“Spawn of the Slithis” takes place in Venice, California, where a slimy monster born of nuclear leakage and contaminated mud goes on a murderous rampage. The hero determined to solve the gruesome killings is a journalism teacher and wannabe journalist named Wayne Connors (Alan Blanchard). Although authorities are quick to disbelieve good old Wayne, he does get some people on his side, like his friend Dr. John (J.C. Claire), his wife Jeff (Judy Motulsky), and upbeat diving boat operator Chris Alexander (Mello Alexandria).

This movie, a LOW budget update of “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, could have and should have been a bit more fun, but too much time is spent with the monsters’ victims. There’s a lot of character stuff that pads out the run time, not all of it that entertaining. Blanchard is a likable enough but rather bland lead. Fortunately, despite much of the acting being of the amateur variety, it’s quite engaging nevertheless, especially from Alexandria. Bald pated, beefy Dennis Falt is priceless as an exposition provider who goes to great trouble to enunciate his words. Win Condict does an adequate job as the monster. However, it’s character actor Hy Pyke that truly steals the show. He obviously believes that any role worth playing is worth OVER playing, and he tears into the scenery for a riotous couple of minutes as a police captain.

The music score is entertainingly bad at times, there are some hilariously silly moments of slow motion, the creature suit is actually pretty cool, and there are little bits of gore here and there. The ending is very clichéd, but that’s often par for the course with this type of dopey B level genre entertainment.