The Movie Log: 07/08/2012: Slither [2006]

Once in a while a horror movie comes along that is made for horror movie fans. It may not contain anything overly new or original with which to entice new fans, but it has every element a horror fan is looking for and will undoubtedly be a fun ride. While I may have let Slither slither by for almost 6 years, I finally saw it and got so much more than I expected.

I remember reading a month or so ago a list of horror movies that were surprisingly good but unfortunately unsuccessful. Or at least, it was something along those lines. Eitherway Slither was on that list and I thought, oh, that must have been better than I thought. I have since been meaning to watch it, but keep getting confused as Slither, Sliver , Shiver and Splinter are all currently in my watchlist. After spending last night watching the Firefly comic-con panel I decided that it was indeed time to check whichever one of those had Nathon Fillion out. Turns out it was Slither.

When I say that Slither isn't anything overtly new or original, I mean it in a "it pieced together a bunch of horror classics" kind of way. Slither features a small town that is invaded by an alien, which then takes control of a man. It then begins to spread, taking over some townspeople like zombies and mutating others. I gotta say, this is one hell of an advanced space-travelling alien life form. The whole alien concept is unique in that it feels like a construct of a number of different movie monsters from some of the more classic horror movies. We have elements from They Came From Within (heavily), The Blob, Night of the Creeps, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Living Dead, and some TROMA productions, with The Toxic Avenger actually playing a few seconds in one scene. There is even a Goosebumps book on screen, which I'm sure would have been one with a similar story if I could have seen the title. Slither would have fit in perfectly with any graphic horror B-movie of the 70's and 80's.

I don't think the guy in the back got the act scared/shocked memo.

Because Slither seems like such a mashup of unoriginal ideas, it garnered a lot of flack from critics and horror fans before release for simply being a rip-off of Night of the Creeps or a few others. But that is just it, Slither could be the rip off of any handful of old horror B-movie staples and you could never pin down just one. James Gunn, the director and writer got his start at TROMA Films, and was making Slither in homage to such films. Lets face it, the horror genre has been ripping each other off for decades, but always acting like it is fresh and original. Slither wears its influences proudly and without shame, leaving it free to become a horror movie staple itself that might just be ripped off down the road.

I could literally write another couple paragraphs about all of the fun connections Slither has to everything and anything, but I'll just link the IMDb page full of them. Now, on the flip side Slither is a horror comedy. More modern horror comedies tend to be overtly funny and comedic, such as Shaun of the Dead, but I think Slither keeps the more, unintentional style of dark humor that older horror movies had. Slither doesn't do a lot of comedic scenes or small skits or whatever, but there is a large amount of hilarious lines, and like any good comedic horror B-movie you could quote it for days. Most of them are delivered by Nathon Fillion such as "Well, now that is some fucked up shit." Which also summarizes most of the movie.

No one is kidding. It really is some fucked up shit.

As a horror movie, Slither isn't going to play you with jump and shock scares but goes more for the David Cronenberg body horror thing. Personally, that is what gets me. You can rend as many limbs, and tear as many people in half at the waist as you want using however many litres of blood (gallons for you americans) but as soon as something starts crawling under your skin or trying to force it's way down your throat I start to get that tingly creepy feeling. Slither I would say draws most of it's horror from this and can actually be quite disgusting at points. The special effects are well done, and don't exactly scream CGI (It has to be rather obvious for me to notice, but then it is overused) and are reminiscent of Brian Yuzna's Society or Basket Case. Actually it is really similar to From Beyond another Brian Yuzna movie. Anyway, while this movie didn't strike terror into my soul, it undoubtedly made my skin crawl, and I may have covered my mouth for a good 40 minutes.

But none of those elements were actually what got me to watch Slither. The main reason I watched it, and chose to watch it when I did was Nathon Fillion, because I wanted to watch more of him after watching Firefly again. While I didn't think he was going to play as big a part as he did, the movie pulls kind of a switch on the lead characters. While Starla, played by Elizabeth Banks starts out as our main character, Bill Pardy (Fillion) quickly supersedes her once the action starts. This isn't bad however, and both of them do a great job. Even stranger again was the introduction of Tania Saulnier's character Kylie at almost halfway through the second act. While she is mainly used as the source of information to explain what is happening and move along the plot she does become a main character in just the second half of the movie. All together though, the cast did a great job and delivered some hilarious lines, while giving some slightly above B-movie grade performances.

Elizabeth Banks does a great lion impersonation.

In the end, Slither was easily the best horror movie to come out in 2006, and probably one of the better ones of the last decade as well. It went back to the typical B-movie type plot and style, but did so extremely well. Slither shows that you don't need to keep pushing new ideas, nor can you just continue to quickly rehash the same movies. If you just take what horror movies already have and continue to polish it up and stitch together what worked well the first time you can create quite the movie. Just don't try and pass it off as something original. Horror movies have a rich heritage. Embrace it. That is what Slither did and it turned out to be the biggest surprise I've seen in a while.