Slither

[Andrew]

I finally picked this up and watched it.  It is another great addition to the catalog of modern b-movies, just like "Feast."

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***

A meteorite drops a small organic pod into the backwoods near a small town.  One night, while on the edge of adultery, a guy named Grant is nailed by a dart fired from the thing.  He begins to mutate and infects Brenda (the woman, not his wife, that he was going to boink) via two tentacles that sprout from his chest.  He then chains her up in a barn and feeds her piles of meat.  Meanwhile, he continues to mutate.  The local sheriff, who has had a thing for Grant's wife (Starla) ever since childhood, refers to mutated Grant as "the squid."  There's a funny scene with the police marking a map with little squid markers to track Grant's movements.

I really liked some of the characterizations of the infected people turned into breeders.  They are, "So hungry, I never knew a person could be so hungry." and will eat anything.  When the sheriff and his posse follow squid Grant back to the barn, huge bloated Brenda pops and hundreds of alien worms spill out.  Some of the posse are infected, while the sheriff, Starla, and a few others manage to cover their mouths.  Alien brain worm zombies are violent creatures that spit acid, as the sheriff notes when he yells, "What's with the spitting?" (A car window blocks the goop.)  You'd have to see the scene, but that line is pretty funny.

The town is overrun by the worms and everyone turned into zombies or killed for meat before the surviving characters can get back.  When they do, they find that mutated Grant is making more breeders and just about ready to start an exponential expansion.  Some of the scenes reminded me of "Society" and, again, the sheriff had a hilarious comment along the lines of, "This is some pretty f**ked up s**t here." which about sums it up for the alien's biological tendencies.  Can humanity be saved?

Oh, and I loved it when the mayor (infected and becoming a breeder) grabs the sheriff and begs, "Kill me!"  The hero doesn't have one of those stupid agonizing scenes that so many other movies tend toward.  He just shoots the mayor in the head immediately and moves on.

Many had a say about this when Scott started a topic some time ago, but I wanted to post about it, because it was a lot of fun.

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,111376.0.html

[Oldskool138]

***** Spoiler maybe****

One of my fav lines is when the sheriff and the girl find a bunch of zombies milling around and she says "What do we do now?" and he says "I don't know.  Probably get turned into one of those f*cked up things".   "Isn't that kind of negative?"  "It's been that kind of day".  Great stuff!

I like the mayor's Mr. Pibb rant in the back of the cruiser.  It was a fun movie with homages galore!

[Andrew]

Oh, and something I forgot to mention is the genius use of Air Supply during the scenes with the town overrun by acid-spitting zombies.  "I'm All Out of Love" plays as brain worm zombies drag dead bodies through the streets.  I was laughing so hard that I had to stop the movie.

One of my fav lines is when the sheriff and the girl find a bunch of zombies milling around and she says "What do we do now?" and he says "I don't know.  Probably get turned into one of those f*cked up things".   "Isn't that kind of negative?"  "It's been that kind of day".  Great stuff!

The sheriff had quite a few very good lines.  Hats off to the director/writer, James Gunn.

[Torgo]

I thought that the 1st half was much stronger than the 2nd half, but overall I still found it to be a pretty fun flick.  Reminded me of Night of the Creeps in some instances though.

Michael Rooker is a hoot in Slither!    

[RCMerchant]

Hollywood take note: THIS is how you get me to watch your movies nowadays! I thought it was one of THEE best monster movies made in the past 20 years!!! I LOVE this movie! MONSTERS!!!! GORE!!! MORE MONSTERS! And a great cast too! Two tentacles up!  

[Andrew]

From what I know, "Slither" didn't do too well for making money.  That's a darn shame.  I wonder if the good b-movies are getting buried or lost in all the dreck put out by people like UFO and the other SciFi Channel stuff.  Looking back, a lot of classic b-movies only become known after years.  People need time to find them and tell each other about them.  Sort of like winnowing grain...

[KYGOTC]

I saw this at hollywood video yesterday. I looked stupid, so i passed it by. Maybe ill go rent it..

[peter johnson]

This is a great bit of stuff --
I especially liked the kids in this one, especially the little girl begging the people to get out of the car -- You could tell the kids were having the time of their lives being "bad" monsters!!
I also loved the outtakes of the scene where the "cow" tips over, ditto the actual scene in the film wherein Grant devours the cow.
Jest a good ol' time at the picture show!
peter johnson/denny crane

[Amontillado]

I think Slither is easily one of the best horror movies to come out in the past five years. I especially loved the homage to Cronenberg's Shivers with the bathtub scene. Right before that scene I thought it was awesome that the little girls were reading R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books. The writer/director James Gunn also wrote the Dawn of the Dead remake which I thought was the best horror remake since predecesor Night of the Living Dead got a facelift from Tom Savini. Now that Torgo mentioned it, I read somewhere that Gunn hadn't seen Night of the Creeps until he was done filming. No sex with farm animals. It was more an homage to the aforementioned Shivers, Slugs, and another space slug/parasite movie that I didn't recognize (and now totally forget). The references were everywhere too, which I really enjoyed. Like the ammunition store is named after Max Renn, the bar is named Henenlotter's, and the Mayor is named MacReady. It was a very weel done, delibrately cheesy horror movie with some great humor and action. It really came through that it was a horror movie made by a horror fanatic for horror fanatics.


My personal favorite part:

"It's obvious the bastard's got Lyme disease."
"What?"
"Lyme disease. You touch some deer feces, and then you eat a sandwich without washing your hands. You got your Lyme disease."
"And that makes you look like a squid?"

*I contracted Lyme disease (and tick borne malaria, which was fun) three years ago. Knowing this my girlfriend refered to my johnson as calamari for a few weeks. You guys probably didn't need to know that, huh?

[RCMerchant]

When Micheal Rooker is poking it with the stick out in the woods,I got a big time the BLOB flashback(50's version)!

[indianasmith]

I must admit this one was pretty good - I caught it on SHOWTIME a week or so back.    The whole bathroom sequence, where the worm nearly got down the girls throat, had me wanting to use  a whole bottle of Listerine!

[Mr_Vindictive]

This one came out on DVD on my wedding anniversary last year.  Took the wife out for a nice dinner and then immediately headed over to Wal-Mart to pick the DVD up.  It's a great film, and at the top of the "monster" films to come out recently.

The film works for me for four reasons:

James Gunn's great directing eye, and his knack for writing hilarious and witty scripts.

Michael Rooker's ability to ham every scene up, but to do so with the utmost seriousness.

Gregg Henry's fantastic job as the mayor, and his rant about Mr. Pibb.

Nathan Fillion just because the guy is a hell of an actor and you can tell that he was having fun every single moment of the film.



The only problem that I have with the film is Elizabeth Banks as Starla.  I'm not a big fan of her acting, and she left me cold in this one.  She just didn't seem to get into her role or get into the film as much as the other actors and it's a shame. 

Overall though, it's a damn good film and well worth purchasing.

[SaintMort]

My personal favorite part:

"It's obvious the bastard's got Lyme disease."
"What?"
"Lyme disease. You touch some deer feces, and then you eat a sandwich without washing your hands. You got your Lyme disease."
"And that makes you look like a squid?"

*I contracted Lyme disease (and tick borne malaria, which was fun) three years ago. Knowing this my girlfriend refered to my johnson as calamari for a few weeks. You guys probably didn't need to know that, huh?

During this scene look for Lloyd Kaufman in the background as a drunk bum