Written by: James Gunn
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Tania Saulnier, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker
Rating: [2.5/5]
Everyone has watched films they disliked, which comes as an inevitably for anyone who has watched more than one movie in their life. Typically, a specific moment or scene occurs, which demonstrates exactly why they no longer care for what they see before them or makes them dislike what they see. I’ll say this occurred almost immediately when the plot began for Slither as it demonstrates some positives but becomes an irreconcilable mess as the film continues on through its head-scratching story.
In the small town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, a parasite makes its way in and infects a local resident causing some changes within him. As it continues to impact him, he begins to morph to the will of this creature sending out more of itself all over town to infect the rest of the population making Police Chief Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) and the community fight back.
Watching Slither and James Gunn’s prior work to his jump into the Marvel Cinematic Universe demonstrates the complete antithesis to Taika Waititi. Where Gunn had to reform and refine his taste for general audiences to great success with Guardians of the Galaxy, Waititi served as the opposite when made it to the big time, he lost what made him such a unique voice from the start. An interesting observation seeing as the studio system helped reign in on some of Gunn’s tendencies, which come in full display with this feature. Something with a promising start but goes completely off the rails.
Setting out as an alien/parasite invasion story, this feature has the seeds of something that would bring entertainment. Something takes over and its spread represents quite a threat to a community. That all sounds good and something the average person could enjoy but a certain gratuitousness takes place in the film that sucks up any enjoyment that could be had. It makes for some moments exhibiting decent makeup work but in service of a story lacking a sense of cohesion and simply relishes in the way these creatures impact people.
This certainly could be the very reason why someone would seek out this film. Going by the poster of the movie, it certainly does not hide exactly what it wants to center on, which it certainly delivers on. Unfortunately, this feature also needed a story to remain fully engaging and characters to somewhat care for to carry us beyond the parasite monsters coming to life, which is where this film falls quite flat. It leans far too heavily on one side of the scale ultimately derailing the entire thing, unfortunately.
In their barest form, we do receive a character like Chief Bill Pardy who comes as generic a character as one can imagine even with Nathan Fillion giving his all to make him somewhat relevant. He plays this incredibly straight-faced role as the reasonable one trying to figure it all out with Elizabeth Banks portraying the damsel in distress, Starla. They serve as the protagonists of this story and they receive much of nothing to work with character-wise that makes them compelling to follow throughout this story other than the plot demanding we care for them. As a result, they feel quite lifeless throughout and merely vessels to battle these parasites rather than fully investing in them as characters to follow. When you have a bunch of characters with no real attachment then when they succumb to these parasites, we don’t feel for them but rather they represent just another person completely taken over. Gunn essentially sets up these actors to fail.
While having some technical elements to enjoy, Slither ultimately disappoints with the lack of substance it carries and the way it just operates as an exercise in utilizing these parasites to create some gory effects. It forgoes the opportunity to create characters worth investing in and uses them as a shell to tell this story not too dissimilar to these parasites on the poor people of this small rural town. Certainly one to forget because luckily Gunn has found himself working much better in a studio system where he must be reigned in a bit helping create his greatest work to date by an immensely large margin.
Films with Josh 
