August 20, 2009
Slugs, Muerte Viscosa is set in the small American town of Ashton where two lovers (Erik Swanson & Karen Landberg) are out in a boat on a river, after dangling his foot in the water the guy is pulled in & soon after the water turns blood red... That night Ron Bell (Stan Schwartz...( read more)) the local drunk (every town has one) staggers home, once inside his pigsty of a house he is attacked & partially eaten by vicious slimy flesh eating Slugs. The following morning Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) the town's health inspector together with Sheriff Reese (John Battaglia) head for Ron's house to evict him, inside they discover his half eaten corpse & a load of slime across the floor. Meanwhile an elderly woman named Jean Morris (Lucia Prado) complains to her husband Harold (Juan Majan) that her plants are covered in Slug eggs, while Harold isn't looking a Slug crawls into his glove. Harold puts his glove back on (just the thought of this in reality really grosses me out) & feels intense pain which makes him thrash about & cause an accident that blows his greenhouse up. The mysterious deaths continue at an alarming rate, after examining the evidence Mike suspects that killer Slugs mutated by toxic waste may be responsible but has a hard time convincing anyone. Can Mike, sanitation inspector Don Palmer (Philip McHale) & scientist John Foley (Santiago Alvarez) find a way to stop the Slugs before they eat the entire town?
This Spanish American co-production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Juan Piquer Simon as is one of those so bad it's good goofy horror films that just entertains on a stupid moronic level, we have had killer Bee, Crocodile, Bear, Shark, Spider & Snake films so why not killer Slugs? First of all I must say that I have a real fear & dislike for Slugs, as in real life. I'm not sure why but I just find them disgusting, maybe it's the slime or how they look I don't know but some of the footage in Slugs really grossed me out, not the gore but just the Slugs themselves. The script by Simon, Jose Antonio Escriva & Ron Gantman is based on the novel 'Slugs' by Shaun Hutson & is really dumb, the best way I can describe it is imagine a slasher film like Friday the 13th (1980) with slugs instead of Jason as the film goes from one scene of someone being killed by Slugs before they disappear to another just as a film like Friday the 13th would go from one murder to another. Don't expect a eco-disaster film like The Swarm (1978) where the whole town is evacuated & the army move in. Some of the dialogue in Slugs, Muerte Viscosa is absolutely hilarious, from the grumpy Sheriff's wisecracks to the fact that the filmmakers thought we would all be so stupid as to not know what Slugs eat so they include a scene in which a health inspector ask's a scientist! It's almost as if they were making a comedy horror although I suspect that the very fact Slugs, Muerte Viscosa had a mainly Spanish crew would account for the awkward & silly dialogue. Also someone should tell the filmmakers that Slugs don't swim in water & in regard to any potential victims why couldn't they just walk, lets face it Slugs travel about 10 feet an hour, away? Oh, & how do Slugs drag a dead body along, pull someone under water or yank a bar out of someone's hand?
Director Simon doesn't do much to liven things up & the film hasn't got any sort of style to it. On a (very) positive note he doesn't mind splashing the blood & gore around, there are numerous gory half eaten bodies, someone cuts his own hand off with an axe, lots of blood spraying, horrible scenes of people covered in Slugs (quite literally possibly my worst nightmare) & a gross sequence where an unlucky man has lots of Slug parasites eat their way out of him with blood splattering results.
Technically Slugs, Muerte Viscosa isn't too bad with the gory special make-up effects being particularly impressive & the Slugs themselves look good as well, having said that I presume they used real Slugs so they would look good, wouldn't they? Shot partly in Spain the locations are OK, the photography is fine & as a whole it's fairly well made. However, the acting is pretty bad & most of it looks dubbed.
Deep down I know Slugs, Muerte Viscosa is a terrible film but there was something about it that just entertained me, maybe the gore, maybe the silliness of it all or maybe the fact that I have had a real psychological dislike & morbid fear of Slugs for as long as I can remember. I can't in good heart recommend it but on a personal level I liked it. They Ooze... They Slime... They Kill... Slugs!
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