"Slither" tries as hard as it can to frighten moviegoers with its gruesomely disgusting parasitic slug aliens. Unfortunately, the audience will be too busy laughing at the corny plot and cheesy special effects to be scared.
The concept of the "B" movie is long forgotten, and maybe it should stay that way. The combination of gallons of fake blood and excessive gore with some well-timed jokes are what originally defined the genre. With extremely low budgets and redundant "giant monster" plots, the deliberately awful films were anticipated and celebrated by their audiences.
But that was over 30 years ago. In 2006, "Slither" has no excuse.
When a meteor hits a quiet hick town in Middle America, an alien parasite emerges and possesses one of the men there. The man kidnaps a woman and plants his alien seed inside her. He then proceeds to feed her lots of dogs and cats and possums.
The woman expands into a giant ball and bursts, releasing hundreds of worm creatures. The creatures slither their way into town and infiltrate the people who live there by crawling into their mouths, thus turning them into flesh-eating zombies.
Writer and director James Gunn ("Dawn of the Dead") is the man who should be held responsible for "Slither." A longtime horror buff, Gunn does his best to pay homage to his old favorites by cramming every possible clich?(c) into his movie.
From "Night of the Living Dead" to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and from "Tremors" to "The Faculty," no film is left untouched by Gunn in his never-ending quest to rip off as many movies as possible. One could confidently assert that there is not one original concept in "Slither."
Michael Rooker (Brandi Svenning's dad from "Mallrats") plays Grant Grant, the man who initially gets attacked by the alien. Rooker was convincing as a psycho zombie alien host, if it matters.
Elizabeth Banks (the girl in the bathtub from "40 Year Old Virgin") plays Grant's wife Starla. At no point does Starla convey emotion over her husband's transformation into a squid creature, and within days of her startling discovery she has already fallen for the town sheriff.
Nathan Fillion plays top cop Bill Pardy, who wins over Starla and attempts to save the town. Pardy has some clever lines and good timing that add some much-appreciated comic relief to an otherwise tired gore fest.
The funny lines were the high point of the film. It is good to know that Gunn was not taking the project too seriously. He understands that these movies are supposed to make an audience laugh as well as scream. Every time a situation escalates to a new level of repulsiveness, one of the characters has something funny to say about it. If it weren't for these occasional breaks in tension, the movie would leave you feeling more nauseous than entertained.
As far as horror movies go, "Slither" is among the worst of them. Even the most mindless slasher flicks about teens getting wasted and killed over and over again have more thought and time put into their scripts then this hollow abomination of a film.
Although it may have intentionally been over-the-top and cheesy, its lack of originality and inability to bring something new to the table makes it not worth the 96 minutes.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
