Various cast and crew members from the set of Slither, when speaking about the film, alluded to the film being a throwback to 1980s horror. However, if you take Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, implement the antagonists from David Cronenberg’s Shivers, and transit to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead midway through the film, you basically have James Gunn’s Slither. Thus, the three variables that make up the cinematic equation are representative horror features from successive decades prior to the ten year stint which those involved name as an influence. Yet, the paradoxical jetsam disseminates with the citation of one poignantly relevant year: 1986. This is when Fred Dekker released Night of the Creeps, a film which, just like Slither, involves alien brain parasites entering humans via the mouth which thereby transform their hosts into zombies. If this isn’t incriminatingly plagiaristic enough, Gunn fills his gaps, natch, with scenes from even more horror films, thus creating an entire feature which we have all seen before.
Not to get unnecessarily persnickety, but Dekker’s characters all carry surnames of great horror directors: “Romero,” “Hooper,” “Cronenberg,” “Cameron,” “Landis,” and “Raimi.” In Gunn’s film, we have “Hooper,” “Whale,” and “Tourneur.” The sin in all of this is that the director went on record as saying, even though there are numerous other references to the genre throughout the film–neighbors by the name of “Castevet,” à la Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby; a mayor with the surname “MacReady,” cf. John Carpenter’s The Thing; an ammunition store titled “Max Renn,” i.e. David Cronenberg’s Videodrome; a bar called “Henenlotter’s,” which is the last name of the director responsible for the cult classic, Basket Case; and produce carrying the brand name “Brundle,” as in “Seth Brundle,” the main player in Cronenberg’s The Fly–that he had not seen Dekker’s film before setting out to make Slither. Now, considering the feature was billed as a horror film made by horror fans for horror fans, I find this either a) a bit suspect or b) an all around bad move because if we are dealing with true horror fans, then someone along the way would have piped up saying that the project pangs of déjà vu.
Not that remaking a horror film is implicitly bad, but my gripe is that nothing new is brought to the table as in, say, Tom Savini’s rendition of Night of the Living Dead, Carpenter’s The Thing, or Cronenberg’s The Fly. Alas, merely strapping on a new title while issuing nothing of consequence outside of updated imagery and special effects doth not a good horror film make.
This being said, and appropriate points being taken off for trying to slide a quick one by the audience in shadowing a fairly anonymous horror film of twenty years prior (thus proving that genre credits are good for something), Slither–for those who are vestal viewers to such a plot–comes across as lukewarm. Granted, the film does cover its entertainment bases by giving us a 1950s alien invasion narrative-cum-zombie palgue based around a Lovecraftian antagonist (see Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond for reference on top of, once again, Carpenter’s The Thing) via an intentionally campy style (proving that the director took something away from his years with Troma Studios in that his leeches/slugs, like David Lynch’s closing image in Blue Velvet, look advertently fake, appearing–at a glance–to be writhing jalapenos) but, with this in mind, the film, much like the works of Eli Roth, is perhaps a bit too busy for its own good in that Gunn is unable to control the work throughout as his would-be wry comedy comes across as too boisterous one minute and flaccid the next. However, I will pause to humor Matt Singer’s sentiment in The Village Voice that the film can be viewed as a satire in that we are given an egotistic Texas community where “aliens enter their victims through the mouth or stomach and compel people to consume endless quantities of meat.” Yet, my argument would now be, though clever, to what ends?
What we are left with is an “eh” of indifference when speaking about James Gunn’s Slither in that, though it moves quickly, there is a lot of movement, and bright colors perpetually dance across the screen (all qualities of a cartoon mind you), there is literally nothing which we haven’t seen before (though you’d have to stretch it a bit to make it convincing, there is even a wink-and-a-nod to Merian Cooper’s King Kong). Indeed, many a witty, innovative production has made waves by reinventing the wheel but Gunn seems merely content with being content with what came before as he liberally borrows from everyone around him whilst forgetting that assembly can be a creative process in and of itself. Bottom line, it seems as if Gunn was so preoccupied with cramming as many horror references, allusions, and citations into his film that he forgot to leave enough room for directorial expression.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
