9. continuing my saga of revisiting these old movies from the once upon a time week of creature features that scarred me in my youth, i revisited an old . . . "classic" about man eating slugs. i'm not sure where to start with this one, other than to say, it's amazing what looks scary to a kid. this adventure, titled Slugs: The Movie (i'm guessing they added that last part in, lest you be confused and think you're watching a documentary), has so much going for it. most of it going downhill. a random score. seriously, the music is just weird. enough wooden acting to build a house out of. thoroughly unlikeable characters, who don't react normally to any situation. and i couldn't tell if it was just the version i was watching, but i think i read the film maker was spanish, and it seemed like half the cast consisted of people who didn't actually know english sort of mouthing their lines for later dubbing. and by mouthing i mean, moving their mouths so little it seemed like they got confused and thought they were in a ventriloquist act instead of a movie. stellar dialogue like "so you were serious when you said we were going fishing?" (said while sitting on a fishing boat in the middle of a lake, so presumably a rhetorical question), or (in reference to one person's ability to authorize something) "you don't have the authority to declare happy birthday!" throw in some rather ridiculous death scenes, such as slugs, which aren't that much bigger than regular slugs, dragging someone into a lake by their foot, or slugs biting a mans hand inside his glove, causing him to flail about his greenhouse until he accidentally blows himself up. but not before he decides to solve the problem of slugs biting his hands inside his gloves by cutting his hand off with a hatchet, because i guess that's the easiest way to get the gloves off?
the hero of the story is the local health inspector. not really your normal movie hero, it's up to him to convince everyone of this scourge of murderous slugs. as the bodies start piling up, our heroic health inspector starts throwing the words mutant slugs around all willy nilly and without easing people into it at all, then broods over how people just won't listen to his extremely anemic presentation of the facts. shockingly enough, throwing the phrases "just trust me" and "mutant slugs" around doesn't really gain any traction with the powers that be. meanwhile, bodies are piling up every few minutes, to the apparent delight of one of the deputies, who needs some excitement in his life, and is enjoying all the extra activity at work. the sheriff doesn't seem to have much function beyond shouting gruffly at anyone who's nearby, so what can our hero do? luckily, he makes friends with a helpful sanitation worker, who just so happens to be able to fill in the blanks about our mutant slugs, using his knowledge of the old toxic waste dump, and one of the worst drawn maps in history. together, with the local high school science teacher, who has a lab that would make any chemist jealous, they hatch a plan to douse the slugs in the sewers with a chemical that explodes when it touches moisture. "you want to toss a chemical that catches fire when it touches water into the sewers?" asks our handy sanitation man. "what choice do we have?" implores the health inspector. "okay, let's do it!" while the heroes prepare their slug assault, we get a few more random deaths, and then it's time for the final act. which consists of them throwing a chemical into the town sewers that blows up half the town from below, which, by the way, they neglected to tell anyone they were doing. safety first!
and everyone that wasn't eaten lived happily ever after.
this is actually based on a book, and i can't really decide if i ever want to read it.
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
3. It (2017)
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors
5. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
7. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
8. The Nest
9. Slugs: The Movie
