Simply Perfect

Must See Movie...

A Masterpiece!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Spawn of the Slithis (1978)* (out of 4) A small town comes under attack by some sort of sea monster, which appears to have been caused by a nuclear leak. Pretty soon pets and humans are going missing with only bloody limbs turning up. A group of friends set out to find the creature and destroy it.If you've read Stephen Thrower's NIGHTMARE USA book then you know how wonderful it is. You'll also know that there are countless exploitation movies that are given the special treatment and this here is one of them. You'll have to check out the book to get all the details but this film was basically meant to be a throwback to the drive-in era of the 1950s when guys-in-costume monster movies were all the rage. By 1978 these types of films were certainly out of fashion but director Stephen Traxler tried to bring them back but sadly the result is rather bad.There are all sorts of problems with this film but the biggest is the God-awful screenplay, which makes one major, major mistake. Yes, the biggest mistake is that the film is deadly boring. It really doesn't matter how bad you're horror movie is as long as you keep it entertaining but I'd say the majority of the people would check out of this one rather quickly. There are way too many scenes that feature people simply talking about stuff that isn't interesting and a lot of times it doesn't even have anything to do with the story. The film only runs 86-minutes but by the time it's over you'll feel as if you had just sat through all three GODFATHER movies.Another problem is the typical stuff that you'd expect from a low-budget movie like this. This includes some rather bad performances, no real style and a rather sloppy looking picture. There are a few things that I liked with the monster being one of them. Again, you can read the book to get more history on the film but it's worth noting that elements of the suit were borrowed from other popular movies. The creature outfit isn't mind-blowing but for a low-budget film I thought it was good. It's really too bad he wasn't used in the film more and that they went for a kid-friendly PG-rated movie.

This amateur movie, which somehow made it to late-night TV is without a doubt the worst monster movie I have ever seen. The story is incoherent and the main characters overshadowed by long sequences dominated by one-dimensional minor characters. I am sure that it is no coincidence that all but a few of the actors in this film never appeared in another and for all but a couple of those who did, Slithis was their final effort. The monster is ridiculous but not as ridiculous as the story or the acting. I hesitate to call it the worst monster movie ever only because I cannot claim to have seen every monster movie ever made. So bad it's really just bad.

This has got to be one of the worst movies made in the History of movie making.Ishtar was a bad movie, this movie makes Ishtar and AcademyAward nominee. It just cannot get worse than this, can it?

This film came out around the same time that "It's Alive," "The Incredible Melting Man," and "Bug," among others, were coming out. There was a whole slew of these cheesy B-Horror Flicks being released, and this one stands out in my memory as a fun time at the movies. With a monster akin to the Swamp Thing, it had the horror aspect, with plenty of that late 70's, Russ Meyer-esque titillation thrown in for good measure. Not too heavy on plot, it makes up for it with what they believed at the time to be grossness. They did a fairly good job of it. If you like B-Horror Flicks, you'll like "Spawn of the Slithis."