FREAK FILMS: SLITHER

Jack MacReady: It\'s obvious the bastard\'s got lyme disease!
Bill Pardy: What?
Jack MacReady: Lyme disease. You touch some deer feces, and then you... eat a sandwich without washin\' your hands. You got your lyme disease!
Bill Pardy: And that makes you look like a squid?

You know, when I’m out and about people always come up to me and say, “Nighty.” And I say, “Mr. Watchman if you please.” And they say, “Nighty, I know you’re one of those guys that sits around and talks about movies all the time like the fat guy with the thumbs. But if you were to make your own movie – the greatest movie that you would want to see what -- would it be like?”  Well, dear readers, that always gets me thinking, so I made up a little list. Call it a checklist of coolness if you must but if I were to make the “perfect” movie it would need these ingredients:

1. Zombies – I mean come on, you gotta have Zombies!
   
2. Creatures from outer space.
   
3. A girl taking a bath.
   
4. An Air Supply song (preferably “Every Woman in the World”).
   
5. A Small town sheriff way out of his league.
   
6. Comedy and Horror blended up together like a meat shake.

See that’s the list I came up with a long time ago. Now what do you think the chances are of someone else making that movie? Well, it happened, it’s called Slither and it’s the best damn movie of 2006. It’s every bit as campy and horrifying as you could ever ask. I know it’s only been out on DVD for a little while but I’m going to go ahead and say it – Slither is every bit as good as the Evil Dead movies. I know it’s bold, I know it may be considered blasphemy in certain comic shops where kids are allowed to eat McDonalds while playing Dungeons and Dragons – but goddamn it’s true!

Written by James Gunn (Dawn of the Dead, Tromeo and Juliet, The Specials) it’s also his directorial debut and it pits Nathan Fillion (Firefly) against a space-slug possessed Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer). It’s a nod to all those great (and not-so-great) horror movies from the 80s and 90s when camp was king. Much in the same way Cabin Fever threatened to reinvent the genre Slither takes it up another notch to remind us all what we’ve been missing. I cannot implore you enough – pick up this movie as if your life depended on it – because it just might.