Slither
(2006) 95 min.
Rated: R
Country: Canada / USA
Director: James Gunn
Starring: Don Thompson, Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker, Greg Henry
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★☆☆
An alien invasion begins when a disgruntled husband pokes goo that fell from the sky.
Synopsis:
On a quiet night a meteor plummets to the earth near a town by the name of Wheelsy. The meteorite opens to reveal a reddish goo inside.
The next day we see the quaint denizens of Wheelsy. The buildings are covered in graffiti and trash. They’re a hard drinking, trash talking type of folk. They’re just about ready to gear up for the annual deer hunting season.
Starla Grant (Banks) is seen teaching her class about Darwin’s meaning behind “Survival of the fittest”. after class she’s escorted to her car by her husband, Grant Grant (Rooker). He keeps a watchful eye on her, knowing that other men are interested. Men like sheriff Bill Pardy (Fillion) who watches Starla from a distance and quietly pines for his childhood crush.
Grant and Starla go to bed, while Grant is eager to sleep with her, she declines and says she doesn’t feel like in the mood. Grant gets annoyed and decides to go out for a drink instead.
Grant ends up at a bar where the best/worst rendition of “The Crying Game” is sung karaoke style. Grant drinks away his annoyance and a woman named Brenda shows up and tells Grant how she had a crush on him when she was little. They both walk through the dark forest where she shows him how she carved her initials into a tree a long time ago. As they talk, Grant sees the remains of the meteorite.
The shell is broken and a trail of slime leads deeper into the forest. Brenda and Grant follow the trail until they come upon a lump of white pulsating goo. A slit opens on the goo and a needle-like appendage appears. It shoots out a dart into Grant’s chest and burrows inside him. The worm burrows its way inside his body into his brain.
Grant ends up driving home and building a nest of leaves in the basement of his house. His wife then plays Air Supply’s “Every Woman In the World” as she takes off her housecoat in an attempt to make up for the night before. They start to make out and she sees the wound on his chest, which he dismisses as a bug bite.
Grant starts to behave oddly by doing things like making large purchases of meat, locking the basement and eating local pet dogs. Grant’s skin is starting to get rashy and red. He tries to hide it from Starla. He tells her he’ll meet her at the Annual Deer Hunt party later, so Starla goes on her own.
At the party Starla starts to talk to Sheriff Pardy and they dance together and have fun. Meanwhile, Grant goes to Brenda’s house. She lets him in, thinking he had died, but is nonetheless happy to see him. She takes off her shirt while he removes his. He then reveals he has a gaping wound in his stomach out of which two spiked tentacles protrude. They burrow into Brenda’s stomach and begin to pump in fluids as she screams.
After the party, Starla goes home and finds Grant with even more red pustules all over his face. He lies and tells her that he just visited a doctor and that he’s fine.
The next day, Starla calls the doctor who reveals he hasn’t seen Grant at all. Grant, meanwhile, carries two garbage bags full of stuff to a shack in the woods. Inside the shack is Brenda who is chained to the wall and who complains about being hungry. He dumps raw meat in front of her and she hungrily begins to eat it.
Sheriff Pardy visits Starla’s home looking for Grant as he was last seen at Brenda’s house before she disappeared. Starla informs them that he’s not home. Pardy gives her his card and asks her to ask Grant to call them. Starla knocks the lock off the basement door and ventures inside. Once inside, to her horror, she discovers lots of ded decomposing animals. Pets that were missing and wild animals are strewn about the room. She screams and goes upstairs to call the sheriff.
Grant finds her trying to call the police and gets very upset, feeling betrayed. He starts to push her on the ground to put his tentacles into her but she hits him with a small table. He then pulls her into a headlock when the police just suddenly stroll into the situation. They point their guns at Grant. He hisses in return and then runs away. The police are left dazed and confused by the situation.
Three days later, Mayor Jack MacReady (Henry) is upset with how the police describe Grant as a tentacled beast. They get another call about Grant killing farm animals and the go to investigate. They decide to ambush Grant and Starla decides to join them, hoping she can coax Grant out peacefully.
The set up camp on the Strutemyer farm. At night Grant emerges to kill a cow and he is more of a tentacled monster now than a man. Starla tries to reason with him, but he ignores her. One of he hunters tries to threaten him and one of Grant’s tentacles whips the man and slices him in half. Grant flees and the cops persue him.
The police find the barn where Brenda has been hidden. She’s swollen like a fat tick and fills the barn. She complains of being hungry, but the police don’t know what to do. She moans and then rips apart, exploding into thousands of red slug-like creatures that flood the barn and spill outside. They enter the mouths of 3 of the police officers, but Pardy, Starla, Mayor MacReady and Margaret manage to not get worms in their mouth.
The Slugs head to the Strutemyer farm and attack the older daughter, Kylie. A slug enters her mouth but she pulls it out by the tail. As it’s in her mouth she has flashbacks of the creature’s life on another planet attacking other alien life forms and finally of Grant’s encounter with the aliens and his attacks. Kylie kills the slug with a curling iron and tries to find the rest of her family. Unfortunately, all of them have already been infected by the worms. She hides inside a truck for the night as the worms swarm around her.
Back at the barn Pardy tries to call the sheriff’s station but there’s no answer. The bodies infected by the worms seem to still be alive, but they are unresponsive. As Pardy walks off, Starla is alone with the bodies and one of the police officers comes to life and talks to her as if he’s Grant. He apologizes for his behavior. Margaret appears and interrupts the conversation. The rest of the officers and hunters come back to life, like zombies. One of the zombies spits acidic bile on Margaret. Starla shoots one of the officers in the head. The slug inside his head flees as the body falls down dead.
Back on the farm, Kylie’s family surround the truck and shout at her to open the truck doors. Pardy finds the family harassing Kylie and she runs to him. The neighbors start to chase Pardy and Kylie as they’re all zombies now. Starla and MacReady meet up with Pardy and Kylie and they all get into his squad car while being chased by the whole neighborhood.
While in the car Kylie reveals that she learned that the slugs are from outer space. They enter into town and another car, controlled by Grant and the worms hits their car. The zombies manage to grab Starla and MacReady, but Pardy and Kylie escape and hide. Grant plans to go into the police station to get a grenade, hoping he can blow up Grant and in turn stop the worms. Pardy get attacked by a zombie dog, but Kylie saves him. He manages to get the grenade and gives Kylie a revolver.
Pardy and Kylie watch as the zombies drag other people to a spot to spit digestive acids on them. Pardy decides to follow them in hopes they lead to Grant. Meanwhile, Starla is placed in the Grant house and given a change of clothes and had her hair brushed by the zombies. She awakens to find herself in bed.
MacReady finds himself in the basement of the Grant home, with a bunch of other worm-impregnated people. He tries to escape, but is punctured by tentacles. He too ends up impregnated and starving for raw meat.
Starla arms herself with a pointed silver handled hair brush and goes down to meet the giant blob tentacle monster that Grant has become. Pardy and Kylie also sneak into the house at this time.
Starla tries to stab Grant with her hairbrush but he bats her away easily. Pardy tries to throw the grenade at Grant but it ends up outside in a swimming pool. As Grant’s tentacles attack Pardy, he sticks a tentacle in the spout of a propane tank. He asks Starla to shoot Grant and she does, causing an explosion which kills Grant. Grant’s death stops all the worm zombies, who fall down dead instantly.
Starla, Kylie and Pardy walk away from Grant’s house and wander out of the town which is littered with dead bodies.
The film ends. There is an after credits shot of a cat licking a brain that has a small barb ready to shoot the cat just as Grant was shot at the start of his infection. The scene fades to black as the sound of the barb shooting off and the cat screeching can be heard.
Review:
I haven’t watched this film since 2013, but it’s always a good time to watch Slither. This sci-fi horror romp pays homage to films like The Thing, The Blob, Night of the Creeps and even Romero zombie films. It’s just a gross-out fun time with a touch of comedy and a wink of sarcasm.
Michael Rooker really shines as Grant, the unhappy husband whose marriage woes end up playing out on the entire town via slug invasion.
James Gunn’s talent for writing fun characters is mirrored in this film as it is in the Guardians of the Galaxy films. The editing in this movie is fairly neat and it’s over all evenly paced. So much happens in such a small amount of time that it’s actually easy to lose yourself in the film.
This is by no means the most perfect horror film. Some of the digital effects look cheap and dated, but there are plenty of practical effects and makeup that give it a real tactile feel. This is definitely worth seeing at least if not for the crazy infection that spreads throughout the town as well as Gunn’s writing.