Slugs

Bug movies give me the creeps.  Always have.  I hate bugs.  The Nest, Squirm, Ticks, Arachnophobia, all freak me out.  In fact the only film in this “Bug Monster” genre I like is Slugs. 

I don’t know if its because it funny, it has tons and tons of surprisingly good gore fx, or if it’s the fact that a thought of a slug, the slowest creature of all killing people.  What’s also weird is this little gem of a film is actually based on a book.  A book I just so happened to read.

Slugs is the story of a small town where people keep dying.  In fact the film opens with a couple pulled from a boat and dying as the water turns red.  Then the town drunk gets half eaten.  Luckily the town drunk is a slob and when our hero Mike Brady, the town Health Inspector goes to evict him from his house he finds him half eaten with slime all over the place. In fact while this is going on more and more people are dying from Slug related deaths.  

Of course when he expresses his theory of Killer Slugs no one believes him.  Turns out the slugs are a bi product of toxic waste dumping.  It gave them fangs and everything.  They lie in the sewer when Mike has to go to stop them.  Luckily he is joined by the resident water main guy and local slug expert.  One of my favorite kills is the guy who puts on gardening gloves that happen to be full of slugs.  Eww I wear gloves when I work outside, that just makes my fingers twitch typing this.

This film is funny, but it is over the top gross.  There are tons of kills and they are all extremely gores and bloody.  The special effects are really well done for a typical 80’s bug film. Slugs have teeth so they really chew people up.  Is this film scary, no, it’s not going to make you jump or anything.  It will make you squirm though.  Just picture yourself with mutant slugs crawling all over you.  I guarantee you will cringe quite a few times. 

The acting in the film is quite good, and as this is an Arrow release the audio and video transfers are tremendous.  And as its Arrow you get a lot of special features to go with it.

Brand new restoration from original film elements

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation

Original Uncompressed PCM Stereo audio

Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Audio commentary with Slugs author Shaun Hutson

Audio commentary by writer and filmmaker Chris Alexander

Here’s Slugs In Your Eye – an interview with actor Emilio Linder

They Slime, They Ooze, They Kill: The Effects of Slugs – an interview with special effects artist Carlo De Marchis

Invasion USA – an interview with art director Gonzalo Gonzalo

The Lyons Den – an interview and locations tour with production manager Larry Ann Evans

1988 Goya Awards promo reel

Original Theatrical Trailer

Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Wes Benscoter

Fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by writer Michael Gingold

Sadly as killer bug films go this is the least talked about, when in fact its actually the best of the bunch.  If you’ve never seen it I would recommend picking it up as I can almost guarantee you will like it.  If you have seen it and are a fan you definitely need it for all the special features and the immaculate transfer.

Overall 3 out of 4 stars!