaining film.

The Final Verdict: One of the most entertaining films ever, this one delivers the gory goods and always packs something in that will entertain. It will never be called anything more than that, and that’s all it really should be. Gorehounds and lovers of cheesy horror should lap this up, while those with interest in serious horror should steer well clear of this.

Rating: 4 / 5