Phoenix's B-movie Review III

Phoenix Lord’s B-movie Review III

Slither


This B-movie is a special one, and I’ll tell ya why in one word: money.  That’s right this baby is one of those sweet gems that actually had a budget behind it and yet it *still* managed to be classic B.

This B-movie features an actor that deserves a lot more respect than he gets.  Mainly because no one knows who he is.  It is the ever charming captain of the Serenity from Firefly, Mr. (NOTE TO EDITOR: please look up this guy’s name for me).  He’s sensational...and by that I mean he’s damn cute in his little small town cop outfit.

Okay all you Sci-fi fans out there soak in this plot line: an intelligent parasite from outer space comes to earth in the form of a slug like creature (that looks a lot like a computer generated beef tenderloin), burrows into a hapless victim where it travels to the brain, and takes control of the person’s body and memories.  It breeds by injecting its young into the stomach of yet another victim, the young have all the genetic memories of the original. Oh and apparently they are somewhat on the immortal at least the original one claims to be a Billion years old...

Swish that around in your mouth for a moment (now spit).  Taste like Stargate to you?  (For those of you who don’t know: Stargate tastes a bit like Gouda cheese with a metallic after bite (which comes from a heavy dose of irony)).

But let’s not get into who has been watching what while drinking heavily.

I think the B-aspect of this movie that amused me the most is when the main chick’s husband gets over taken by the Death Slug and she doesn’t really notice.  Despite his new found hunger for raw meat and neighborhood dogs.  Even the grotesque boils and oozing do nothing to dissuade her from her loser husband (not the Firefly guy.  EDITOR: do you have that name for me yet?).  

She also does not notice that he has turned their basement into a cave-like aging cellar for all of the pets (and a few cows) that he’s been hunting on his late night walk abouts.  She does not notice this smell until she actually goes down there.

Well in a moment of panic she calls Firefly and he rushes to her rescue because of course he loves her and he always has, he was just too afraid to ever let her know.  Her husband now has almost completely transformed into a slug and yet everyone still believes that he is simply ill.

Meanwhile his breeding victim has reached unbelievable size (nearly as large as the barn she’s being held in).  Slug Husband lures them there and when his ‘mate’ finally bursts baby slugs go everywhere and start trying to crawl into people’s mouths.  Firefly and Starla (the main chick) manage to escape this horrible fate by...covering their mouth with their hand.

Everyone else in town however (did I mention that these slugs move really, really fast) is quickly overtaken and turned into zombie like creatures who wish to do the bidding of the main Death Slug and who all love Starla as the husband did (beacuse you see they have his memories).

For amusing zombie moments there is a doe, a deer, a female deer that gets turned into a zombie and beats the tar out of Firefly (he’s anti deer hunting...or at least he was).  

The zombies start to kill all the people that weren’t lucky enough to get their own slug and start dragging them back to the house.  They also capture Starla because Slug Hubby still loves her.  

Slug Hubby basically wants to breed millions of slugs, and then use them to take over and then eat the whole planet.  When he’s done he’ll move on.  However Starla has a plan!

In keeping with B-movie tradition she arms herself with an inappropriate weapon.  Move over Bruce Campbell and Michael Shanks because we have a new contestant in town up for the award of Least Appropriate Weapon.

A hair brush.

Yes, at this point Slug Husband (by absorbing other victims) is a multi headed blob as big as the living room and she is going to stab him to death with the somewhat sharp end of a hair brush...after seducing him of course.

Her plan almost works in as much as it doesn’t work at all and manages to piss off the gigantic slug even further.  But that’s okay because Firefly is going to save the day by rushing in with...a grenade!

Yes!  A cop with a grenade.  He had confiscated it from someone who was going to go fishing with it.  Sadly Firefly has never seen a War Flick and doesn’t know that you need to pull the pin and count to five (three, Sir!).  So the Slug flicks the grenade in the pool and it goes off with a pathetic pop.

But Firefly isn’t going to take this laying down.  Well, actually he is.  Slugo slaps him around a little, throws him through a window and then stabs him in the stomach with one of two little phallic protrusion that he uses to make breeder victims.  

So while one tentacle is filling Firefly’s belly with intergalactic semen (I’m sorry you had to read that, but it’s the truth) the other is trying to jab him (it takes both to become a breeder).  

Falling back on the theory that the old tricks are the best ones Firefly grabs a propane tank (there is always propane laying around in B-movies) and somehow shoves the other tentacle in the nozzle and starts puffing Slugman up with propane (something he doesn’t notice).

Starla then saves the day by shooting him in what ends up being a very gooey explosion.  Firefly seems okay despite the septic goo pouring out of his abdominal wound.  All of the slug possessed people keel over and die (I assume they were connected with the original), and Starla and Firefly live happily ever after (mainly because it’s someone else’s job to clean up all the bodies).

This movie came *so* close to being good!  But it just couldn’t quite get up over the B-bar.  

Best part of the whole movie:

Firefly’s friend who has become a breeder comes up to him and begs him to kill him.  Without a word, without a seconds hesitation, and hardly even looking at his friend Firefly shoots him point blank in the head and then moves on with his life.

I hope you all have a friend out there as good as Firefly.