Director: James Gunn

Starring: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker

Rating: 4/5

Horror fans often grouse that their genre’s been tamed, sold out. Why can’t anyone make popcorn and puke movies like they did back in the day? With his directorial debut Dawn of the Dead scriptwriter James Gunn has, harking back to those gory glory days to make a dumb, fun B-movie that it’d feel right to rent on VHS.

Michael Rooker plays small-town guy Grant Grant. Infected by the contents of a meteorite, he turns into a lumpyheaded freak with Arctic Monkeys skin and a passion for meat that makes Bernard Matthews look like Linda McCartney. He impregnates a local, who births thousands of worms (think a turd crossed with a piece of liver) that are soon possessing the townsfolk.

A horror movie for horror fans, it wears its fanboy heart on its sleeve. Gunn served his apprenticeship at Troma and is steeped in this stuff. Grant’s infection quotes The Blob. A worm-inthe- bath attack homages Shivers. There are echoes of Society and Jaws, countless in-jokes, and plenty of “Whoa!” moments (“Whoa! Dude, he chopped that guy in half with his tentacle!”).

It’s funny, too – if you think swearing’s clever and the word “numbnuts” makes you grin. Firefly’s Nathan Fillion is the star name, but his everyman sheriff is overshadowed by Gregg Henry’s Mayor, whose potty mouth would make even an Ain’t It Cool News poster blush. The film’s weirdly uneven in tone in a way that keeps you on your toes. Right to the end, Grant retains his love for his wife, which lends certain scenes pathos and makes others doubly disturbing: a monster that wants to play you power ballads is even more shuddersome than one that just wants to eat you...

The benchmark for this kind of thing is Tremors. Is Slithers as good? Not Gunn is obviously a David Cronenberg fan. One shop is called Max Renn’s (James Woods’s character in Videodrome) and the meat that Grant buys is branded Brundle’s Meat (a nod to The Fly’s Seth Brundle). quite: it could do with a few more ideas of its own in amongst the homages. But it’s a giggle and never outstays its welcome, slipping down as easily as an alien worm down the back of the throat…

DVD Extras
A commentary by James Gunn and Nathan Fillion was unavailable for review, but should be a giggle. The extras we have seen are a delight. A five-minute wander round the set with Nathan Fillion is very amusing, thanks largely to a Gunn quote so obscene we can’t print it. “Who is Bill Pardy?” (five mins) features clips of Fillion horsing around and then saying his on-set catchphrase (“I’m Bill Pardy!”). A decent Making Of is split into two featurettes (28 mins in total). There are eight deleted scenes and four extended scenes: for once, many are great and should have been left in! You also get an eight-minute gag reel, a lesson on making fake blood, Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman’s video diary (his one line cameo was cut!), and five minutes of effects progressions.

Ian Berriman