Movies / Movie Reviews

Slither

By Al Kratina
April 4, 2006 - 17:33

Penicillin is not going to help that.

Slither
   It’s too bad that horror and comedy are binary opposites. One can only be working if the other is not, like the two positions of a light switch, or my brain and E! Talk Daily. If that weren’t the case, Slither would be a great horror/comedy, but as it stands, it’s just pretty funny.  

     However, that’s more than enough to make it entertaining. Despite a trailer that makes it look like a remake of Night Of The Creeps with less attention to dialogue, Slither is a pretty tight little picture. It takes place in Wheelsy, a strangely interracial small town in the American South. The town is pleasant, quiet and only gets one TV channel, which apparently plays nothing but Twin Peaks re-runs. One night, a badly computer animated meteor strikes in the forest, unnoticed by the sleeping townsfolk. Discovered by cult actor Michael Rooker, the meteor turns out to an alien parasite, which sets off an infestation/invasion of killer slugs from a planet whose only TV channel plays David Cronenberg’s Shivers. After that, chaos ensues, and the survival of the very earth itself is left in the hands of Mal from Firefly and a very close approximation of Rachel McAdams.

     Again, it must be stressed that the trailer for this film does not do it justice. And while the script is fairly amusing, it’s the performances that really bring the film to life. Perhaps that’s why the charm of the film can’t be distilled into a two-minute ad, because all the characters are given organic life that takes time to develop. Nathan Fillion, as Police Chief Bill Pardy, is the highlight, but the rest of the cast is good as well, demonstrating that director James Gunn has a real talent for coaching comedic performances. Gunn is perhaps best known as the writer for 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake, as well as Tromeo & Juliet, which is the only Troma film I’ll ever recommend, so in his hands, the various references and lifts from other horror films get to be called homages instead of rip-offs.

     In regards of the horror aspect, Slithers is not scary. The special effects are disappointing in that they don’t live up to the caliber of the rest of the film, but they’re certainly adequate for the B-level sci-fi/horror Slither is aiming for. It’s gross, and distasteful, which is always fun, but it never really strays far enough into the horror category to really be considered genre-bending. But that’s not really the point. Slither aims to entertain, occasionally disgust, and contain enough ham-fisted social commentary about humans and hunting that there’s a good chance someone might write a film school paper about it one day. And in the end, that’s all you should expect for a movie about killer slugs.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12