Bio Slime (a.k.a. John Lechago’s Contagion) (2010)

Standard · Posted by anythinghorror on 2012-01-20 · 4 Comments 

Flashback to about 1990, when I was rummaging through a decrepit old bookshop in Belfast, where the owner kept all these lurid, pirated videotapes of bizarre offerings near the vintage porn mags. And before I was overcome by what I’m sure were at least a dozen different diseases endemic to that establishment, I found a VHS copy of an unknown film called STREET TRASH (1987). In those days before smartphones and Internet access to IMDb, I had to just take a chance and hope it wasn’t some piece of shit.

Okay, it *was* a piece of shit. But it was the most fun piece of shit I’d seen in a long time, rising above the bottom-of-the-barrel budget to be something far more than the sum of its sleazy parts.

Flashforward about twenty years and thirty pounds around the waist, when I was rummaging through a cleaner if less fun establishment, when I found a bootleg DVD of something called CONTAGION. Now, I knew this couldn’t be the recent Steven Soderbergh pandemic thriller; for one thing, this has naked women covered in slime and bound by tentacles, which I definitely didn’t see in Soderbergh’s movie. A quick check told me a little more: that this CONTAGION started life under the more lurid title BIO-SLIME, and in fact though it was made more than a year ago it had yet to receive an official release (Yes, I know kids, I shouldn’t have, that’s like supporting kitten molesters or something. But as it hadn’t even been released, I felt more like a salvager of a lost movie than some pirate). But would BIO-SLIME (I’m gonna call it this rather than its later title to avoid confusion) prove to be as enjoyable as STREET TRASH?

It opens at night on a couple in a car: petty crook David (Tai Chan Ngo, WEREWOLF IN A WOMEN’S PRISON) and his girlfriend, porn actress Mary (Victoria De Mare, DINOCROC), who tagged along while David is delivering a mysterious package to a mysterious figure. The delivery degenerates into the expected gunplay, with David surviving – only to be wrapped up by black tentacles extending from the sleeve of the dead figure… and exploding. Hiding in the car, Mary drives off, with the package, a high-tech briefcase, in the trunk.

Showers & Horror films never mix!!!

After the credits, we zoom in on a rundown tenement building, and its occupants: alcoholic artist Troy (Vinnie Bilancio, SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE); Troy’s friend and art dealer Hal (Ronnie Lewis, SOPHOMORE); meth dealer Jack (Magic J Ellingson, RED SANDS), sharing a room with Troy; Jimmy the Landlord (Al Burke, WEDDING SINGER), prepared to evict Troy; Jimmy’s mail-order bride Constanza (Micol Bartolucci, ALIEN ABDUCTION), more sympathetic to Troy; porn actresses Donna (Monique La Barr, TRANSMORPHERS) and Annie (former porn star Gia Paloma), who are filming next door to Troy’s apartment. It’s a motley collection of lovable lowlifes worthy of a Charles Bukowksi story, with Troy the protagonist, smashing all of his liquor bottles in an attempt to go cold turkey – and will soon find he picked the worst time to go sober.

Victoria de Mare in BIO SLIME, & she looks fantastic in it!!

Soon he’s joined by his niece Shannon (Kelli Kaye, DEADLY BELOVED), her abusive, gun-toting boyfriend Brandon (Mark Stefanovski, HOTEL CALIFORNIA), and the returning Mary, who lives there as well and brings the briefcase in with her. The still-inebriated Troy messes with the electronic contents (though with flashing warning signs like “Teratology Division”, “Biohazard” and “Containment Deactivated, Full Metabolic Reanimation”, he had to know that nothing good could come of this). While Troy and his friends tussle with Brandon, one of the porn actresses finds the briefcase and releases a black, gooey substance, growing and absorbing the actress, and then spreading into the pipes and behind the walls. Now, trapped within Troy’s apartment, with all the vents and cracks taped up, and the signals to their cell phones blocked for some reason, the crew attempt to escape, or at least find a way to combat the creature that is after them. Could the key to survival lie with the mechanisms in the briefcase…?

Canadian John Lechago (KILLJOY 3) wrote and directed this in 12 days at a budget of about $50,000, and with this has crafted something impressive here. Ostensibly a typical horror movie with a group of ragtag people under siege, Lechago gives us a creature with its tendrils in Lovecraft, Cronenberg, the Spiderman villain Venom, The Blob, THE EVIL DEAD (“Join us!”), and John Carpenter’s THING (that we get more than one scene involving naked women being attacked and strung up Hentai-style doesn’t hurt, either). The creature proves formidable indeed: able to separate itself into small, crawling slug-like things, imitate people who can get sliced up and still come crawling (leading to some gross/funny scenes and dialogue – “Double bag her!”), infect people from the inside out – and is sentient, gaining intelligence from its victims, and enticing others to join it willingly. The special effects from long-time artist Tom Devlin (MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS, SAND SHARKS, SILENT NIGHT ZOMBIE NIGHT) are of the old school variety, with only a little bit of CGI towards the end. It does have an interesting (and scientifically credible-sounding) weakness, which our heroes will have to risk their health in using – but which seems moot given the threat of being absorbed by a funky slime creature.

The acting is what one would expect from a low-budget feature, with the biggest highlight being Bilancio as the flawed but decent artist Troy, effectively portraying someone going through the DTs while acting as the group’s unofficial leader. One of the drawbacks to the movie is the size of the cast, though the story keeps moving enough so you don’t notice too much. And surprisingly, despite the number of obvious influences, the movie maintains an identity all its own. The ending however is a bit rushed, and it’s here where the lack of budget will show.

But this is a small quibble indeed, for a perfectly serviceable, entertaining horror movie. The biggest negative about this film for me? It’s not been officially released yet as far as I can discover! It’s had a few limited runs in theatres and film festivals, but no DVD release? What kind of a world do we live in, where it’s easier for us to see utter crap like ALIENS VS AVATARS than a good old-fashioned sleazy monster tale? Hopefully someone out there will do something about it soon, as, no matter what title it gets, deserves more viewers.

Check out the trailer below!!

Deggsy’s Summary:

Director: John Lechago (also writer)

Plot: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore: 4 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem: 3 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Derek “Deggsy” O’Brien

Filed under Deggsy's Corner, Movie Reviews, New Posting · Tagged with Gia Paloma, John Lechago, Monique La Barr, Tai Chan Ngo, Victoria De Mare, Vinnie Bilancio