Slither Review (2006)

Slither, is a little horror/comedy film that was realesed about three years ago, the film went widley unnoticed though, and was a financial failure, with a budget of thirty million dollars, and making only thirteen million. It was written and directed by James Gunn, he was the writer of the remake of Dawn of The Dead, which was more successful. That's not saying much. While it didn't do well money wise, Slither was universally enjoyed by fans and critics with few exceptions. It was a throwback to the classic b-movies of the 70's and 80's, which really stuck a nerve with the audience.

The film opens with two bumbling idiot cops, sitting in a car, patrolling a highway or something like that, in the background a giant meteor falls from the sky and crashes in the woods behind them. Meanwhile a man who is busy cheating on his wife, he finds a whore in a bar, and they go into the woods for some fun. They find the meteor and feel the need to investigate. Something shoots out of the large space rock and impales the man in the heart. This man slowly starts turning into a horrible monster, that REALLY craves meat. Later the entire town goes to a party to celebrate the start of the hunting season, meanwhile, he is infecting another woman with his alien disease. Later, after the police officers find out about what has been goin' down, they track the infected woman to an old barn, where they find that she has become extremely fat. She keeps growing, and growing, until she eventually explodes realesing a massive group of small leaches, and as it turns out, if you get bitten by these leaches they infect you as well. Damn, that would suck.

As interesting as this film it, it's only as good as its worst scene. The movie tends to drag a little bit in the beggining, but as soon as the fat lady explodes things move along fast enough. The movie is gory enough, funny enough, and entertaining enough to warrant both horror, and comedy fans should give it a looksee. Nathan Fillion, (of firefly fame) stars as one of the many cops who rampage throughout the film with guns ablazing. Elizabeth Banks (shes from scrubs) stars as the women whos husband was infected in the beggining. The film is especially fun if you know the material. If you were a child of he 70's and 80's drive in, you will really enjoy this films commitment. The only thing this movie is missing from that genre is the nudity. None is here. Oh, well. But, if your a fan of Quentin Tarantino you'll know what I mean when I say this film is a piece of genre cinema.

Thank God for whoever did the special effects for this film. I hope that whoever it may be, they get paid very highly. The effects are great because they are not practicul effects, not CGI. The fake blood is really there, its not digitally added later. The monsters look like they were created for Gremlins, they don't look like Gremlins, but the movements are very similair. While the gore factor in this film isn't extreme, it's enough to give non-horror fans a queasy stomach. Scenes in which a monster/man/squid thing are shown are very nice, with classic make-up effects from a very smart crew. Whenever a monster or creature is on the screen, awesomeness was infused into every frame.

The acting in this movie was decent enough, I enjoyed the main characters, and the side characters enough to where I didn't notice if they were good or bad. All were funny when they needed to be, but serious also, and pulled of the change rather well. What people forget by looking at the case is that this is a comedy. It had some great running jokes, as well as some perfect one-liners. Nathan Fillion did a great job with the comedy stuff, as did Elizabeth Banks, and it seemed as if they knew that this film was a genre, not a movie. One of the background cops was also very funny as well, he was an older man, and I can't seem to find the actors name which is a shame, I think that if you see this movie you'll know who I mean.

This film was one of the kind that was hopping back and forth between genres. At the beggining it wanted to be a 50's sci-fi classic, and about halfway through, it finds that it wants to be a 50's creature feature, but then it thinks it wants to be a 70's explotation flick, things would have run a lot smoother if this had been figured out in the beggining. Also dull at moments Slither comes up just under perfect, but still an amazing flick for fans of any genre. And I'm telling you this is a COMEDY too.

Little Kid: What's a Gina?
Guy: It's a country, it's where...Ginese people come from.

Overall, Slither gets Four zombi's out of Five.