Main cast: Michael Garfield (Mike Brady), Kim Terry (Kim Brady), Philip MacHale (Don Palmer), Emilio Linder (David Watson), Alicia Moro (Maureen Watson), Santiago Álvarez (Foley), John Battaglia (Sheriff Reese), Concha Cuetos (Maria Palmer), Frank Braña (Frank Phillips), Patty Shepard (Sue Channing), and Manuel de Blas (Mayor Eaton)
Director: Juan Piquer Simón

With Halloween just around the corner, what’s better to watch than cult classic monster flicks, right? Okay, I stumble upon Slugs recently after having dimly recalled watching it when video rental was all the rage, and a second watch cements my perception of this movie: killer mutant slugs with teeth and a taste for human flesh are actually pretty cool. It sounds stupid on paper, I know, but this gorgeously gory movie will slowly eat away under the skin of fans of animals-gone-feral movies.

There are a string of deaths in town, and people are puzzled. Well, sanitation officer Mike Brady thinks that he may be on to something when he is accidentally bitten by a big slug in his garden – the slug has teeth, ouch. Considering the history of the town having been the site of a toxic waste disposal plant, could it be that these slugs are mutants that crave meat rather than greens? He’s right, of course, but poor Mike is going to have to convince the usual skeptical law officials and mayor, even as the body count begins to grow.

Slugs is clearly a movie from the 1980s from its appearance alone, but it’s an aesthetic that I kind of dig when it comes to men like Mike Brady. Oh, those days when men aren’t afraid to sport facial and chest hair! Michael Garfield is a hilariously wooden actor, mind you, upstaged by even one-scene wonders who talk and behave like actual human beings, but that adds to the so-bad-it’s-good charm of this thing.

The stars of the show are actually the memorable graphic death scenes make so good with the use of effectively gory-looking practical effects. One guy’s head practically explodes from the baby slugs growing inside it, oh my, while the usual death-after-sex scene involves two very naked people getting devoured in very disgusting ways by slugs that somehow manage to congregate around them without them seeing or smelling anything odd. The slugs are already disgusting, making them eat people only turns them into awesomely disgusting. This movie is another shining example of how practical effects work better than CGI almost every time.

Don’t ask me why nobody in this movie seems to have any salt at hand, though. Then again, hello – mutant big slugs with teeth. Logic isn’t on the menu here.

While it may not be a masterpiece, Slugs is the embodiment of the fun, fabulously trashy late night flick that is made for the 1980s video market. Don’t watch this for the acting, watch it for the slugs going yum yum yum fun, and have fun.