New Year's Countdown...of Horror: 10 - Slither

 what a fuckin' year.  Is it over yet? Christmas was a nice respite from thinking too hard about it, but it's still just keeps on churning whether we want it to or not. Time to drown out the horror of reality with some...other horror.  Maybe just entrenching myself in dark, disgusting, ugliness, and maybe when 2021 ticks over things will seem that much brighter.

10
Slither
2006, d. James Gunn - amazonprime

The Story (in two paragraphs or less)

Rural South Carolina. A thing crashes down from outer space. It embeds itself in Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) and starts changing him. Grant's young wife Starla (Elizabeth Banks) starts to notice the change but not soon enough. Grant starts to steal dogs, cats and other animals in town, and is eating pounds upon pounds of meat. He kidnaps a woman who confessed a crush on him and embeds his eggs within her (rather then put the eggs in his wife). He eventually mutates to disgusting proportions. The police peg the woman's disappearance on Grant and arrive in time to save Starla from Grant.

The eggs eventually hatch and start spreading all over town, with only Police Chief Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion), Starla, and teenager Kylie (Tania Saulnier) remaining uninfected with the parasite. Kylie managed to catch a glimpse of the parasite's memories, learning that he is a singular being, thousands of years old, moving from planet to planet consuming everything until only he remains. And yet Grant's memories and his fixation on Starla prove surprisingly powerful. Bill and Starla deduce that if they kill Grant as the host they may just end this creature forever.

Why this?
I actually wanted to watch this when it originally came out but just never got around to it. Since Guardians of the Galaxy is maybe my favourite Marvel movie (perhaps second favourite) and it has so much to do with James Gunn's sensibilities so I've been curious to see how much of Gunn is in his other movies. I've seen Super, which is an awkward, uncomfortable take on the superhero movie and not nearly the big pop-culture infused, crowd-pleasing, humorous, adventurous ride. I wondered whether Slither would be more on the Super side or the Guardians side.

What's good?
Gunn's humour is there but subdued (I enjoyed all the different "infected" denizens moaning "Starlaaa"). I was expecting it to be funnier than it was actually. The special effects are very gross but more in an amusing way, rather than an off-putting, horrifying way. This movie is a spin on so many 80's alien/monster/horror movie tropes (and a does of Lovecraft), but falls more in line with them rather than being winky and referential like a Scream film.

Not so good…
There's a few shots that utilize CGI that obviously don't hold up anymore (so credit that most of this was done practical). This is a "contagion" movie, so it's kind of rough to watch right know, being all to aware of how hard it is to contain one once it starts.

The bad thing
Oh, the creature is gross in all its stages, but Gunn's very brief backstory and cues to his alien origins in Kylie's visual flashes were really more of what I was hoping he would have in this. I liked that the creature was singular, semi-intelligent mind (more driven by impulse than any deep thinking or strategy) that adopts some of the memories and emotions of his primary host.

Franchise potential:
The post-credit sequence insinuates that the creature is still alive, but Slither did not do that well in theatres...and Gunn has moved on to much bigger things. I would like a sequel that gives the creature a bit more personality. Maybe it trying to find its way off Earth after another defeat... make it the protagonist, fighting for survival.

Did I like watching this?
Sort of, but not really. I liked Gunn's musical cues in the third act, and the "final battle" was quite fun (Chekov's grenade), but I'm not a big fan of gross for gross sake, and that's clearly what Gunn was going for here. Piling on gross thing on top of gross thing (literally at the end).

Toasty's take