Possibly the most digsusting thing I've ever seen
Had I seen this any other weekend, I'd probably be gleefully on board for this way-over-the-top slimebowl, which manages to be substantially more gross than its title suggests. But this weekend, I'm sick; tonsillitis, and lemme tell you, it's been friggin' painful, keeping me up nights, and I haven't eaten since Thursday. At the time I was watching this one, I couldn't even keep water down, which is why it took three viewings to get through it.
The title says it all, folks. Giant slugs (by which I mean four- or five-inch slugs, not slugs the size of elephants) have developed a taste for meat thanks to a forgotten toxic waste dump (ah, toxic waste; if you didn't exist, Hollywood would have to invent you) and threaten to slip n' slide their way through a nearby small town. Michael Garfield stars as Mike Brady (no, not that Mike Brady), the local sanitation inspector who decides to do something about it while, natch, the local authorities are all gung ho to build a new mall. Sympathy for the townspeople plummets when you see that they're prone to calling the teacher things like "the wicked bitch" right to her face.
I think the most disgusting part has to be a scene where one guy collapses at a fancy restaurant and...chances are, you just don't want to know. But I'll tell you about the setup; the night before, his alcoholic girlfriend decided to make him a salad and didn't bother to look at the big-ass slug inside she was cutting up along with it (and neither of them must've noticed when they ate it). Looking at this bisected slug in this section of bisected lettuce, I couldn't help but think that that's what my left tonsil must look like if somebody came and cut off my head...and believe me, at the time, I was praying for somebody to come along and cut off my head. I'm a little better now.
There are all sorts of memorably disgusting moments, like bloody naked people thrashing about in a room full of the slugs, the many-chops method one guy employs for cutting off his own hand, or a hilarious slug-vs.-hamster battle with a predictable outcome (this movie is not called Hamsters). The 70's cop-show score by an unknown culprit is a hoot, as these things always are, even when they're actually in 70's cop shows. And the dialogue is everything you'd expect, with Brady butting heads with the local sheriff, having to endure lines like "You ain't got the authority to declare a happy birthday!"
The concept of five-inch slugs as villains is pretty silly on my least cynical day; c'mon, all you need is a snowshovel and you can toss 'em out the window en masse. Slugs don't actually have teeth, but these slugs do; nobody seems to mention this particular mutation. And it's not like they can't be easily outrun.
On any other weekend, I'd be recommending this to anyone who wants to vomit (and sometimes, that's just the ticket, ain't it?). Not today, though...I'm on my way back up but I'm a long ways from peachy, so I'm not really gonna get behind a movie that actually made my bad condition worse. Besides, the back cover hints at nudity, which is pulled away from at the last second in the first scene. (okay, there's a little further on, but it's hard to like when there are so many slugs involved)
Slugs is based on the Sean Hutson novel of the same title, and is directed by Juan Piquer "Pieces" Simon. Also known as Slugs, muerte viscosa (slimy death?) and Slugs: The Movie. Bring your air-sickness bag.
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