UK Edition
Feeds
Screenwriters: James Gunn
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker
Running time: 96 mins
Certificate: 15
When Grant Grant (Rooker) comes across an empty shell-like object in the woods of small town Wheesly, he undergoes an unpleasant transformation. As the town's animals quietly go missing, it becomes clear that something strange is going on, and it's not long that the townsfolk discover that an extraterrestrial invasion is afoot. With the help of Grant's wife and own childhood sweetheart, Starla (Banks), the town's police chief Bill Pardy (Fillion) sets about trying to stop the alien nasties.
Although a horror film, Slither is something of a piece of nostalgia, a horror movie which never takes itself too seriously. Rather than setting out to scare, it instead turns its attention to the odd fright, a fair helping of gross-out scenes and a barrage of witty one liners (though some are unfortunately less witty than others). Similar to the likes of Tremors and Gremlins, the film aims to make the audience laugh and cringe in equal measure, an example being a scene in which a missing character is found in a barn swelled up to a grotesque size. She then proceeds to complain about how hungry she is before her spherical body splits and a sea of gore flows forth - never scary, but amusingly over the top.
The performances are enjoyable across the board, but Serenity's Nathan Fillion is particularly well cast as the town's unlikely hero, whose sardonic comments are one of the films main sources of entertainment.
Directed by James Gunn (Dawn of the Dead) as an all-round work of entertainment, Slither is a welcome distraction from the current focus on sadism in the horror genre, as seen in Hostel and the Saw films. Instead Slither is a B-movie at heart from its storyline to its hefty helping of gore, though it doesn't rely upon it.
Slither is well worth a watch for horror fans with a sense of humour.
