Writer-director James Gunn has a knack for presenting crisp, energetic storytelling while making fun of the genre he’s working in – but without disrespecting the genre or talking down to its fans. This is on display in his calling-card feature debut, “Slither” (2006).
Although he’d later be known as a superhero filmmaker with “Super” and the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, he’s totally comfortable making a horror-comedy too. This makes sense given that he rose through the ranks of Troma Entertainment as a screenwriter.
Disgusting, but also funny
“Slither” isn’t scary, but it is extremely disgusting. Yet the gross-out imagery is so cartoonishly extreme that, in the end, it’s more funny than gross. Brenda (Brenda James) is one of the first people Grant (Michael Rooker) infects with his zombie-type plague.
Insatiable with hunger, Brenda chows down on raw meat and becomes a giant bloated ball with a face poking out one side and demanding more meat. This has crossed over from gross into the realm of funny.
The film smartly blends practical and CGI effects. As Grant, patient zero of the small town’s infestation, Rooker is funny and sympathetic when he tries to tell his wife (Elizabeth Banks’ Starla) that it’s merely a bee sting when we can see he’s becoming hideously deformed.
Later, CGI sequences show swarms of slugs covering people in an instant, trying to get inside their mouths to possess them.
As ridiculous and admittedly simplistic as “Slither’s” story is, it’s a well-made film on every front. Nathan Fillion, as police chief Bill, takes the tough edge off his Mal Reynolds persona to play up his love for Starla and general competence amid this outbreak.
But he’s not too competent. When Tania Saulnier’s teenage Kylie saves Bill from a rabid deer, he announces that when he retells that story, he’s going to flip their roles so he seems manlier.
Banks likewise lets Starla’s human flaws show through as she struggles with Grant’s descent into monster-hood and how that relates to her marriage vows of loyalty.
Funny, but played straight
Although it has a lot of good off-hand jokes – like Bill’s embarrassment around Starla when the dispatcher (Jenna Fischer’s Shelby) announces that he has clogged up the toilet at his mom’s house – “Slither is mostly played straight. It never falls into that trap of feeling like it has to announce that it’s a comedy; it lets the increasing absurdity of a town overrun by space slugs flow naturally.
And even though the scenario is oh-so-familiar, some of the specific set pieces and monster designs are beyond what we’ve seen before. The bloated image of Brenda is arguably topped by the final form of Grant, who has other possessed people in the process of being absorbed into his huge body.
Those who have only glanced at the poster will be familiar with the iconic bathtub sequence, where Kylie’s peaceful soak is interrupted by a slug coming through the window. Although it’s not the swarm shown on the poster – at least in this specific instance – there’s something particularly wrong when you can’t find peace in the bathroom of your home. This set piece might not be anything new, but it strikes a tone of rising unease – even though it’s coated in a veneer of humor.
I rank “Slither” a notch below “Super” among Gunn’s pre-breakout films, only because it doesn’t have any social commentary. And it doesn’t rewrite any horror-comedy rules. But it plays the game so smoothly that it reminds me of how few horror-comedies get things as right as “Slither” does.