filmschoolrejects.com continues their journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out 31 Days of Horror homepage.
Synopsis: A small town becomes ground zero to an alien invasion, which reaches Earth in the form of alien slugs on a chunk of space rock. After the meteor lands in the woods, a local big shot Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) becomes infected with the alien parasite, which controls his body and memories. It’s a story we’ve seen many times before, and understandably so. Director James Gunn creates a loving homage to movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob and Night of the Creeps, in which the small-town sheriff Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) must battle an onslaught of infected, zombified humans while trying to stop the spread of the parasite to the rest of the world. Helping the sheriff is his long-time crush and girl next door Starla (Elizabeth Banks), who also happens to be married to patient zero.
Killer Scene: In every horror film featuring a parasitic invasion from another planet, there’s a key scene where the alien’s true form is revealed. In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it’s when the heroes are sleeping and the pods are hatching. In The Puppet Masters, it’s when the humans sneak into the ship and see the aliens uncloaked. In The Thing, it’s the infamous dog kennel sequence. In Slither, James Gunn takes the adage “Go big or go home” to heart. The aliens haven’t just infected Grant’s girlfriend, they’ve used her as a giant incubation chamber, keeper her locked in a barn, swollen with their offspring. When our heroes discover her, bloated like a tick, it’s a game of anticipation for the audience to see when the creatures will emerge. The result is, shall we say, explosive.
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