Ahhh…the “quiet little American town”, where would the horror genre be without it? It’s amazing that anyone still lives in these places given the regularity with which they seem to be attacked by all manner of murderous mutants and monsters. Wheelsy, the town Slither is set in, is no different to the hundreds of menaced towns that have come before it but thankfully the film it appears in is.

It is true that Slither is steeped in the tradition of 50’s B-movie creature features in a style reminiscent of the similarly wonderful Tremors and (the less effective) Eight Legged Freaks. It is also true however that this film draws from pretty much everything in the horror genre from that point onwards as well. There are countless references to other films and directors scattered liberally throughout Slither. These range from the fairly obvious (the Mayor of Wheelsy’s name is J. Macready – the same name as the hero from John Carpenter’s The Thing) to the more obscure - a bar is named Henenlotter’s in reference to Frank Henenlotter, the director of Basket Case. There are many more examples including a cameo by Rob Zombie, (or at least his voice) and even the general concept borrows heavily from cult favourite, Night of the Creeps. It is fun to spot these little in-jokes but that really is all they are. In much the same way as The Simpsons is not dependent on its audience catching on to all the references it throws out, Slither is just as enjoyable without being armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure horror movies and this is very much down to the high quality of the writing.

James Gunn has written an engaging and original screenplay which breathes fresh life into a familiar set-up. The residents of Wheelsy are not just stereotypes waiting to become slug-food, they are believable and likeable human beings. The amusingly named Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) is a good example of this. The first time he is seen, he is whisking his younger wife away from a conversation with a male colleague (played by Gunn himself) in a flurry of typical alpha male possessiveness. He later shows great tenderness and care for his wife however, even when he has been invaded by the alien parasite and is being slowly mutated he shows a surprising degree of humanity for a giant alien tentacled squid beast.

Gunn has also written a healthy dollop of humour into his script and this works very well. Gregg Henry is gifted with all the best lines however as the thoroughly dislikeable Mayor MacReady. At one point he says to a female police officer with whom he has just witnessed a vastly inflated woman explode and give birth to hundreds of giant killer slugs, “I don’t care if you are a lesbo, you don’t deserve this shit!”

Slither’s comedy does not work at the expense of its horror however, it works with it and at times because of it. A young woman having blood vomited in her face by her twitching and dying mother really should not be funny but here it kind of is. This scene is typical of Slither’s unflinching attitude to the gore. There is plenty of nastiness going on with people being cut in half, heads being blown to pieces in shotgun blasts and people being melted with acidic zombie-spit and it is all gleefully shown on screen. Slither’s refusal to pander to the conventions of the sanitised horror that we are so often served up these days mean also that that there is a much harder and more dangerous edge to the film that is entirely welcome.

In amongst all the chaos and carnage there is a very human heart to this film and this is effortlessly expressed by the thoroughly competent though quirky cast. Nathan Fillion’s amiable authorative but fallible shtick that he perfected in Firefly and Serenity serve him well here and Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) also impresses despite being buried under a ton of latex.

In a genre straining under the weight of a crippling amount of re-makes, re-imaginings and flat-out rip offs, it is wonderful to see a movie which despite its countless references and homage is able to resolutely retain its own identity and more importantly, soul. Slither is a fantastically fun gore-romp, a monster mash that everyone can enjoy but that fans of the genre will surely take to their twisted little hearts and cherish.

Rating: 9/10

Review By Matt Compton