Slither

Watched Slither on DVD this last w/end. I have to say it was rather good.

It's basically a comedy horror. An alien something-or-other lands on earth in a meteorite, infects someone and then he proceeds to... well, it's a little complex to explain. I suppose the best way to cover is that he spreads the infection, but it's not quite like that.

Anyway, the guy that's infected is a jerk, but he's rich and has married this totally hot school-teacher. The local chief of police (or sheriff I think they actually call him) is in love with the school teacher, and she kinda likes him too.

So you've got a love triangle going on, which is kinda a surprising amount of depth for the type of film. Well, okay, it's not deep, as such, but the clever thing is the film never forgets about the relationships, and indeed, is kinda driven by them, which is some adept storytelling.

Especially since Slither is essentially a Sci-Fi/Monster Horror B-movie, but with a slightly larger budget. It covers everything from zombie survival to horror-classics like Bride of Frankenstein.

One of the clever things it does is to pay homage to the staples of those old B-movies, as well as making references to a lot of the classics of the genre. Some of these references are quite subtle, but others are more on the nose, and obvious.

The same goes with the humour - sometimes it's quite subtle, or quite dark, but other times it's big and obvious and others it's more of a nod towards the fans, so there's different things for different people to laugh at.

It's also quite knowing. There's definitely a wry smile or a quick wink to the audience occasionally about how silly things in the movie actually are. The best of these comes right at the end where the denouement is both shocking and silly.

My only criticism was with the DVD itself - there were absolutely no extras. Which is weird, because on the Amazon DVD listing for the retail DVD there are loads of extras listed. So perhaps it's just that the rental version doesn't have any? Odd.