Slither

Slither poses as a spiritual successor to the great horror films of the 80′s and late 90′s, but it is in reality something more. It takes the feel of these films and turns them on their head. Director Jason Gunn manages to combine creep, camp and comedy into one finely crafted package.

Slither acomplishes what few movies can by smoothly rotating through protagonists, but Police Chief Bill Pardy, played by Nathan Fillion (Firefly), steals the show. Gunn takes what is stereotypically expected of this role, works his magic on it, and gives the audience something that defies what they expect.

Fillion, rather than being the gung-ho, sure-fire, action hero, he turns out to be a clumsy, scared and in most cases bumbling small town law-man. Fillion nails his role as Pardy. At times he doesn’t even seem to be acting but, just doing what he would have done himself.

Fillion is supported by Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker and Greg Henry, as the heroine, the monster and the foul-mouthed Mayor respectivly.

Banks truly shines in her role as Starla. She grasps the essence of Starla’s character, which is that she is a survior. Banks brings this out 100 percent of the time, whether she is stabbing a posessed police officer through the neck with a stop sign or whispering words of love to a giant tentacled squid thing.

The biggest flaw in Slither is the flow. Becase of Slither’s terribly low budget every once in awhile there will be a scene that just don’t seem to match. Plus, between the conglomeration of physical special effects, puppets and computer generated graphics every so often there will be a little hair-line fracture in the flow of the movie that says “Hey! Stop paying attention to the movie for a second and pay attention to this flaw in the lighting”.

All in all Slither is an excellent movie that can be appreciated by anyone that is a fan of “The Thing”, “The Fly”, “The Evil Dead”, zombie and alien genre films and “Firefly”. And lets be honest thats everyone that counts.

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