Slither

dir: James Gunn
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Sure, some horror flicks are dumb. And some are derivative. Sometimes they’re dumb and derivative at the same time. But they can be entertaining.

There’s not a single original idea in this flick, not for a second of it. And the story is the laziest amalgam of generic genre horror television and movies ideas and clichés from X-Files episodes, The Blob, Tremors, Cronenberg’s Shivers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and probably dozens of other crapfests. There is also a cheap feel to the proceedings, the CGI work is lame, and the flick is so predictable I felt like I’d watched the flick before I’d actually watched it.

But, and this is a big but, I still found it sporadically entertaining. I got a few laughs out of it, and there are only two real reasons why the movie works, if in fact it does at all.

One is that the script has obviously been compiled by horror film geeks with an ear for the genre. So some of the quips and lines are amusing. They won’t result in legions of viewers being admitted to hospital in need of stiches for their ruptured sides, but they don’t do too badly.

The other factor in its favour is that Nathan Fillion is uniquely suited to playing the lead guy in these kinds of endeavours. He can carry both the aw shucks apple pie heroic lead kind of stuff, as well as the action man duties. And his delivery of a choice bit of swearing or a particularly good line is excellent, too, which doesn’t hurt.

Okay, so I’m a fan of his, not least of which for his time as Captain Mal Reynolds on both the tv series Firefly and the feature film Serenity. And he was the primary reason I bothered to watch such a formulaic entry in the horror genre.

Which is to say, Slither lived up (or down, as the case may be) to my meagre expectations.

In a nowhere town called Wheelsy, North Carolina, a meteorite strike unleashes some kind of all-consuming alien organism that takes over a local rich arsehole called Grant Grant (Michael Rooker), who metamorphoses into some strange human-alien hybrid that wants to eat nothing but meat and to impregnate the townsfolk with his alien seed. Those impregnated then also start compulsively eating meat, and give explosive birth to thousands of alien slugs that try to turn people into zombies after getting into their bodies through their mouths. Once infected, they all share a group consciousness linked to the initial rich bastard / alien creature.

The rich arsehole is married to a lovely sweet young thing (Elizabeth Banks), who in turn is loved by her childhood sweetheart who happens to be the town’s chief of police, Bill (Nathan Fillion). It’s his job to save the girl and the town by any amusing means necessary.

So the flick has aliens, giant slugs, acid-spitting zombies, coarse language, no sex or nudity and the occasional bit of extreme gore entirely appropriate to such a film. The alien creatures are pretty foul, the slugs look lame, and the main villain is so hokey and cheesy that it is impossible to be even remotely scared, which is a shame, since this is a horror movie after all.

But I didn’t care. I got a few laughs out of the lines delivered by the hero, some of the violence was pretty funny, and a running gag about deer hunting gave me a chuckle as well. The main damsel in distress is something of both a crap actress and a bland waste of space, but they counterbalance this by bringing in another female character, Kylie (Tania Saulnier) to balance things out by actually being a bit more interesting. Kylie has a bit more grunt to her character than the lead mannequin posing as a heroine, especially when fending off her zombie family, who have to be some of the worst zombies I’ve ever seen. And that includes the zombies in political election ads.

It doesn’t matter, though. Slither doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is, and for that it deserves some slack.

Lest this sound like a ringing endorsement of the flick, don’t forget that it is as cheesy and crappy as it sounds. There’s a shot where a television is playing a scene from one of the ‘classics’ of modern cinema, The Toxic Avenger. That isn’t just homage, it’s more of a warning label. The Troma spirit hangs over this production like a fart that refuses to dissipate.

But there is a place for such productions in the world. It’s usually for direct-to-video stuff or cable, but it fulfils its function, like fast food or porn: you know what you’re going to get and why you’re getting it.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, since we live in such a capitalistic utopia.

6 times no-one could possibly be surprised by the post-credits scene leaving the door open for a sequel out of 10.

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‘My easy-going nature is gettin' sorely fuckin' tested’ Bill, Slither