Slither
By Eleanor Zhao
Director: James Gunn
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker, Tania Saulnier
Official website: http://www.slithermovie.net
Billed as a horror-comedy movie that is supposedly heinous, hilarious and demented, Slither trips over its own slime unfortunately. There are elements of gore, shock scenes, blood and, not forgetting, alien invasion. But before you envision another The Thing-wannabe movie, throw in your not-so-typical elements: corny and lame dialogues, a love triangle, and you know that this movie is heading into the B-grade sci-fi zombie horror-comedy territory.
The movie's protagonist, a young and beautiful woman named Starla Grant (Elizabeth Banks), is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man, Grant Grant (Michael Rooker), 20 years her senior. An unfruitful night with the missus got Grant a woman desperate for his attention and an alien bug desperate to procreate, dominate and destroy.
Having found the host, the alien bug goes around the sleepy town of Wheelsy looking for meat and abducting a woman to procreate its wonderfully slimy slugs in the ugliest form of pregnancy one has ever seen. And of course, a movie cannot be without its "hero" of the day, police chief Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion). Imagine the bumbling hero's hand grenade being whacked out of his hand by Grant (by now, a hideous alien) not once but twice and denotating in the swimming pool eventually. No, the hero cannot get any better than this. Being saved by the young woman Kylie Strutemyer (Tania Saulnier), a key person in the movie, does no good to boost a hero's credentials.
Then there are the zombie scenes -- a must for many horror flicks. Maybe director/screenwriter, James Gunn, has so much love for his sleeper hit, Dawn Of The Dead (for which he is the screenwriter), that he has to have the alien-infected town people walking like zombies in Slither as well.
Now that there are horror and action involved, here comes the love story. Love story in a horror movie? A Starla-Grant/alien slug-Bill (who holds a very long & bright torch for Starla) love triangle. Grant's deep love for Starla overflows into the alien consciousness, which for the first time, experiences love. So instead of world domination, winning the heart of Starla becomes numero uno. Hey, when do aliens fall in love in a horror movie!?
So what is going here, you ask? Bugs me. Unless there is a childhood affinity for bugs, slugs and alien lust, you may want to slither away from this one.
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