Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Over the years, horror has turned the most innocuous creatures into rabid and voracious man-eaters. Rabbits, sheep and toads have all raged against humans at one point in the genre. Yet the most absurd of these unconventional killers has to be the crawly namesakes of the 1988 movie, Slugs. Those garden variety pests are no longer on the low end of the food chain.
In Slugs, the population of the small town of Ashton are totally unaware of the marauding molluscs festering and feeding beneath the ground they walk on. The resident health inspector, Mike Brady (Michael Garfield), mistakenly thinks a drunkard’s death is the work of an aberrant animal attack; rats, raccoons, or wild dogs perhaps. Meanwhile, other goings-on suggest this is not an isolated incident: a rash of half-eaten pets, a suspicious multitude of slime trails near crime scenes, and a foul odor originating in the sewers and then coming up through the pipes. Mike and his wife Kim (Kim Terry) eventually seek the help of a college professor (Santiago Álvarez) and a sanitation worker (Philip MacHale) after the police and mayor dismiss their wild theory about these oozy invaders.
Based on Shaun Hutson’s ‘literary nasty’ of the same name, Juan Piquer Simón’s adaptation brings the author’s morbid vision of slugs to life. It is one of those rare occasions where the movie is fairly faithful to the source material. However, the novel is still more gruesome and agonizing than anything seen on screen. Matching the text in this case would have required extra time and money, as well as more clemency from the censors. Hutson makes mention of the slugs ravaging male genitalia and traveling up the backside so they can reach the body’s “more succulent parts.” The sex scenes in the book are also quite graphic. The author spared no details when it came to describing both carnage and carnal urges.
While Slugs is a Spanish production adapted from a British novel, Simón wanted the movie’s story set in America. His colleague and the one who vouched for the book in the first place, production supervisor Larry Ann Evans, selected one of her childhood homes as the main venue. As mentioned in Evans’ interview on Arrow’s Blu-ray release, the three-week shoot in Lyons, New York was a hurried one considering the fact that Frank LaLoggia’s Lady in White was shooting there at the same time. The cast, a mix of Spanish and American actors, yields a number of unintentionally funny performances due to the director’s emphasis on visuals and effects, and his tendency to do as few takes as possible.
Slugs is not anywhere as aggressive with its eco-horror messaging as its contemporaries or predecessors. Revealing the cause of the title monsters’ mutation — what else could it be other than toxic waste — is more of a passing explanation than an actual plea to stop pollution. On the other hand, the story does serve as a reminder of how ecological problems affect everyone. From the run-down parts of Ashton to the more gentrified areas, the slugs are not selective with their meals. They chow down on the above-mentioned souse (Stan Schwartz) who lives in squalor just as easily as a respected businessman driven by avarice. Soon the slugs move deeper into the town’s epicenter and up the societal ladder.
Slugs are famously slow, vulnerable to salt, and by and large, they prefer greens to human flesh. Knowing that, Simón makes a convincing case for their new roles as mucousy murderers. He counters logic with the most unsettling scenarios. On the cusp of Halloween, these ravenous gastropods emerge from their dank dwellings and start turning Ashton into their all-they-can-eat buffet. The menu includes an older couple who perish in a bizarre greenhouse explosion. This of course comes after the husband chops his own hand off to rid himself of a slug with a vise-like bite. Then there is the movie’s hors d’oeuvre; a young fisherman is consumed underwater in the cold open. Besides the revelation of the sewage runoff in the lake, this moment is disconnected to anything else in the movie. Lastly, a scene that leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth is the cruel demise of Pam (Tammy Reger), a teenager who is dragged away by slugs while her molester gets off scot-free.
Appreciators of Slugs are haunted by two indelible scenes. The first features Kim’s indignant student Donna (Kari Rose) and her boyfriend being attacked mid-coitus by a mass of hungry black shapes. The other remarkable scene is partly inspired by real life. After unknowingly ingesting a slug, David (Emilio Linder) suffers the most explosive headache known to man. Simón is rarely brought up in talks of body horror, but here he gives his esteemed peers a run for their money. He evokes visceral disgust on top of basic empathy for the shallowest of characters.
The entirety of creature features thrives on nonsense, but few approach the bar as well or as boldly as Slugs does. Simón’s stab at the subgenre is elevated by imaginative set pieces, a spectacular level of schlock, and an ability to make its audience near sick with revulsion. Scene after scene, this iconic B-movie has everyone squirming from head to toe.
