It’s not that SyFy Channel movies are bad. It’s that they are really bad. So, so bad. Terrible. Stunningly atrocious. And yet, somebody is being paid to write this crap. Repeatedly. And people keep watching. Sure, they cancelled My So-Called Life and Arrested Development, but SyFy just keeps pumping out Sharktopus and Rage of the Yeti. With that in mind, Mr. Octopus has decided that he should have no problem making a mid-life career change and becoming a screenwriter for SyFy. He is putting the finishing touches on his soon-to-be-breakout television blockbuster, “Were-Slugs: Sidewalk of Terror!” It might also be called “Blimey! They’re Slimy!” He hasn’t decided yet.
Finale: The UC Santa Cruz cheerleading squad is holding a bikini car wash across the street from a nursing home and a special-needs preschool. The previously sunny sky quickly clouds over. A light warm drizzle starts to fall. The head cheerleader’s skin slowly begins to change from smooth and olive-complected (Mr. Octopus is not sure if “complected” is an actual word) to clammy and lavender-ish. Six of the remaining eleven cheerleaders start to feel similar effects. Across the street, two old ladies take plastic kerchiefs out of their purses and tie them over their carefully-curled white hair while the preschool teacher instructs her pupils that a little rain will not hurt them. With a loud thunderclap, the sky opens up and lashing rain pounds the pavement. The seven cheerleaders are now a deep aubergine color and oozing slime. No! How could this happen to them? They are popular, dammit! As their killer slug instincts slowly (obviously) take over and they transform into giant purple booger-like creatures, they can’t fight the urge to attack. Five cheerleader were-slugs inch across the street towards a gaggle of confused seniors and the preschool, where the teacher (Martika, in a cameo role, because every SyFy movie needs an 80’s pop star) is frantically trying to roll tiny wheelchairs up the ramp into the school one by one. The remaining two were-slugs turn on their fellow cheer-leaders, whose bikini tops at this point magically, and for no good reason, start to fall down. About an hour later, just before the certain doom of the old folks and the toddlers (the cheerleaders are dead at this point, having been unable to run away in their stilettos), the Navy SEALS helicopter in and start spraying the scene with bullets made of pure salt. As we see the bullets hit the were-slugs in slow-mo (reeeeeaaaaaalllllly slow-mo), Martika’s classic song “Toy Soldiers” (seriously, she probably needs the money these days) plays over the melee . [To keep the budget down, we can throw grape Jell-O at the camera for this shot.] After the grisly slime-bath is over, a single Navy SEAL goes over to the teacher and hands her his last salt bullet. Covered in ooze, they kiss. On the ground, a severed were-slug antenna starts to twitch. Fade out.
The H-less Wonder 