After a weekend of altered states and nautical bathrooms in Trenton, New Jersey went horribly wrong, due to the sheer volume of feline pussy snuggling up to my hyper-sensitive sinuses(I'm talking Felis silvestris catus, not the flesh-scabbard oft-waved in my face by amorous females of humankind, for once, anyway), we're facing the premature arrival of March here at the Wop with considerably more genre reviews for the month than I had originally laid out in advance.What is it that Robert Burns, Scotland's favorite son, once said? "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!" Yeah, I'm not exactly sure what solace that's gonna provide you genre-starved aficionados of film, but there it is anyway.With my butt securely parked in the gracious throne here at La Sala dei Giganti, let's get back to big cine-biz already.Here's a high profile sci-fi/horror/comedy debut(if you don't count his co-directorial credit on Tromeo and Juliet(1996), and really, why would we do a thing like that to the poor guy?) from the witty James Gunn, that I've been meaning to cover for quite a while, but haven't gotten around to doing it until now, sidetracked as a frontin' mothersuckah as I often find myself, on this end.When all was said and done, I was well entertained by the gobs of goopy gore(mostly practical work, the way it should be done!), the hilarious script, laden with self-referential humor and several even-handed nods to earlier work by Cronenberg as well as genre classics like The Blob(1988) remake, Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1956), and Night of the Living Dead(1968), with solid, campy performances by a cast that includes the likes of Michael Rooker, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry(tops of the bunch, imho), and Nathan Fillion, and cameos from that Kaufman cat and even Gunn himself.Winner of multiple Fangoria Chainsaw awards, and publically snubbed by Roger Ebert, you can go ahead and queue this one up presently, I reckon ye'll enjoy it more'n a smidgeon.Towards...
I don't know about you, but I caught myself scrutinizing this x-ray for that shitty pretzel Rooker gobbled in Mallrats(1995).
In the backwoods burg of Wheelsy, where the cops point their radar gun at passing birds instead of speeding motorists, a wayward meteorite slams into the rural terra, paroling a pernicious alien parasite in the process.The interstellar leech takes up residence in the labonza of local car dealer, Grant Grant(Michael Rooker), who's taken Brenda(Brenda James) into the woods for some extramarital enrichment when his voluptuous wife, Starla(Elizabeth Banks), proves less than receptive to his recent love launches.With the space slug parked at the base of his brain, Grant begins to behave more strangely and secretive than usual, slowly metamorphosizing into a sluggish, tentacle-whippin' pile o' shit himself while stowing Brenda, who's been pumped full of embryonic alien wigglies, away in a remote cabin in the woods.Meanwhile, Starla juggles concern for her own weird marriage to a homicidal space spore with suppressed feelings towards local sheriff/childhood crush, Bill Pardy(Nathan Fillion), who's been dealing with the recent rash of pet disappearances and his own belly butterflies towards Mrs. Grant.Pardy and a group of his officers follow Grant to Brenda, who now resembles a massive, dirty tit that explodes in a grue-blast shower of juvenile alien slugs upon the startled lawmen.Most of the posse is infected by the slimy little bastards and transformed into a zombie-esque flesh-chompin' legion that shares a single consciousness with the "Long One", the interstellar stowaway that's been altering Grant into a giant, slithering piaje off a Tijuana toilet lid, while sharing the human's obsession for his curvaceous wife.Then the townsfolk begin to fall prey to the slugs...
"Book that 'sad drunk' over there for his resemblance to the guy who wrote 'Sugar Cookies'(1973)!"
With much of the local population stumbling bloodily around town and mantra-moaning in unison about Starla, the daunted task of saving the civilized world falls upon the collective shoulders of Pardy, Kylie(Tania Saulnier), a teenaged girl who has seen the Long One's sordid plot to envelop and digest all the life there is in the universe and recycle it into it's own propagating mass o'slime and razor-sharp man-splitting tendrils, the self-absorbed Mayor MacReady(Gregg Henry), and Grant's aforementioned wife, when the hive-minded drones surround their vehicle, taking Starla and infecting the wise-cracking mayor, in the process.Pardy and Kylie pursue the mind-controlled mob only to discover the hulking slime-blob that was Grant has taken to epic proportions while physically ingesting(yet still displaying, blech) all life forms around it, and it's a-fixing to patch things up with it's wife.With Starla forced to use her vampy charms to divert the gooey behemoth's attention from Sheriff Pardy's incoming grenade attack, the mass proves too cagey for such a maneuver, bitch-slapping the woman across the room, detonating the grenade in a pool nearby, and impaling the lawman on one of its tentacles.All I'll say about the boffo finale, is, that it involves propane tanks, bullets, and a whole mess o' splattery discharge; a real crowd-pleaser that's fun for the whole family.
"Normally, I'd be at ease jes' a'hangin' out here in the field a spell, but I really gotta split(right down the middle)."
You'll no doubt remember Gregg Henry in his genre debut in Jeff Lieberman's Just Before Dawn(1981), or one of his many memorable roles in movies like Scarface(1983) and DePalma's Body Double(1984).His performance in tonight's review is not to be missed.For Elizabeth Banks' recent genre ties, you'd have to look towards The Uninvited(2009), the Dreamworks remake of K-horror hit A Tale of Two Sisters(2003), though you're probably better off checking her out in the Raimi Spider Man series.Jenna Fischer, Gunn's ex-wife, can be found all over television, in shows like Scranton-based The Office, and movies like The 40 Year Old Virgin(2005), neither of which are my bag, man.Rooker, who cut his genre-teeth in the cult classic Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer(1986), currently appears on The Walking Dead, a show I'm a few seasons behind on, at the moment, due to a sudden outbreak of dontgiveafuckboutit-itis.Gunn has proven to be a hot commodity in these days since penning the scripts to the live-action Scooby Doo(2002) and Dawn of the Dead(2004) remake, turning up all over the place, recently judging on VH1's Scream Queens reality show.I'll be keeping an eye out for his future work, myself, as he's a talented writer and director capable of good things in the genre.On the scale, Slither earns an impressive three Wops, an entertaining blend of fifties sci-fi and eighties shlock that's good for repeat viewings.Recommended.
Grant(Michael Rooker) balks at Starla's refusal to incorporate a "MySpace angle" for his Match.com profile pic.
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