I’ll be honest, at first I only wanted to go see Slither in order to support Nathan Fillion. But the trailers made it look entertaining, and the reviews were pretty good, so in the end it wasn’t just Serenity love that made me go.
Slither isn’t going to win any Oscars, it isn’t about any great themes. It is content to be a film about a gross alien invasion with plenty of humour thrown in. And cursing. Plenty of cursing.
Bill Pardy is police chief, or sheriff or something I don’t really know how the US police system works, in a small town. Where his partner checks the speed of birds and the like, disappointed if he is more than two miles out with his guess. Bill has a crush on local teacher, Starla. But she is married to Grant Grant. The trouble starts when Grant goes out and gets himself infected by an alien parasitic monster thing, that takes over his body and soon attempts to take over the entire town and then the world in its desire for “meat”.
The plot isn’t really that important though. What is important is the blend of gore and humour, and Slither is a perfect example of this sort of film. You’ll be laughing through your disgust. And wondering how a film where every second word seems to be fuck managed to only get a 15A rating.
Nathan Fillion gets to show off how good he is at falling on his face. There are a few pretty girls for the fellas, but mostly this is about the ick-factor.
I think my favourite part was after the slug things attack the police posse and more than a few officers end up unconscious, but alive, and one of the unaffected officers says “Praise be Jesus!” This prompts Mayor Jack MacReady to rant about how far these slugs are from being a reason to praise Jesus. “This shit is about as far from God as shit can get!”
My watching of VM has taught me this-
Unicorporated towns have elected sheriffs and sheriff departments and county supervisors.
Incorporated towns have police chiefs and police departments and and mayors.
Or something.
OK so what are incorporated and unincorporated towns?
Fence, don't make me fall into the Serenity love trap. I'm that close as it is.
But isn't Woody a mayor? And Neptune isn't incorporated.
Anne, don't really know. Some american thing, where are all the USA-ians when you need them :)
Enjoy the Serenity love, its a good thing. Have you investigated getting Firefly yet…
Nope, Woody is the county supervisor, "the position traditionally known in Neptune as Mayor". His name thingy on his desk says "Mayor" Woody Goodman. Heh. He was initially incorrectly referred to as mayor and the writers stuck that stuff in to explain their gaffe.
An unincorporated town/area/whatever doesn't have its own government, so doesn't pay tax to its town. I think.
Ah, okay. See I knew I'd heard him refered to as Mayor Woody at some stage.
I just groaned when I saw trailers for this, especially coming right on the heels of Serenity and Nathan's great redefinition of ship's captains. It looks fun in the tradition of movies like Eight Legged Freaks and I'll probably end up catching it when it comes out on DVD. I'm not thrilled about all the language in it…I enjoy the use of a well placed "fuck" myself but am not sure that it needs to be the predominant word in any movie.
Its a fun film Carl, doesn't take itself seriously at all. And I could even see a bit of Mal in Bill. Mal before the war, and before he got all dark and serious ;) Maybe I'm projecting.
There is a lot of cursing, but then again, its most likely what people would really be saying in those situations. They aren't really fucks of annoyance or anger, but fucks of surprise. If that makes sense.
Exactly, that's the most fun use of the word! Well, the second most fun anyway.
:)