Horribly funny

Noel Vera

What with very real horrors readily visible in news broadcasts (from
Iraq, for one), escapist horror seems the order of the day in the
multiplexes. Last year there was "Saw 2," "Hostel," "The Devil's
Rejects," "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," "Dominion: Prequel to The
Exorcist" and remakes of "House of Wax" and "The Amityville Horror"
among many others; this year there's "The Hills Have Eyes" and the
just-released "Silent Hill."

Maybe my biggest problem with all these slash-and-splat flicks is
the lack of humor in them; solemn horror now being the dominion of
Japanese filmmakers (I'm thinking of Hideo Nakata, whose "The Ring
Two" was an underrated little gem, and Kurosawa Kyoshi, the best
living practitioner of the genre in Japan--and one of the best in
the world, for that matter), most attempts by American directors to
be taken seriously will end in a fit of giggles. American directors
are better off going in a different direction--the 'horror comedy'
for one, which requires the kind of aggressive irreverence they are
particularly gifted at (and in fact there already is one American
master of the genre, the late, great James Whale). American horror
needs, in short, to get back to being fun again.

James Gunn's "Slithers" is horrible fun, a mishmash of half-a-dozen
titles including a few classics (the opening is straight out of the
original "The Blob"), with references to half a dozen more,
including "Rosemary's Baby," "The Thing," "Basket Case,"
and "Tremors" (don't be intimidated by all the arcane allusions,
though--there's plenty to cringe at, and laugh at too).

Nathan Fillion is Bill Pardy, a small-town sheriff in a police
cruiser with too much time on his hands (his partner kills time by
measuring the speed of passing birds with their radar gun). When
things happen, of course, they happen fast: a meteorite crashes into
the surrounding forests and the town's wealthiest man, Grant Grant
(Michael Rooker) is infected by a needlelike lifeform that lodges in
his lower skull. Grant develops an appetite for raw meat ("Gimme a
couple of ribeyes…eight. Naw, ten. You know what? Gimme fourteen")
and pet dogs, and develops unsightly rashes ("It's just a bee
sting," he explains to his wife Starla (Elizabeth Banks)).

Writer-director James Gunn has some experience in horror comedy
(okay, he wrote the "Scooby Doo" movies--but also "Tromeo and
Juliet," and a few other Toxic Avenger installments). There's real
wit in his setting the action in Wheelsy, a community so American
Heartland small the bars play country music, the citizens gather for
the official opening of hunting season, the town's most visible
black man wears a collar and crucifix (probably why he was allowed
to live there), and the sheriff's gun rack includes shotguns,
automatic weaponry, and a grenade confiscated from some over-
ambitious trout fisherman. America is being invaded by an enemy more
insidious than mere terrorists; it's being invaded by an alien whose
reproductive organs parallel--worse, parody--ours (and we know with
what puritanical horror and perverse fascination these kinds of
people regard sex outside of marriage, or even just outside of the
missionary position). Gunn is inspired to take an image or two
(actually, whole sequences) from the films of David Cronenberg:
Grant grows tentacles, prompting one elderly townsfolk to describe
him as looking like "something that fell off my dick during the
war;" a hapless young woman (Brenda James) finds herself pregnant
with alien life forms, swelling to enormous size (a swipe at
America's epidemic of obesity) and "hankering for a bit of possum;"
bright-red slugs--resembling by turns tongues, phalluses, vigorously
wriggling sperm cells--are unleashed, squirming their way through
lawns, up walls, and (moist, meaty tails flicking and flailing) into
people's mouths.

From an opening straight out of "The Blob" to alien biology inspired
by Cronenberg, Gunn finally shifts to Romero, with zombies possessed
by Grant's red slugs taking over the entire town. Gunn also happened
to write the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, and while some critics
approved of his speeded-up zombies, I didn't; they were more spastic
than spooky, more desperate than serenely, unnervingly confident.
These zombies, however, I like--they remember their former selves,
not enough to feel they have to switch sides, but enough to taunt
the survivors and become genuine menaces; they also share Grant's
identity, and it's not a little unsettling to hear him speak in
stereo, from more than one corner of the room.

Through it all runs a romantic-triangle storyline that subverts the
holiness of matrimony, then gets so compelling it subverts its own
subversion (I'll explain). Grant's marriage is at first sight a
sterile one--Starla chose Grant mainly for money and security; Grant
chose Starla mainly because she was hot. When Grant turns monstrous
and hides in the surrounding forests, Starla pleads with him to come
back, saying theirs is a "sacred bond" that he has to recognize.

Strangely enough, Grant does; early in the picture he had an
opportunity to be unfaithful with Brenda, but backs away (this was
before the alien possessed him). Even when sporting several
tentacles and a hideously deformed mouth (among other grotesqueries)
Grant still accords Starla special treatment, fixing her up in a
lovely white dress, then putting their favorite tune on the sound
system (I'm embarrassed to say I even recognize the song--"Every
Woman in the World," by Air Supply). The film overtly comes down in
favor of affectionate adultery over exploitative matrimony, but
Michael Rooker's Grant Grant still manages to come across as
hauntingly sweet, even touching.

As for the rest of the cast--Nathan Fillion, who I remember best as
the captain of the Serenity (in the Joss Whedon film of the same
name), creeps, runs, leaps and more or less struggles through this
physically exhausting film with winning aplomb; he may not be smart
enough to always realize what's going on, but he is smart enough to
insist that when the story of how a young girl (Tania Saulnier)
saved his life is retold, he should be the hero. Elizabeth Banks is
a touch too skinny for my taste, but nevertheless makes for a creamy
damsel in distress/bestial love interest. Gregg Henry, a veteran of
Brian De Palma films (not to mention De Palma's upcoming "The Black
Dahlia") and hardly a stranger to black and extremely bloody comedy,
makes for a memorably grotesque town mayor.

Michael Rooker played the eponymous role in John
McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and what made his
performance there (the finest of any actor in recent years, I
thought) so memorable wasn't the violence (which was unsettling,
even for a hardcore horror fan like me), but the shy gentleness. I
was prepared to see Rooker's Henry as someone monstrous, even evil;
I wasn't prepared to see him as someone almost capable of love.
Rooker's hideously bloated Grant has a similar kind of found
humanity, albeit on a broader, more cartoonish scale. Easily the
best horror film I've seen this year.

(First published in Businessworld, 4/28/06)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)