Review of Slither (2006) by Tim B — 13 Oct 2009

I admire James Gunn's work. I enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead remake and the original Scooby-Doo. I'm glad to say he lives up to his hype via Slither. I laughed, I was grossed out and I loved the many references to other genre movies.

Gunn obviously loves the genre too because I noticed many tidbits here and there (Night of the Creeps, Night of the Living Dead, The Thing and so on). I was surprised by how funny this was. Most of the gags were dead on for me and had me LOL-ing lots.

The players in this one have been in many other cult favorites and know a thing or two about playing down on a plot so absurd. Nathan Filion had me laughing and I was on his side the whole way. Elizabeth Banks looked sexy and played a damsel in distress wonderfully.

Michael Rooker took on a different type of role (in his human part, anyway) and came through on all levels. It was great to see him in action again. James Gunn kept it stylish without ever distrupting the story.

He also has an excellent handle on comedy and can milk suspense scenes for all he's worth. This also had enough buckets of blood to fill three movies and it was nasty! I'm also glad to report that the semi-CGI effects were awesome! It's a rarity I'm impressed with CGI.

Now although I had a blast, there were a few minor piss offs. First, the flick could've used a tweak on its narrative where the plot would jump from bit to bit without any explanation for certain stories and characters.

It felt a bit off there. There were also a few scenes, namely towards the end, that could've been shortened. Gotta fill up that clock time! Last, there was one really tense scene (involving a family in a house) that had me on edge, but that was the only really scary bit.

I had hoped that there had been more scenes like that. Sadly, that was all I got. But this is still a great time at the movies. It's funny, well acted, well directed, graphic, sported great references and just weird as hell, but in a FUN way.

I hope this becomes a series because it has a lot of substance to become one, if done right.