Slither
Some films try to scare you, while others seem to enjoy seeing how far they can push disgust before you start laughing. Slither clearly belongs to the second group. It is slimy, grotesque, exaggerated and proudly B-movie, but beneath all that grime there is far more control than it first appears. James Gunn understands that gore can be repulsive and funny at the same time, and he builds the film around precisely that balance.
The first thing that stands out when watching it today is how much of the later Gunn was already here. The rowdy humour, the flawed but likeable characters, violence turned into a gag, affection for monsters and the habit of surrounding himself with actors who would later reappear again and again in his films. Slither feels almost like a laboratory in which Gunn was testing a personality he would later take into productions on a much larger scale.
Michael Rooker is perhaps the clearest example. He has that strange physical presence Gunn knows how to use so well: he can seem threatening, pathetic and even funny with very few gestures. Watching him here makes it easy to understand why he became one of Gunn's favourite actors. But Nathan Fillion is here too, another recurring face in his filmography, with that slightly clumsy, sardonic heroism that fits the general absurdity perfectly.
Elizabeth Banks provides the necessary counterweight. She looks gorgeous, yes, but she also manages to preserve a certain emotional normality inside a film that constantly threatens to become a festival of fluids, deformities and disgusting creatures. Her presence helps keep the whole thing from becoming merely a collection of grotesque effects.
Body horror is probably what most defines the experience. Gunn does not want the transformations to look elegant or sophisticatedly sinister: he wants them to make you squirm. There is a very deliberate fixation on the wet, the sticky, the swollen and the physically wrong. That is where the film finds personality, because it is not gore for gore's sake; there is a very clear comic intention behind almost everything. The "ugh" and the laugh are constantly stuck together.
It also works because it embraces its status as a tribute without embarrassment. There are echoes of alien horror, invasion movies, bodily mutation and those video-store films that mixed monsters, zombies and crude humour without worrying much about respectability. Gunn does not reinvent anything essential, but he combines his influences with enough energy and sense of rhythm to give the film an identity of its own.
That said, the humour does not always land equally well. There are deliberately redneck moments and jokes very much of the early 2000s that can feel a little rough today. The tone is so excessive that anyone who does not connect with that mixture of vulgarity, gore and absurdity will probably check out quickly. Slither does not try to please everyone, and in fact much of its charm lies in how little it cares about being tasteful.
Visually, it also has a practical charm that is especially welcome today. The creatures, prosthetics, make-up and deformities have a material quality that makes the disgust work better. Not everything has aged perfectly, but that physical texture gives the film a character that many later, digitally cleaner productions fail to reproduce.
The film does not need to be especially deep to work either. Its ambition lies elsewhere: pace, creatures, black humour and characters capable of holding the madness together. Nathan Fillion brings charisma, Rooker commits completely to the game and Banks manages to keep something emotionally recognizable alive amid the chaos. That combination makes the film more likeable than its quantity of slime would suggest.
What surprised me most was recognizing so many things here that I would later immediately associate with James Gunn. It does not feel merely like an oddity from his early career, but like a fairly clear statement of interests: monsters, outsiders, unpleasant humour, playful violence and a strange tenderness hidden underneath the grotesque. All of that was already here before the superheroes and the gigantic budgets.
Slither is not refined and has no interest in pretending otherwise. It is a gross, rowdy horror comedy that is very aware of its influences. At times it can overdo the slime and its humour is uneven, but it retains energy, personality and a cast that understands the game perfectly. It is one of those films that makes you think "that's disgusting" while you keep watching with a smile. And seeing it so many years later, it is also great fun to discover in it the complete DNA of the James Gunn who would come afterward.
The first thing that stands out when watching it today is how much of the later Gunn was already here. The rowdy humour, the flawed but likeable characters, violence turned into a gag, affection for monsters and the habit of surrounding himself with actors who would later reappear again and again in his films. Slither feels almost like a laboratory in which Gunn was testing a personality he would later take into productions on a much larger scale.
Michael Rooker is perhaps the clearest example. He has that strange physical presence Gunn knows how to use so well: he can seem threatening, pathetic and even funny with very few gestures. Watching him here makes it easy to understand why he became one of Gunn's favourite actors. But Nathan Fillion is here too, another recurring face in his filmography, with that slightly clumsy, sardonic heroism that fits the general absurdity perfectly.
Elizabeth Banks provides the necessary counterweight. She looks gorgeous, yes, but she also manages to preserve a certain emotional normality inside a film that constantly threatens to become a festival of fluids, deformities and disgusting creatures. Her presence helps keep the whole thing from becoming merely a collection of grotesque effects.
Body horror is probably what most defines the experience. Gunn does not want the transformations to look elegant or sophisticatedly sinister: he wants them to make you squirm. There is a very deliberate fixation on the wet, the sticky, the swollen and the physically wrong. That is where the film finds personality, because it is not gore for gore's sake; there is a very clear comic intention behind almost everything. The "ugh" and the laugh are constantly stuck together.
It also works because it embraces its status as a tribute without embarrassment. There are echoes of alien horror, invasion movies, bodily mutation and those video-store films that mixed monsters, zombies and crude humour without worrying much about respectability. Gunn does not reinvent anything essential, but he combines his influences with enough energy and sense of rhythm to give the film an identity of its own.
That said, the humour does not always land equally well. There are deliberately redneck moments and jokes very much of the early 2000s that can feel a little rough today. The tone is so excessive that anyone who does not connect with that mixture of vulgarity, gore and absurdity will probably check out quickly. Slither does not try to please everyone, and in fact much of its charm lies in how little it cares about being tasteful.
Visually, it also has a practical charm that is especially welcome today. The creatures, prosthetics, make-up and deformities have a material quality that makes the disgust work better. Not everything has aged perfectly, but that physical texture gives the film a character that many later, digitally cleaner productions fail to reproduce.
The film does not need to be especially deep to work either. Its ambition lies elsewhere: pace, creatures, black humour and characters capable of holding the madness together. Nathan Fillion brings charisma, Rooker commits completely to the game and Banks manages to keep something emotionally recognizable alive amid the chaos. That combination makes the film more likeable than its quantity of slime would suggest.
What surprised me most was recognizing so many things here that I would later immediately associate with James Gunn. It does not feel merely like an oddity from his early career, but like a fairly clear statement of interests: monsters, outsiders, unpleasant humour, playful violence and a strange tenderness hidden underneath the grotesque. All of that was already here before the superheroes and the gigantic budgets.
Slither is not refined and has no interest in pretending otherwise. It is a gross, rowdy horror comedy that is very aware of its influences. At times it can overdo the slime and its humour is uneven, but it retains energy, personality and a cast that understands the game perfectly. It is one of those films that makes you think "that's disgusting" while you keep watching with a smile. And seeing it so many years later, it is also great fun to discover in it the complete DNA of the James Gunn who would come afterward.
Mini Review: Some films try to scare you, while others seem to enjoy seeing how far they can push disgust before you start laughing. Slither clearly belongs to the second group. It is slimy, grotesque, exaggerated and proudly B-movie, but beneath all that grime there is far more control than it first appears. James Gunn understands that gore can be repulsive and funny at the same time, and he builds the film around precisely that balance. The first thing...
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