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There are two kinds of horror movies that are worth watching
the first of course is the classic jump from your seat stain your drawers scream
a thon
the second is the camped out, laugh yourself silly, and end up on Mystery Science
Theater 3000, cheese fest
it's the rare film that really managed to scare rarer still the film it makes
us laugh on purpose such as George Romero's Creepshow
slither makes the ambitious attempted to do both
Slither is the film directorial debut with James Gunn who you may remember as the
writer of Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead as well as the
***-doo movies and a host of other films Gunn is a total devote a 80's
horror films and made what clearly comes across as a homage to his heros
unfortunately despite an impressive cast including Nathan Fillion of the Josh
Whedon Firefly series and its film cousin Serenity
Elizabeth Banks from Scrubs and 40-year-old *** Michael Rooker Jenna
Fischer and more
Slither simply doesn't reach the lofty heights to which it aspires
it starts with the space alien crash lands on Earth and leaves a nasty present
gimmick
The gimmick in this case turned out to be the first of 5 progressions of monster
the look for all the world like a translucent pulsing globulus ***
that spits out a quivering dart which bears more than a passing resemblance to
Audrey two from Little Shop of Horrors
Our victim, played by Michael Rooker, is a flustered former Marine type turned
frustrated forty-hour week hubby
after he's nailed in the woods by our critter he developes an insatiable appetite for
all things flesh
starting with the meat market moving to the pet population
and finally ending up with you guessed it people
yes it seems mister Gunn has a bit of a flesh-eating zombie fetish
from there we go from what is told as an almost languidly paced examination of a
man's descent into monster hood
to a sort of attempted cross between arachnophobia and alien
I won't spoil the surprise but for those of you who've never seen *** allen's
everything you always wanted to know about sex
think giant disembodied breast that talks
said breast then gives birth to critter number four
a gazillion little red slug like things that zip all over the place at high
speed trying to get down the gullet of any live thing in sight
creating yet more zombies for our heroes, all the name actors except Rooker,
to avoid kill or comment on sounds like goofy fun right
problem is the film's paced so slowly in the beginning while it meanders around
Rookers marital troubles with local dish teacher Liz banks
and take more than 40 minutes for the real mayhem to begin by then we're
looking at our watches
another problem is that the scares never really scare
on the shriek-o-meter this film can only really manage to shout
"eh" and that's because as the main monster Rooker is never really all that menacing
he's sympathetic and remains in love with his wife
furthermore every other manifestation of monster is either just
gross, or in the case of mother ***, just silly. The slugs look more like giant
mutated red *** which let's face it
aint all that menacing unless you're wearing Armani. worse still the squeek
like mice.
Squeeking ***? This is not to say that the film a total trainwreck by any
stretch
the actors especially Nathan Fillion as Sheriff Bill Pardy and the aforementioned
Liz Banks
have terrific chemistry and really all go for their roles
the most fun being Gregg Henry late of Gilmore Girls, and United 93 is
mayor RJ McCreedy does that name sound familiar Carpenter fans?
Henry has a spazz out moment in the back of the sheriff's car that shows just how
much fun everyone's having
the DVD features the film as released, plus
extras which are so-so. Of the deleted scenes only the meat market file is a
real keeper
the affects sequence with John Gajdecki will teach you things about the adult toy
industry as well as our *** slugs that you may find interesting or disgusting
depending on your proclivities
and the gore hound grill with patent and blood recipe is
mildly amusing and informative the rest unfortunately this snooze-ville
A word to the producers about gag reels, gag reels
do not work if their planned or produced this isn't America's Funniest Home
Videos
they need to be impromptu unintended and unstaged
so please forget the sound effects. Sadly
despite all the good work great production values and obvious love thrown
in, Slither never really scares
and never really makes us laugh our butts off and we wanted to
it's not terrible it's just not as good as it or we wanted it to be
that's it, I'm Nick Hofman, see you next time