I may not be devoting
all of my time and effort to covering bad movies these days, but that doesn’t
mean I stopped loving them. So once a month, I’ll spread a little bit of that
love…
Every so often, you’ll trip over an article on the web
pissing and moaning about the lack of creativity in Hollywood today.
Let's be clear: Those articles are the worst. Not only is the writer completely oblivious to
the irony of how void of creativity it is to complain about the lack of
creativity in Hollywood, it also shows a lack of understanding of how the movie
business works. Producers don’t give a fig about creativity, they care about
making money. Know what makes money? Proven formulas. And when a newly proven
formula comes along, they ride that thing all day long… no matter how absurd it
is.
And just to prove my point of how long this has been going on, take Jaws.
Summer of 1975, Steven Spielberg unleashed this gem into the theaters, causing
the world to collectively wet itself. Everyone was afraid to go in the water,
so they went to the movies and watched Jaws instead.
In the wake of Jaws, the studios started cranking out imitations with other
animals. “Like Jaws, but with a [blank]” became the go-to elevator pitch. Once
all the plausibly threatening sea life was used up, the formula was applied to
land mammals. And once all of those were used up? Well…
Based on the 1982 novel that
I wish was titled Slugs: The Novel, 1988’s Slugs: The Movie stays true to form
with a cold open featuring the underwater death of a nameless couple. Check
that off the list! Post-credits, we meet all of our main characters at a
nightclub for young Republicans. Among them is Mike Brady, the county health
inspector. Things start looking serious for Mike Brady when he accompanies the
sheriff to evict the town drunk because… that’s what county health inspectors
do? Anyway, they find the find the guy dead and half-consumed. At least the
eviction will go smoothly
After some snippets of life in town, including complaints from the Crankiest
Old Lady Ever and a scene of all the “cool” “teens” hanging out in the only
diner in town, we get our first explicitly slug-related fatality. Harold is
trying to enjoy his golden years tending to his greenhouse when a slug
slithers/crawls/oozes into his gardening glove. Awesomely, when Harold puts on
the glove, he’s obliged to yell out, “SOMETHING IS BITING MY HAND!” Rather than
try to simply remove the loose-fitting glove, Harold flails about, knocking
over an unfortunate combination of chemicals.
Then, seeing no other alternative, Harold chops off his own hand. Somehow, that
doesn’t provide him with much relief. Fortunately, his wife wanders in at that
point, stunningly long ash dangling from her cigarette, and then everything blows
up real good.
Shortly after, Mike Brady finds a slightly larger than normal slug in his wife’s
garden. When it bites Mike Brady on the finger, he freaks the hell out and does
what any of us would do: bring the slug in to a British guy in a lab to
analyze. Listening to the lab guy’s Austin Powers-esque accent, Mike Brady
starts to add it all up… half-eaten town drunk… explosion in a greenhouse… bit
by a slug… our town must be infested with mutant, man-eating slugs! It’s the
kind of deduction that the Adam West version of Batman would love.
 |
| Of course, he'd already have Mutant Slug Repellent on his utility belt. |
It appears that the slugs’ mutant abilities also include teleportation. Just a
few scenes later, a couple of “cool” “teens” head upstairs to have hot, drunken
sex (this is a horror film, after all). They take a break from all the huffing
and puffing to find that the bedroom floor is a sea of slugs! Maybe we should
add the ability to detect premarital sex to the slugs’ list of mutant
abilities.
We get more deaths by slug, including a particularly memorable scene in a
high-end restaurant, and soon, Mike Brady is running about doing a Chicken
Little routine. Naturally, the good ol’ boy sheriff doesn’t believe him,
suggesting there might also be “demented crickets” or “rampaging mosquitoes” --
both of which sound like damn good movies to me. When Mike Brady warns the head
of the water department and the mayor that their water supply has been
contaminated, they both tell him to take a hike. Hey, why should they listen to
him? He’s only the county health inspector.
Mike Brady, his buddy in sanitation and Dr. Austin Powers devise a plan to take
out the slugs. Amazingly, it doesn’t involve table salt.
No, the plan is to head into the sewers on Halloween to douse all of the slugs
with lithium ammonia, which apparently will make the slugs explode. Only the
sanitation guy questions the wisdom of marching into a contained area filled
with methane to make things explode. Of course, that only gives him pause
before giving his wife the best kiss of death ever: “Hey, how about when I get
back, you and I get naked and get crazy?”
Off our heroes go, where the central drama becomes less about Man vs. Nature
(as natural as mutant slugs can be) and more about Man vs. Manhole.
Unsurprisingly, given their master plan, the whole thing ends with about 800
explosions.
Yes, this film is glorious. Not that it should be: the premise is absurd, the
dialogue is rickety, the music overblown and often inappropriate and the acting
stinks on ice. Which, of course, only adds to the splendor and glory that is
Slugs: The Movie. I can only hope I’ve done it justice in this, Slugs: The
Review.
Congratulations,
Slugs: The Movie: You are the
Bad Movie of the Month.
