Slither, I think I love you. Not in a weird sort of ‘I want to penetrate the hole in the DVD’ kind of way, but in a ‘You were everything I could have hoped for in a movie’ kind of way. It’s more of a platonic thing.But, really, you were all that I hoped you’d be, and that happens so rarely. Shaun of the Dead was one of those movies. V for Vendetta was another. And, those are the only two that come to mind. So, Slither makes it 3 movies that failed to disappoint me in some way.
What is there to dislike in this movie. You have Mallrats’ Michael Rooker. You have zombie type creatures (I like calling them Grant Zombies. They’re sort of like the Borg, only with fewer gadgets). There are all sorts of slimy slugs and then, to top it all off, the best use of an Air Supply song in nearly 30 years.
I’m kidding, there’s never been a good use of an Air Supply song. EVER.
Everything starts off innocently enough with meteor crashing into the woods…which NO ONE NOTICES. So, it comes as quite a surprise when Mallrats’ Michael Rooker stumbles upon it one night. This is how is all begins. The meteor contains an alien life form that injects itself into Rooker’s character, Grant. Grant then begins to charge, one of the first signs is a quest for meat.
The first half of the movie can be accused of moving too slowly at times, but the payoff in the second half is worth the wait. Once the slugs are released and start inhabiting people everything just starts moving along almost nonstop.
Now, I know with talks of Grant Zombies and Brain Slugs, it sounds like some cheesy movie from the fifties, the only thing missing is the 3-D Glasses and a couple teens talking about what a keen night out it was as the give their class ring to their best girl. And in a way, that is all that’s missing.
Slither is essentially a horror comedy. And it does it well. There’s a trick to doing a good horror comedy. The trick is being funny without making fun of the horror. It’s too easy to make a joke out of the things that go bump in the night, and once you do, your creature is a big joke, and you can’t scare anyone with a joke. A good horror comedy though will never make fun of the creature, the humor comes from the rest of the world, but the horror is (and forgive the pun) dead serious.
Slither gets 9 squirming slugs out of 10.
