1999 was an interesting summer for movies. The summer blockbusters were largely stinkers, but most of those stinkers have stayed with me in one way or another. The Haunting was a unique attempt at horror in the fact that its setting wasn't truly designed to terrify; the manor home upon which this set was based was a gothic attempt at beauty, although few in a modern audiences would use positive words to describe the setting. "Fantasical" might be as neutral as folks get, but "spooky" or "eerie" would be more likely.
Therein lies my only positive thoughts on the film, although back in 1999, I loved this movie dearly. It was... different from other horror films, and even now I'm not entirely sure what separates this from others of its genre. I suspect it's the mostly mainstream, A list (well, sort of A list) celebrity cast: Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was at the pinnacle of her career back in those days, brought a sort of notoriety and legitimacy to pretty much anything she deigned to do. Think Zorro. Owen Wilson was and still is Hollywood's golden boy, no matter how messed up he is now. His quirky roles are usually endearing and only rarely disappointing. And finally, there was Liam Neeson, who was rumored to be retiring in the wake of his completion of The Phantom Menace... to which we now reply, "guess not." Most horror movies can't put together a cast like this and few would try.
The most noticeable aspect of the movie is what a disaster it is. Up and down, back and forth, tip-toeing around a central idea that it never quite names until ready to toss that idea down your throat. I suspect that the idea was kicked around for so long to make this reach feature length, because without the endless loops of "spooky" scenes in rooms that would seem insane even in the Winchester Mystery House, this could have been a film short. Were the special effects decent? Did they add to the feeling of omen? Yeah, they were and yeah, they did. But they weren't anything spectacular.
There's a reason why this movie has been spoofed so many times. There are a lot of questions about how all this came to be and what happens afterwards. A good cast can't generally make up for a bad script, and this cast doesn't.
The most noticeable aspect of the movie is what a disaster it is. Up and down, back and forth, tip-toeing around a central idea that it never quite names until ready to toss that idea down your throat. I suspect that the idea was kicked around for so long to make this reach feature length, because without the endless loops of "spooky" scenes in rooms that would seem insane even in the Winchester Mystery House, this could have been a film short. Were the special effects decent? Did they add to the feeling of omen? Yeah, they were and yeah, they did. But they weren't anything spectacular.
There's a reason why this movie has been spoofed so many times. There are a lot of questions about how all this came to be and what happens afterwards. A good cast can't generally make up for a bad script, and this cast doesn't.
Slither. R, 1 hr. 34 min. Directed
by: James Gunn. Release Date: March 31, 2006. DVD Release Date: October 24, 2006.
Just FYI, some of the material below the dotted line could
be construed as spoiler-ish although it’s nothing you won’t find in
descriptions of the movie on sites like Flixster or Netflix. Read at your own risk.
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I’m not a total science guy, but I have to confess that
watching this, I was left with a few concerns.
I’m actually going to put aside the concern about a life form that
managed to evolve the way this one dead, which presumes that it’s always had a
way to move once it exhausts its own food supply. I can’t figure out (1) how the things move
from world to world or (2) why they didn’t die out after consuming everything
on their native planet. Nature doesn’t
really work that way. If a predator
outpaces its food source, the predators start to die until the food source(s)
have a chance to populate. It’s a rule
somewhere. I’m almost sure of it.
There are viruses that (I think) kind of work like that, and
there’s a reason they’re limited to certain areas. If they were less greedy, they’d be able to
get more of us. Not that I’m giving
those viruses any hints, mind you. My
first concern popped up nearly immediately when a TEACHER starts talking about
how when Darwin talked about “survival of the fittest.” It’s a common misperception, but this is why
American kids have some of the lowest test scores on the planet. Darwin talked about natural selection. It was one of his students, a guy called
Spencer, who coined the term “survival of the fittest.” The second has to do with how something can
be an apex predator, by which I mean an animal that owns outright the top spot
on its local food chain, from birth. I’m
pretty sure nothing multi-celled on this planet can make that claim.
Okay, getting past my nerd ire, I kind of dug this
movie. First of all, I’m pretty much a
fan of anything that involves Nathan Fillion… who may or may not have gotten
his start on an ABC soap opera, but for the life of me I can’t think of which
one. I know it was all about a rich
family and everyone in this little town under the age of 60 was related to them
by blood or marriage because the patriarch couldn’t keep it in his pants. But, that might actually describe every soap
opera, so whatever. The dialogue was
well written, even considering the bizarre subject matter.
It’s got to be difficult to put together a horror-comedy
while trying to fuse the strongest elements of zombie movies and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I said I enjoyed this, and I did, but I don’t
really think it succeeded at everything it was trying to do, and box office
information on this film (and cool $15 million or so less than its operating
budget), despite relatively high praise from critics in the professional and
armchair circles suggests that I’m not the only one who thought that. My biggest problem with the movie’s genre
efforts was that it basically wasn’t scary because they kept trying for humor
and the horror aspects of the film kept this from being funny. You could see where humor was attempted, and
occasionally it made me smile, but I didn’t laugh.
I thought there were a few stand-out performances, mostly by
folks I’ve seen but don’t know the names of.
I mentioned before that I like Nathan Fillion, and did so again in Slither.
I thought the creature features were… well done and mildly disgusting,
which I is probably apropos the subject.
If you think you can get past the scientific inaccuracies
and improbabilities and have some time, but don’t want anything that’s going to
make you wet yourself or think too hard, this isn’t a terrible choice.
