Slither (2006)

Director: James Gunn

Starring: Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks

A small town is taken over by an alien plague, turning residents into zombies and all forms of mutant monsters.

It came from space! (off course). We’ve seen this a million times before, where something falls from the sky, and creates havoc – and we love it!

Michael Rooker stars as Grant, who goes out one night when his wife is not “in the mood”. An unusual find in the woods leads to him developing a taste for raw meat, and slowly but surely he transforms into a hideous creature. The make-up effects and props are incredible. It looks like something from hell – straight out of a ‘Hellraiser’ movie, or ‘The Thing’.

There’s enough humour here to lighten the mood and not to ruin the suspense. For a movie with this amount of fantastic make-up, I do believe they should have been a bit stingier with the humour – especially during the final act. The film gets more bizarre and gross as it progresses, and this is where they should have gone into full-on horror. Instead, it became more comical.

With victims becoming flesh eating crazies, the film almost becomes a zombie film. I didn’t really like it in that sense. The focus should have been entirely on Grant. His character was fascinating enough to carry the film. Nevertheless, this is an amazing film for first time director James Gunn, and and incredible accomplishment.

And all this mayhem because his wife was not in the mood!

‘Slither’ won the Best Makeup award, and was nominated Horror Movie of the Year.

Would I watch it again? Maybe. It was a lot of fun.