Slither

The people who made Slither must have loved the unsung 80s classic Night of the Creeps. Not only does Slither ape the latter's not-so-original-to-be-considered-stealing plot line of intergalactic slugs that invade Small-Town America and turn the unsuspecting populace into grotesque zombies, but also attempts to mimic the shameless 80s "cheesiness" that defined the latter movie. The irony of that being Night of the Creeps tried hard to mimic the naivete of 50s teen horror movies. Slither is a throwback to a throwback.

What Slither may lack in terms of original ideas, it makes up for in it's sense of fun. As far as B-movies go, it's damn good.



Contributing to the fun is genre-vet Michael Rooker giving a twisted turn as the unfortunately named Grant Grant; a controlling, jealous, yet ultimately decent man who is the first to play host to conquering brain slugs and eventually finds himself covered under mounds (literally) of grotesque make-up as an undulating mass of slug/human flesh. As the monster of the movie, Rooker does a good job of grounding the outlandish special effects that make up his final sluggy forms. He never overacts to such a degree that the audience regards his transformation as totally cartoonish. Only half-cartoonish. He is the RookerSlug.

The other actors come and go, screaming when they have to, running while not screaming and generally doing a good enough job of not making their thin characters annoying, but not a good enough job to make one really care if their characters live or die. As far as I was concerned, any character was far game as slug fodder. In fact I was rooting for the movie to throw some curve balls and kill off our leads half way through the movies just for kicks. No such luck.



Because it's rooted in other films that genre fans have probably seen, nothing in Slither is totally surprising or unseen. The movie unfolds exactly as expected, offering only minor surprises along the way. Some of the character deaths are interesting; kills are set up in a such a way to make you think they'll end in a recognizable fashion, but then there's always a small twist to it that changes the bloodletting just enough to make any B-movie hound smile.

Of course, therein lies Slither's greatest strength: the gore effects. Just to get the negatives out of the way, as with most low-budget movies, the computer effects suck, which means it's good that they're not used often. The practical effects on the other hand are gross, gory, and great. Every kill is something different; the movie never repeats itself. James Gunn is a good enough director that he keeps each kill exciting, not weighing the pace down with tedious stalks scenes or lingering too much on the ultra-violence as to make the movie an exercise in constitution. The stand-out effects are two monster set-peices: a woman who's grown to the size of a house (ew) and the aforementioned RookerSlug.



I love RookerSlug; by the end of the flick he's a slimy, tentacled mass of undulating flesh barely recognizable as a man. The various slug zombies strip down in an orgy of flesh and proceed to be absorbed via some kind of freaky sexual osmosis into RookerSlug. The end is a complete rip of another unsung horror movie from the 80s, Society. B-movies are supposed to be gross in some fashion though; if they weren't exploitative at all, why the hell would we watch them?

Slither is as a good time: fast-paced, gory, but fun. Given the current spate of "torture-porn" flicks like Hostel and Saw that sacrifice any sense of excitement for mind-numbing queasiness, a movie as unoriginal as Slither seems like a breath of fresh B-movie air. Definitely check it out.

*** out of ****