SlitherSpace slugs are always bad news. Slither is a black comedy/horror film that is both an homage and a satire of the gross body horror films and alien invasion flicks which inspired it. After the oddly named Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) makes contact with an alien parasite emerging from a meteorite in the woods of Wheelsy, South Carolina, his lovely wife, Starla (Elizabeth Banks), discovers that it has begun transforming him into an eldritch horror. The Chief of Police in Wheelsy, Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion)--who harbors a not-so-secret crush on Starla--finds himself having to save Starla from her warped husband, as well as the whole town from a really gross invasion.
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The plot of Slither--alien space slugs turn townsfolk into zombies--is familiar horror movie fare; it's been said that it resembles another cult horror movie, The Night of the Creeps. What sets Slither apart from being a rehashing of horror movie tropes is that it is a love letter to the genre. Horror movie aficionados will spend a good deal of Slither pointing out the frequent Easter eggs, shouting, "Oh, I got that!" The alien-infused asteroid that plummets to the earth recalls The Blob, and the stealthy, body-stealing creatures that emerge from it--and the bizarre, fleshy monstrosity Grant becomes--are like the shapeshifting monsters from John Carpenter's The Thing. The community of Wheelsy is populated by diverse characters, brought together while under siege by an unknown and unstoppable entity, which is reminiscent of another Carpenter film, The Fog. Director James Gunn has his film roots in the kitschy and gross backyard of Troma Entertainment, and there are a few nods to this in Slither. For example, Brenda Gutierrez (Brenda James), Grant's unfortunate lady friend, performs some questionable parenting by watching The Toxic Avenger with her baby; Grant's own disgusting transformation is also a lot like Toxie's. When Grant transforms into his final form--little more than an amorphous blob--he calls back the infected "zombies" with whom share a psychic link. When they merge into his gluttonous mass, it resembles the gross "shunting" process from the obscure horror film, Society. Gunn has said that his film's aesthetic of grotesque gore was inspired by the films of the legendary body horror auteur, David Cronenberg, including Shivers and The Brood. Gunn's fondness for pairing campy horror and raunchy humor also served him well in writing the English adaptation of the delightful video game, "Lollipop Chainsaw"--a horror satire like Slither. Directorial flourishes like the first-person perspective used when the alien scurries out from the crusty meteorite recalls Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead--an effect reminiscent of the so-called "Raimi Cam". These familiar horror movie tropes--like obvious "red shirts" getting picked off or evil critters lurking just around every corner--all get a turn on the proverbial wheel in Slither. Slither avoids falling into self-parody and pandering to cliches by taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the humor. It never reducing the horror's importance by winking at the audience, but allows the humor--which often emerges as sight gags and foul-mouthed colloquialisms--to break the tension and even poke fun at its own grossness.
In addition to the humor, Slither showcases a wonderful set of sound and visual effects. A good deal of Grant's early transformation is handled with makeup, and it is a gradual one. This encourages the audience to become begrudgingly attached to the arrogant Grant, until his mind is eaten by the alien probe, leaving just enough vestiges behind to foster an obsession with his wife. This Grant "redecorates" the home with a nest in the basement--turning it into an abattoir--and then seeks out Brenda, who the real Grant almost had a fling with after Starla rebuked his advances. (Ironically, if Grant had cheated on his wife, he and many others might still be alive.) His reunion with Brenda is a parody of sexual intercourse--a pair of fleshy stingers emerge from his stomach, and infuse her with a toxin that makes her ravenous for meat of any kind. This is done so that she can become a massive womb for the red, squishy slugs that overrun Wheelsy. These larval creatures swarm a nearby farmhouse en masse, and only the eldest daughter, Kylie (Tania Saulnier), manages to escape from the little red demons, courtesy of her elaborate manicure. The sound effects that accompany these disgusting scenes are acute and are designed to make the audience queasy. Consider how cringeworthy the slugs sound when they squish and slurk their way up the side of Kylie's bathtub, or the slopping sound of Grant's fleshy appendages slapping across the floor. Starla believes that she can reach Grant, even after he has transformed into a "squid" version of himself over the span of three days. She is confinced that there is something left of Grant deep inside this fleshy monster, and she is right to an extent. She comments that after she seduced Grant one morning--feeling guilty for rejecting him the night before--it was as though he were a different person. The reality is that she formed a bond with this alien that she never had with her husband, and the creature became fixated on converting her into his monstrous "bride". The alien visions that Kylie experiences on the verge of being overtaken by an invasive space slug makes it clear, however, that whatever the thing that is occupying Grant's body may be, it is not Starla's husband but something far worse.
Recommended for: Fans of a clever and darkly funny love letter to the campy and gross horror flicks that filled the shelves of video rental stores and were often broadcast as the "late late shift" movies on TV. Slither is also the directorial debut of a talented writer and filmmaker who would go on to make other exciting films like the Guardians of the Galaxy series.
In addition to the humor, Slither showcases a wonderful set of sound and visual effects. A good deal of Grant's early transformation is handled with makeup, and it is a gradual one. This encourages the audience to become begrudgingly attached to the arrogant Grant, until his mind is eaten by the alien probe, leaving just enough vestiges behind to foster an obsession with his wife. This Grant "redecorates" the home with a nest in the basement--turning it into an abattoir--and then seeks out Brenda, who the real Grant almost had a fling with after Starla rebuked his advances. (Ironically, if Grant had cheated on his wife, he and many others might still be alive.) His reunion with Brenda is a parody of sexual intercourse--a pair of fleshy stingers emerge from his stomach, and infuse her with a toxin that makes her ravenous for meat of any kind. This is done so that she can become a massive womb for the red, squishy slugs that overrun Wheelsy. These larval creatures swarm a nearby farmhouse en masse, and only the eldest daughter, Kylie (Tania Saulnier), manages to escape from the little red demons, courtesy of her elaborate manicure. The sound effects that accompany these disgusting scenes are acute and are designed to make the audience queasy. Consider how cringeworthy the slugs sound when they squish and slurk their way up the side of Kylie's bathtub, or the slopping sound of Grant's fleshy appendages slapping across the floor. Starla believes that she can reach Grant, even after he has transformed into a "squid" version of himself over the span of three days. She is confinced that there is something left of Grant deep inside this fleshy monster, and she is right to an extent. She comments that after she seduced Grant one morning--feeling guilty for rejecting him the night before--it was as though he were a different person. The reality is that she formed a bond with this alien that she never had with her husband, and the creature became fixated on converting her into his monstrous "bride". The alien visions that Kylie experiences on the verge of being overtaken by an invasive space slug makes it clear, however, that whatever the thing that is occupying Grant's body may be, it is not Starla's husband but something far worse.
Recommended for: Fans of a clever and darkly funny love letter to the campy and gross horror flicks that filled the shelves of video rental stores and were often broadcast as the "late late shift" movies on TV. Slither is also the directorial debut of a talented writer and filmmaker who would go on to make other exciting films like the Guardians of the Galaxy series.