10/23/06: Slither (2006)It’s not Roctober here at RightWingTrash. Neither is it Shocktober or even Schlocktober. It’s just October. Still, we’re cranking up for Halloween like any professional adolescent, whether it’s mulling over the big night’s film festival or preparing to
stalk the cast of
Phantom of the Paradise. In that spirit, we’re keeping things strictly horrific for the rest of the month—starting with this year’s second big conservative monster movie.
Slither isn’t a remake, but it rips off/pays tribute to any number of ’80s horror classics. A night shot looks exactly like the Full Moon logo that launched plenty of low-budget direct-to-video films. The attacking alien slugs will seem very familiar to fans of 1986’s
Night of the Creeps. Since the ’70s begat the ’80s, though, you can trace the invasion back to David Cronenberg’s
They Came From Within (aka
Shivers).
There’s even a clip from
Toxic Avenger as a tribute to Troma Studios. That’s fair, since writer/director James Gunn got his start by penning 1996’s
Tromeo and Juliet.
Despite the ’80s obsession,
Slither is firmly set in modern times. Local schoolteacher Elizabeth Banks is first seen teaching Darwin in the classroom, but she’s talking about survival of the fittest. That explains why she’s ready to grab a gun once the alien slugs start taking over the small town of Wheelsy.
There’s a nice build-up before the slimy suckers start worming their way into the bodies and minds of the local citizenry. The teacher’s fondness for firearms then leads to a possessed local whining, “Why you choosing sides before you hear both sides of the story?” It’s a stalling tactic, of course. Banks has already seen where the aliens place her on the food chain.
Her response prompts co-star
Gregg Henry—stealing the film as the mayor of Wheelsy—to utter the admiring line, “Bitch is hardcore.” Pretty much all of Henry’s lines here are quotable, including a tantrum when he finds out that he can’t even get a Mr. Pibb amongst the mayhem. The mayor ends up as one of recent filmdom’s few truly politically-incorrect heroes. He’s more brash than brave, but Henry radiates plenty of basic goodness from the core of his comic relief.
The mayor, incidentally, is eventually lambasted for being a Republican by one of the aliens' pawns. This help explains why he’s the only person in town who prefers death to assimilation.
The politics here are no fluke. Gunn also wrote the script for 2004’s
Dawn of the Dead remake, where Ving Rhames gives a speech about the shame of living in fear. That film also features a good guy who owns a gun store. It’s kind of suspicious that the formerly popular Gunn hasn’t worked on a film since
Slither. Hopefully, he’s just busy with another fine
novel.
Make it your own: Nobody thought to invite conservative bloggers to any screenings, so
Slither didn’t get the hype of
Firefly—which also starred Nathan Fillion, nicely amiable here as the sheriff of Wheelsy. Neither film did particularly well at the box-office, so support
Slither when it comes out
on DVD tomorrow.
