Slither

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I never realized until I saw this movie how much James Gunn has actually worked on in the past. Before he really put himself on the map with 'Guardians of the Galaxy'; his name becoming synonymous with the series, he's credited as screenwriter for 2004's 'Dawn of the Dead', to a lesser extent, 2002's 'Scooby-Doo', and he even had a hand in 'Thir13en Ghosts'. 'Slither' here, however, is pretty much his breakout project, both writing and directing for a horror comedy that really likes to play the gross-out card. It does, however, admittedly do its job of being a modern B movie very well.

It all starts when a meteorite crash-lands nearby the town of Wheesly, South Carolina. From the meteorite springs an alien parasite, which heads into town, finds the wealthy Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) and pretty much takes him over. His changes in behaviour and appearance gets his wife, Starla (Elizabeth Banks) suspicious, leading to an eventual fight that bring in the police. As the cops manage to rescue her, Grant heads off to check on his super grotesque nesting situation, involving poor Brenda (Brenda James) who Grant's parasite uses for breeding. This eventually leads to those slug-like creatures, who try to take over the town like an extraterrestrial plague.

A posse is soon formed, led by Police Chief, Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion), helped by Starla, who may be the only one who can talk to Grant without consequence. Soon, they include Mayor Jack MacReady (Gregg Henry) and lone teen, Kylie Strutemyer (Tania Saulnier); the girl in the unfortunate bathtub situation on the movie poster. As they attempt to hunt Grant down in order to put a stop to things, they must evade both parasitic slugs, and the zombified people these slugs have taken control of. All the while, there's plenty of comedy to keep us going, but so much of it is gross out material that this is a horror comedy that I'm kind of "meh" about.

All things considered, I think the biggest problem is that this kind of thing has been done in the past. Alien parasite falls to Earth, alien takes over bodies, and there's some kind of breeding process going on. Another thing this one loses major points for is how the breeding works. It involves a whole lot of meat, and a lot of this meat comes from dogs, and I'm totally one of those people who absolutely hate a dog death in a movie (at least unless there's a John Wick character ready to spring into action because of it). But with my personal taste aside, there's still plenty to give this credit for.

To begin with, I have to give Gunn some slack, this being the first major film he both wrote and directed. This was the first thing he worked on that was his, and to begin with a modern B movie was definitely a solid choice for a blossoming filmmaker. The other thing he manages to do here is gross-out successfully with some of the body horror in this. It's not my favourite thing, but I can't deny that if done right and makes me go "ugh, nasty", I have to admit that it's doing its job. It's a lot like a movie that has me flinch at torture porn - the effect is there, which is what they're going for, but I'm not the biggest fan of it. SOME of it is pretty dated CG, but still, this was 2006, so pre MCU CG and generally forgivable.

I think I can recommend this as a fun B movie as long as you're a person who gets a kick out of body horror and gross out humour. Some of the names attached to this will also be enough to draw some people in, like Fillion for us fifty-million 'Firefly' fans, and Michael Rooker under Gunn's direction before he became out favourite MCU father figure. It's another film I can give plenty of credit to for what it is, but I don't know that I'll be rushing to check it out again anytime soon. It gave Gunn a nice boost, but as far as I'm concerned, nothing he makes will ever top his 'Guardians' movies.

​3/5

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