Slugs (1988)

The nature gone wild films never changed much since The Birds.  They just took the Jaws route, which means, same plot, different creature.  Some event, often triggered by man's hubris, causes nature to turn en masse against humanity.  Day of the Animals just went for it, since by the 1970s it didn't make much sense just to stick with the birds and the bees, especially after Night of the Lepus, but most of these features focused on one group of animals, often affected by toxic waste or radiation if they bothered to explain it at all.   

As the genre dragged on it got sillier.  More and more it got to either creatures that aren't too frightening, or ones that are easy to flee from.  Squirm, to its credit, had so many worms coming out the ground and attacking that it made some kind of sense, but slugs are really not something someone needs to worry about unless they're stupid enough to eat one raw.  Even in mutant carnivorous form there is the option of stepping away from them and getting some salt - something that is mentioned briefly in Slugs, but ignored for no good reason, other than salt doesn't go boom. 

Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) is the health inspector for Wayne County.  One morning he joins Sheriff Reece (John Battaglia) to deliver an eviction notice and inspect the house.  Unfortunately, they only find the remains of the person they intend to evict.  Other strange occurrences begin happening around the town of Ashton, and soon Don Palmer (Philip MacHale), Brady's friend in the Sanitation Department, gets involved.  

After more deaths and a strange appearance of carnivorous slugs in his wife Kim's (Kim Terry) garden, Mike takes a sample to John Foley (Santiago Álvarez), a British scientist who takes an interest and soon figures out a way to kill the creatures.  Unfortunately the solution involves a chain reaction that may cause damage to a fair amount of the town - and that's if Brady and Palmer survive their trip to the sewer to set a trap for the slugs. 

Juan Piquer (or J.P. Simon this time around) is a Spanish director known mostly for the movie Pieces.  It is one of the most wildly inept and baffling slasher films ever made, generally well-liked for festival shows as it allows the audience to have a bit of a laugh.  Slugs, on the other hand, seems to be aware of its silly premise, including the fact that a truck load of Morton's could have solved the whole problem early on.  That said, like in Pieces, the highlights are the gore effects rather than the performances, and are decently done.  Piquer also doesn't disappoint with a scene involving parasites from the one of the creatures erupting from a man in a restaurant.  

The cast is a combination of American and Spanish this time, although unlike Pieces he seems to have made it over here to film the movie, or at least the exteriors.  Piquer also manages to stay on plot, though that's hardly a difficult thing to do when the plot has been done many times before.  Still, there are moments that just show either his inability to understand how a narrative should go, or possibly that he is just so misogynistic that it never crossed his mind that, if a guy tries to rape a woman, it's usually best if he gets a come-uppance rather than her dying horribly.  It's almost as if Piquer took some joy in torturing the character just so he could drum up controversy in what is otherwise a by-the-book film. 

Slugs, while generally enjoyable for what it is, is neither inept enough to laugh at or good enough, either as a horror or a comedy, to really recommend.  It has some good scenes, a strange soundtrack that sounds like it was made for a movie of the week and a rather decent finale, but the rest is nothing that hasn't been seen many times before. 

Slugs (1988)

Time: 89 minutes

Starring: Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip MacHale, Santiago Álvarez

Director: Juan Piquer