Slither

Slither (2006), from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Slither is a horror comedy and it's one of those films where there is a great gap between the conservative, mainstream print reviewers and the genre aficionados. Ebert and Berardinelli weighed in at two stars and two and a half. The critics in the UK had about the same take on it, rating it just less than two and a half stars on the average. Yahoo voters rate it C+, a low score within Yahoo's softball system. The box office was tepid. It had a weak opening - eighth place overall, third-best among new releases. Then it had a weaker follow-up - it dropped nearly 60% in its second week. It finished off with no staying power. The first two weeks were just about all she wrote. The multiplier (total gross divided by opening weekend gross) was only 2.0, which is about as low as a film can go without being named Gigli. Obviously it wasn't a film with wide appeal.

But lots of younger, hipper, more genre-oriented critics really took a liking to it. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it finished with 83% positive reviews, despite the negatives from the big guns, and the comment section at IMDb is filled with praises from genre lovers. People are not comparing it to Shaun of the Dead or American Werewolf, but most genre fans feel that it belongs in the second tier of horror comedies with such films as The Re-Animator and Cemetery Man.

Slither is basically the ol' "spores from outer space enter human bodies" movie, kind of a comedy version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, via Night of the Creeps. It's fundamentally a higher-budget version of a Troma movie and the director, in fact, is a graduate of the Troma School of Advanced Film Studies, having apprenticed with Lloyd Kaufman for some years. I didn't much care for the film, but its appeal resides in comically exaggerated gore and lowbrow redneck-bashing humor, neither of which really pushes my hot buttons. The fact that it isn't my kind of movie doesn't mean you should blow it off. As a general rule, the younger you are the more likely you are to like it.

	IMDb score
Aged under 18	7.2
Aged 18-29	6.7
Aged 30-44	6.5
Aged 45 or more	6.3

It's meant to appeal to younger people who love their comical gore, and most of them consider it an absolute success.

DVD INFO

the widescreen transfer is anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 screens
Deleted scenes
Extended scenes
Gag reel
Bringing "Slither's" creatures to life
Slithery set tour with Nathan Fillion
"A Making Of": The sick minds and slimy days of "Slither"
Feature commentary with director James Gunn and actor Nathan Fillion

NUDITY REPORT

Tania Saulnier shows her breasts when she's being attacked by a slug monster in the bathtub

The Critics Vote ...

Super-panel consensus: between two and two and a half stars. James Berardinelli 2.5/4, Roger Ebert 2/4.

British consensus: just less than two and a half stars out of four. Mail 6/10, Independent 6/10, Guardian 6/10, Times 0/10, Sun 8/10, Express 6/10, Mirror 8/10, FT 6/10, BBC 4/5.

Rotten Tomatoes summary. 83% positive.

Metacritic.com. 69/100

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 6.6/10

Yahoo Movies. Yahoo voters score it a C+

Box Office Mojo. It grossed about eight million dollars. Its opening weekend was about four million in about two thousand theaters, good for eighth place, the third-best among the new films that week.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C . I gather that its not considered one of the best gore comedies of all time, but is a solid second-tier performer. Crossover appeal, however, is minimal, as evidenced by the weak box office and the negative reviews from the big guns.