PLOT: A slimy alien entity lands on Earth, turning women into brood mares for its young-brain-destroying worms that, once born, head out to turn their victims into obedient zombies for the entity.
Take zombies, alien worms and humans hideously deformed by contact with same. Add gallons and gallons of goo.
Put those ingredients in the hands of geek-master James Gunn and let him infuse it with the same manic energy that he wrote into the Dawn Of The Dead remake. The result is Slither, a hilariously gonzo, self-referential neo-Body Snatchers that takes the mickey out of the alien-monster genre the way Scream did slasher films.
Moreover, for the kind of horror geek who keeps After Dark Video in business, it's a reference fest. It's set in the hicktown of Wheelsy, where yokels get drunk at Henenlotter's Saddle Ranch (after Basket Case director Frank Henenlotter). When a zombie-worm invades while a teenage girl is bathing, the scene unfolds exactly like the bath scene in David Cronenberg's insane horror debut Shivers. And on it goes.
Slither opens with two somnambulent cops conversing inanely in their cruiser, oblivious to a meteor crashing behind them (meteors being the chariot of choice for invading aliens).
Meanwhile, less-than-perfect couple Starla (Elizabeth Banks) and her brutish husband Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) fight over her not being in the mood. Off goes Grant to Henenlotter's for greener, or at least more willing, pastures. With a trailer park girl/single mom named Brenda (Brenda James) in tow, he heads sloppily off to the woods, where they stumble across the remains of the meteor, and what looks like the world's biggest maggot crawling along.
One spiny dart later, the game is afoot.
Gunn seems to make up details of the alien's biology as he goes along, the better to switch monster-gears and keep the pace frantic. Grant is both host to the alien intelligence and seed-bearer for Brenda, who becomes a giant, overstuffed brood mare (the scene included in the movie trailer) for a plague of worms that look very much like the predatory beef-liver in the aforementioned Shivers. Once released, the worms head for people's mouths, turning them into zombies.
NOT impregnated is Starla, who flees into the arms of her cop ex-boyfriend Bill (Serenity's Nathan Fillion). Together with the idiot town mayor (Gregg Henry), and the aforementioned teenager (Tania Saulnier) they variously run away and attack.
Gunn, whose first produced script was Tromeo & Juliet for Lloyd Kaufman's crazed indie studio Troma Films, has both an obvious hero-worship and an affinity for the frantic pace of video-store horror. It's debatable whether he brings anything to the table that the likes of Henenlotter, Cronenberg and Stuart Gordon didn't already. It's also moot.
Slither aspires to be slimy fun on a stick, and it succeeds.
BOTTOM LINE: Horror geeks get a movie that's right in their wheelhouse. Director Gunn (a former Troma Films director and the writer of the recent Dawn Of The Dead) creates a sly, grossout neo-Body Snatchers that winks at classic horror totems like From Beyond, Night Of The Creeps, Basket Case and Cronenberg's Shivers. Wittily sarcastic and self-referential, it's like Scream for the After Dark Video crowd.
(This film is rated 18-A)
