Slugs The Movie (1988) [REVIEW] | The Authority To Declare “Happy Birthday”

To complete the Naruto-esque animal trifecta goin on this month, we’re doing the “slug one”.

Well, re-doing, i’ve reviewed this.. more than 10 years ago, so i’m gonna give it a fresh rewatch, even if i do kinda remember some of its ultra-ridiculous scenes, it’s not every day you see shit like a killer slug being accidentally sliced and served into a salad, causing a man to vomit blood and overact so fiercely it could chew the scenery faster the aforemention, doped up aggressive slugs.

In a way it was bound to be a cult classic, since it’s directed by Juan Piquer Simon, a spanish exploitation film director that by then already directed not only the grindhouse slasher cult film Pieces, but also the superhero knock-off of Supersonic Man and the infamous ET rip-off, Pod People/Extraterrestrial Visitors, which was later made a cult classic when Mistery Science Theather got his hands on it, spoofing many scenes and in turn making that episode a cult classic of its own, with the “idiot control now” spoof song and the “Trumpy” riffing making it a must-see episode.

And no, the english title (the original Spanish one being “Slugs: Muerte Viscosa”, translating to “Slugs: Slimy Death”) of Slugs The Movie is oddly accurate, this is based on a book of the name same by Shaun Hutson that released in 1982.

in a way it was a well overdue (yet fitting in a stupid way) addition to the killer animals subgenre, since Frogs released a decade earlier, but unlike that one were the frogs were just one of the animals revolting against the humans, this is mostly about the titular animal, slugs, which are indeed an even more ridiculous creature to repurpose for a “nature revenge” B-movie.

Maybe even more than worms, like, regular ones, but i’m not gonna talk about Squirm.

Not today, at least.

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Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman (1958) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

One thing that might surprise younger people is that despite its popularity, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman ain’t a precursor on the trend of giant/miniaturized people, quite the opposite.

It’s also funny how is such a movie obviously conceived for the drive-in circuits, since it’s so short than of course it had to be shown as a double feature, that being Corman’s War Of The Satellites.

So short than to expand the runtime from 66 minutes to 75 for the TV version they had to basically reuse sequences, add a long crawl at the beginning and even fuck around with frames manipulation to artificially lenghten the thing. Jesus Christ, the desperation indeed.

In hindsight, one does learn to appreciate the efficiency of these cheap movies from the era, for better or worse they ended up not wasting your time as much as some crap movies now do, even if they clearly wanted to reach the standard 90 minutes, but in the “age of content”, these films being to the point are quite welcome in their brevity.

Even though often they are so more due to budget than anything else.

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[EXPRESSO] The Toxic Avenger (2023) | Punk Pretend

Yes, Troma is still around, and just the fact the Toxic Avenger reboot is a big budget PG-13 rated film with big Hollywood actors is already indicative that yes, in this case – to paraphrase Grasshopper Manifacture’s motto – “Punk Is Dead”, coming off as a clear admission that, despite all that clammering, now they do actually want to be like Hollywood and ain’t even trying to mask it.

The plot is basically the same as the 1984 original, but tries to update the concept for modernity, changing some details and adding new characters, and making it more about family (since “Toxie” has a troubled stepson to care for) but basically keeping the idea of a derided janitor falling victim to radioactive waste, which mutate him into a superhero monster, The Toxic Avenger, ready to take down evil, and in this case exact revenge on the evil big pharma company that bamboozled the entire town of St. Roma Ville ( ah ah), harassed its citizens and pollute its waters.

And it’s all presented as subversive like the original was… in 1984.

Sure there is some splatter violence, but it’s kinda tame, even in the international unrated cut, today the ol’ excesses of the company are nothing.

It’s not even that unwatchable, ironically, it’s still trash like the original but that became a cult film for reasons, which do include its sincerity, here completely gone, as this remake also sucks out any of its anti-establishment, alternative, subversive and controversial qualities, being just domesticated and tarted up hollow trash.

Even worse, it’s just so desperate in wanting people to like it, to elect it as their new favourite “so bad it’s good” flick, which itself it’s old hat too.

It’s just fuckin pathetic, even more than it wants to come off as.