Slither (2006)

[7]

Writer/director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) serves up this horror/comedy about citizens of a rural South Carolina town who find themselves in the middle of a parasitic alien invasion. Part of the fun of Slither is discovering how the parasites transform their human hosts, giving the opportunity for plenty of gross-out gags and comedic reactions. Gunn gives at least three leading characters enough personality and conflict to engage us dramatically, with Nathan Fillion (Serenity) playing the laid-back police chief who still pines for an old flame, played by Elizabeth Banks (Wet Hot American Summer). Banks is married to sexually frustrated Michael Rooker (Cliffhanger), the first person to get infected by the alien and the one who undergoes the most diabolical metamorphosis.

Slither feels like a love letter to horror movies and certainly owes a lot to classics like Night of the Living Dead and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (as well as Brian Yuzna’s Society). But Gunn gives it a distinct serio-comic tone that doesn’t feel too far removed from the filmmaker’s origins at Lloyd Kaufman’s schlocky Troma Studios. A zombie deer fight scene and the sight of a woman literally exploding with slugs testify to that. What you might not expect from Gunn are a few moments of genuine pathos. As Banks tries to reason with her mutant husband, sprouting tentacles and a toothed grin too wide for his face, Rooker becomes the movie’s secret weapon. The makeup effects are outstanding, but it’s Rooker’s performance as a tortured soul that gives Slither its edge.