Fraser Valley–shot horror-comedy Slither gets Scream Factory's Blu-ray treatment

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      Before James Gunn became somewhat of a hotshot Hollywood director with big-budget films like Guardians of the Galaxy to his name, he spent time toiling in places like Langley and Abbotsford, shooting the gory and hilarious 2006 gem Slither.

      The reason I'm bringing this up now is because Scream Factory has just announced that it will release the movie as a collector's edition Blu-ray on July 25. That not only has me excited, but it's getting Gunn all fired up as well. Here's what he had to say about it on his Facebook page today:

      "I’d like to officially announce that after MANY YEARS of waiting, and me endlessly bitching to the rights holders, FINALLY my directorial debut Slither will be available on Blu-Ray. The wonderful folks from Scream Factory will be distributing a brand new edition on July 25 of this year. It will have lots of cool extras including a NEW COMMENTARY FROM ME AND THE CAST. It’s like “When Harry Met Sally” only it’s “When Gunn Met Rooker (and Fillion and Banks and Henry).” These people all changed my life. And Slither is how they did it. Oh and check out the cool new artwork. I love it."

      As if that weren't enough to make you want to buy the Slither Blu-ray, here's my original Straight review from 2006:

      Before breaking through in the horror realm as the screenwriter of 2004’s excellent Dawn of the Dead remake, James Gunn spent years toiling for Troma Entertainment, the New York company famous for campy, no-budget shockers like The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke ‘Em High. The gonzo, gore-oriented Troma spirit is clearly evident in Gunn’s directorial debut, Slither, an over-the-top splatter-comedy about sluglike thingies from outer space that infest a backwoods community of brain-dead hicks and turn them into bile-spewing zombies.

      It’s the kind of nutzoid movie for anyone who’s looked twice at warped Troma titles like Surf Nazis Must Die and Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town.

      The fun starts when a meteorite lands in the forest, unseen by the dimwitted cops nearby, who are more concerned with using their radar guns to track the speed of whippoorwills. As well as the local constabulary, the town’s hotheaded mayor, Jack MacReady (Body Double‘s Gregg Henry), is a piece of work; we’re introduced to him when he bellows on the street, in front of a mother and child, “Get the fuck out of the way, you cocksucker!” (Unfortunately, MacReady’s outbursts get less and less comical as the movie unfolds.)

      Genre fave Michael Rooker, noted for his chilling portrayal of murderous drifter Henry Lee Lucas in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, steals the show as low-key local businessman Grant Grant. During a booze-addled stroll in the woods, he discovers the meteorite cracked open like a gooey coconut and makes the honest mistake of poking its icky contents with a stick. The pulsating ooze shoots a dartlike tentacle into his belly, setting off Grant’s transformation into a pustule-covered, raw meat-crazed host for the alien parasite.

      Before you can say Shivers or The Hidden, sluglike critters are everywhere, attacking young women in bathtubs and forcing themselves into people’s mouths. Makeup and creature-effects artist Todd Masters (Predator, HBO’s Six Feet Under) has a field day with the slimey foam-latex and silicone prosthetics that compete for screen time with the suitably cheesy CGI.

      Slither‘s demented charm gets stretched pretty thin under the near-numbing shower of flying flesh and hokey one-liners (“He looks like something that fell off my dick during the war!”), but its cringe/chuckle quotient should satisfy most fans of such low-budget gross-out endeavours.

       

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