31 Nights of Horror: Night Eighteen, "Slither"

​In the slimy, madcap vein of Night of the Creeps, Slither is an early diamond-in-the-rough from James Gunn, the guy behind Super and both Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Neither as mean-spirited as the former or as big-budget as the latter, Slither is built on a classic love triangle between Nathan Fillion’s straight-shooting Chief Bill Pardy, Michael Rooker’s Grant Grant (yes, that’s his name), and Elizabeth Banks as Pardy’s dream woman/Grant’s wife Starla, Slither follows Grant Grant’s transformation into an oozing, tentacled monster following a late-night encounter with an alien slug in the woods.

Other than the big names listed above, Jenna Fischer essentially brings her role on The Office to the police department of Wheelsy, South Carolina; Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma Films, is a “Sad Drunk” in a couple of scenes; and even Rob Zombie, of all people, is in the movie, playing a role you might miss if you blink. Both an affectionate throwback to the horror movies of the fifties and an enthusiastic update on all the bold-type sci-fi tropes of the era, Slither is a radioactive vat of crash-landed meteors, mysterious glows, gelatinous alien lifeforms, mind control, blood, guts, and slime, capped with an explosive finish and propped up on Gunn’s imagination and the shoulders of a committed cast.

Brian L.