SLUGS Blu-ray Review

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When people begin to die mysteriously, a local health inspector named Mike might be the only sane person to figure out what’s going on.  He figures out that there are toxic slugs that have been mutated from being in contact with toxic waste.  With people dying all over town, can he convince the cops to do something??

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SLUGS is the 1988 horror film by Juan Piquer Simón.  He based the movie on a book of the same name by Shaun Huston.  It has the feel of an exploitation film but not as close to the the “NC-17” rated line as some films get.  There is a classic 80’s feel to it and can be campy at times but the filmmakers kept it simple.  Let’s not forget that with a movie like this, they’re gonna keep it gross and that’s a good thing.  

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The transfer is a 1080p presentation.

The film has been restored from the original film elements and it looks pretty good.  There aren’t a whole lot of colors to boldly jump off of the screen but the red tone of the blood that they used is on the the brighter side.  This was still before a lot of make-up artists used a more authentic color because HD didn’t exist.  There is a heavy-handed grain that keeps a lot of the details in the film however it makes the video look noisy.  There are also specks of dirt and blemishes taken from the source material that are consistently showing throughout the film.

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The audio is an uncompressed PCM stereo mix.

The audio on this film is somewhat average for this type of movie.  The music shares the same speakers as the dialogue and they play nicely together.  The voices sound more on the natural side however when combined with the video, the two don’t always match up.  This is due the dialogue being presented as dubbed audio over some of the foreign actor’s accents.  It does get distracting at times even though the mix itself works.

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-Audio commentary with Slugs author Shaun Hutson

-Audio commentary by writer and filmmaker Chris Alexander

-Here’s Slugs In Your Eye: an interview with actor Emilio Linder

-They Slime, They Ooze, They Kill: The Effects of Slugs: an interview with special effects artist Carlo De Marchis.

-Invasion USA: an interview with art director Gonzalo Gonzalo

-The Lyons Den: an interview and locations tour with production manager Larry Ann Evans

-1988 Goya Awards promo reel

-Original Theatrical Trailer

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Disc Details
1 Blu-ray disc

Running Time
92 mins

Edition Ratings
Rated R

Region Coding
Region A

Video Resolution
1080p AVC MPEG-4
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Audio Mixes
English PCM Stereo

Subtitles
English SDH

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Overall, SLUGS is a campy horror flick that doesn’t depend on the jumps but more on just being gross with black slugs all over the place.  Both the audio and video lay on the average line while the bonus features are decent.  If you’re a fan of the film, this release is definitely for you.  If you’ve been meaning to see this, this is the version to check out.


Order your copy from Amazon

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About the author

MEDIA JOURNALIST | Michael is a fanatic about all both cinema old and new. He collects anything from 1:6 Scale, 1:12 Scale, and vinyl Collectibles plus Slipcovers and Steelbooks. He loves pop culture, writing, reviewing films & collectibles, and journalism. An avid Batman, The Joker and anything comics junkie, he will also chat it up about pretty much anything. Go ahead and ask...