OK, I make no claims to having any taste when it comes to movies, but this sh*^'s just funny.
Slither.
The name alone is amusing, (not Snakes on a Plane, amusing, but nifty nonetheless) and early comparisons to the The Evil Dead movies put it on my must see list. And there it will stay, for not since the heyday of Freddy Krueger, have I found something so disgusting, so very, very funny.
Think of all the snarky, WTF?!, things you think during the course of a normal sci-fi, gross-out, creepfest and you have the majority of Nathan Fillion's lines right there. And the ick factor, oh, my- classic B-movie stuff done with A-movie effects.
And I pity that a couple of my friends, who would enjoy the humor, will not EVER see this movie, for I know the exact scene where they both check out- and it is even before the slugs begin the requisite slithering.
See there's this guy who gets cut up the middle, and the inside stuff just kinda, well, falls out. Slowly. (Hey, guys? Where are you going? It's not that... oh, never mind.)
The Scream movies tried to be really scary while being tongue-in-cheek, and sometimes it worked, but a lot of times it didn't. Slither doesn't seem to try to be scary, but sometimes it really is. The casting is great, if cliche'd. Nathan Fillion's got bumbling and snarky down to a science, Gregg Henry's town mayor is appropriately stupid, cowardly, and egotistical, and you actually manage to feel a little pity for Michael Rooker, who usually plays villains with a gusto. I wish our female lead, Elizabeth Banks, had toned down the Botox a bit, a little more facial expression would have been nice. And Tania Saulnier was criminally underused. Other than a plethora of small-town, hick rednecks to fill the rest of the set dressing, that's the cast.
And, yeah, hick redneck cliches abound. And a bit about using a grenade to go fishing becomes very important later. (And also served to identify a Firefly/Serenity fan sitting behind us- "No, Jane, no grenades." Hee.)
If you can take the gross-out, go see this movie. It's funny. Funny ha-ha, funny ewwww, and just enough funny stupid.
Added 4-4-06
Hee- Even the AP reviewer loves it!
'“Slither” also lets Fillion cut loose and get really goofy, all the while maintaining his boyish rogue’s charm. This guy deserves to be a major star.'
'Gunn revels in the absurdities of horror conventions but also clearly loves them.'
'And a scene where zombies do “A Streetcar Named Desire,” coming after Starla uttering her name instead of Marlon Brando’s “Stella,” is just priceless.'
