“Slither” Steelbook Can Be Yours! Buy it Here Today!
Wheelsy, South Carolina is a small town where the biggest event of the year is the countdown to deer hunting season. On the eve to the start of the great hunt, an aggressive, parasitic alien entrenches itself inside a human host. It impregnates a young woman to gestate thousands of its spawn, slug-like creatures that form telepathic link to the host and undertake its bidding. Newly appointed Sheriff Bill Pardy, alongside his deputies, the eccentric town mayor, and longtime high school crush, Starla Grant, who’s husband was first infected by the invading extraterrestrial creature, must fight through the zombified hordes of alien controlled friends and neighbors townsfolk to stop the source from spreading and taking over the world but with their force numbers dwindling and the alien growing bigger and uglier by the second, Pardy must himself avoid being a host to the meat-hungry creature that has come to plague his small town community.
James Gunn, who has taken the MCU and DCU by storm with his creative involvement directing all of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, and upending the David Ayer and Zack Synder-universes with his divergent take on “Suicide Squad, and “Superman,” while also producing the just released “Supergirl,” use to bask in horror with “Slither,” a creature feature that captured the appreciation of 80’s monster movies and body horror with a zombie chaser and plenty of practical, tangible effects. Gunn wrote and directed the now 20-year-old, 2006 movie filmed in a collective of portions of British Columbia, Canada doubling as a backwater town in South Carolina. Brightlight pictures and Strike Entertainment produce the Gold Circle films presented movie with Paul Brooks (“White Noise,” “The Fourth Kind”), Eric Newman (“Dawn of the Dead” ’04, “The Thing” ’11), and Jeff Levine (“Shadow of the Vampire,” “ATM”) serving as producers.
An established cast of talent comprises “Slither’s” eclectic character pool of townies being invaded by an outer space slug with a bad attitude. “Firefly’s” Nathan Fillion is in the newly appointed Sheriff Bill Pardy and Fillion adds his usual spaceship captain comedic charm and swagger in the more grounded role as he stumbles into a world of slithering extraterrestrials that infest, digest, and gestate inside organic organisms. Fillion’s hung up projection is for Elizabeth Banks’s Starla Grant, perhaps the most beautiful, and nicest, woman in all of Wheelsy, South Carolina, The “Uninvited” actress adds pleasantries that are a compliment to Starla Grant but also a detriment as she’s unable to express how she really feels about her much older, well-off husband Grant Grant, played by “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” Michael Rooker. Effectively, a love triangle ensues between the three with themes of true happiness, dissolution of a marriage, saving a marriage, love, and heartache coming into play amongst a body transformative horror that exceeds our solar system. Rooker’s the rich Wheelsy resident who’s very protective of his trophy wife and is starting to feel the pangs of his wife pulling away from his advances but still loves her. The fourth principal character in this quartet “The Darkling’” Tania Saulnier in what is essentially her debut protagonist role as a teen touched by the shared collective of the slugs and with her insight, provides pivotal information for the survivals to work against. Each play their respective roles to perfection inside the chaos and mayhem of a more dominant species quickly spreading, even Gregg Henry (“Bodily Harm”) and his jaggedly crude role of town mayor fields a certain level of entertaining value to the frantic fray to keep “Slither” a light-hearted Hard-R creature feature. The remaining cast includes Brenda Gutierrez (“Stone Cold”), Haig Sutherland (“Halloween: Resurrection”), Jenna Fisher (“The Office”), and Don Thompson (“Horns”).
“Slither” is one of those seminal movies of the creature feature that could, or more accurately did, being a small fry horror movie that made a positive profit financially and amongst the audiences. Of course, James Gunn found influence in his favorite horror works and borrowed, to an extent, key elements to spin his own craft that works to stand on its own two feet told mostly by its fine performances of the cast. The down-to-Earth sci-fi action and gore is palpable and designed well in its composition of practical and computer-generated effects, especially for a mid-2000’s horror. Gunn’s knack for black comedy works to the advantage of his brand of small-town satire and eccentric characters who can range from being charismatic and likeable to crude and inimitable. Seeing the influences from John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” and Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. and Russell S. Doughten Jr.’s “The Blob,” or maybe more so closer to Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake of “The Blob,” won’t create a rift between the film and audiences as there’s too much to like and laugh about “Slither’s” slimy infiltration and invasion concept without it feeling hackneyed and reaching to strive to be something it’s not in its hark of a classic creature feature and science fiction monster movie.
The first time transferred in 4K, Visions Home Video, a subsidiary label of Vertigo Entertainment, releases “Slither” onto a new 2-disc, steelbook 4K UHD and Blu-ray set. Disc specs include a 4K UHD HVEC encoded with 2160p resolution on a BD100 and a Hi-Def Blu-ray that’s AVC encoded with 1080p resolution on a BD50, and both films are presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Image quality has been greatly found immersion with an image that pops off of the screen in the 4K option with the additional pixel count. The Blu-ray holds its own and is also a fine presentation but in UHD, we’re treated to a little extra texture and a little extra clarity from the DolbyVision that can’t be achieved on the standard Blu-ray, especially around night sequences which most of the chaos and action takes place. This is not to say the Blu-ray is unclear or obstructed as too has plenty of clarity and detail but what it doesn’t have is that deep sensory engagement of picture. Coloring and grading are equal on both presentations that involve a more organic approach during the date and a bluish grading during night sequences to work in against the lighting. No issues with the original 35mm elements as it’s kept clean and persevered well last 20 years, contributing to the natural resolution enhancement of the 4K transfer while also maintaining a healty but subtle grain. The lossless English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio has no suppressive issues with fidelity and is just as immersive as the picture quality with distinctive directionals of the back and side channels and a balanced output of stereo, LFE, and central action. Dialogue has no issues with clarity and is prominent above the audio layering. The effects, such as slithering slugs sounds and gunfire, offer a good amount of bang for the cinematic budget and the overall main creature sound production eclectically engineered to be funny, in its whipping tentacles with that distinctive whip crack, as it’s scary and gross with its guttural growls and slimy trails. English SDH subtitles are available for selection. There’s also an uncompressed Stereo 2.0 audio format available. Special features include an audio commentary with writer/director James Gunn and actors Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, featurettes The Sick Minds and Slimy Days of Slither and Bringing Slither’s Creatures to Life, Gunn discussions The Genesis of Slither in an interview with the writer/director, an interview with director of photography Gregory Middleton We’ve Got Worms, an interview with editor John Axelrad Feed the Fear, an interview with special make-up effects designer Todd Masters Just a Bee Sting, an interview with composer Tyler Bates What’s Gotten Into You, a location and set tour with actor Nathan Fillion, deleted and extended scenes, a blooper reel, and trailers for film. The Visions Home Video set case comes in a steelbook with metallic luster and an exclusive, and uncredited from what I can tell, illustrated artwork of survivors in the throes of tentacle mayhem. The backside also includes additional artwork that has the semblance of a veiny, Resident Evil-like giant eyeball. Both sides are primarily colored in reddish orange with blue slithering in on the front cover. Inserted inside is a dual-sided mini folded poster with the same front cover artwork plus alternative compositional artwork on the opposite side on its rigid heavyweight construction paperwork. The 4K UHD is region free while the Blu-ray is region locked B as it’s a UK release. The 95-minute film is certified 15 for strong gory violence and language.
Last Rites: An early 2000s oldie but a goodie, “Slither” gives a glimpse of James Gunn’s caliber of losers become winners and to not hold back much of the violence, gore, and rough dispositions of uncouth, unsavory, and unsophisticated characters. This new 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Visions Home Video re-invades “Slither” into our lives, taking over our brains, and becoming part of our physical media collective.
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