As a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers are unmarked as per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned!
Let's not beat around the bush, Slither is a Body Horror movie that would make David Cronenberg proud. We say that because this feels like a movie he would make, but it's actually from James Gunn of all people.
Didn't expect the director of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) to have this as his directorial debut?
Promotional and Miscellaneous
- The main poster
◊ depicts a bathroom door slightly open, with someone in the bathtub. On the floor are a group of red slugs, with some ascending the tub, with one even about to fall in. It's minimalistic, but knowing what these slugs do (and thinking of one iconic scene in particular...), it's both gross and alarming. - The main DVD cover is just as scary if not worse. A top-down view of a woman in a bathtub, but with a massive crowd of slugs surrounding it, with some on the edge, and two even swimming in the water. The fact that the woman doesn't even look alarmed, and seeing a massive hoard of them in a single room, is frightening.
Movie
- The Long One. It is the alien responsible for the entire conflict. Without a host, it is only the size of a dart, but this thing is living proof that sometimes in horror, size matters not. When Grant and Brenda find it, it is in a cocoon (or a brain if the end credits are to be put into consideration). Then it reveals itself to Grant, and fires into his chest. It works its way into the brain, then upon reaching it, uses him as a host. The whole process of turning Grant from human to puppet is nothing short of a difficult watch.
- Every single mutation deserves credit where credit is due. All of them are scary, yet all of them are very well made. Grant looks normal in the beginning, but as the movie progresses, he resembles a horrific mix of a human and a slug monster, with a half-human half-monster face. Props to the art team, they really went all out with the design.
- Word of God confirms that Grant died when the Long One went into his brain, which would be comforting that he is not in an And I Must Scream scenario. Still, the very fact that it fuses with his memories and acts like he never changed is Paranoia Fuel at its finest. Aside from some weird quirks, he never acts out of place and can blend in a crowd and no one would notice anything wrong. It's only when he impregnates Brenda that his mutations become more apparent.
- What makes the horror work is the Dramatic Irony of it all. All of the townsfolk are unaware of this, but the audience is. By the time the town realizes the horror, it's far, far too late.
- The Countdown at the Bar. What begins as a celebratory countdown to deer hunting season becomes much, much more sinister in another part of town. It's the first scene where the alien's reproductive methods are shown onscreen. Let's just say that this scene cements what you are in for the rest of the movie beyond this point.
- When Jack counts down, Brenda expects a good time with Grant, but nearing the countdown's end, he violently yanks his shirt off, revealing his mutated torso, to Brenda's horror. Then Jack excitidly shouts "Let the hunt begin!" (a Call-Forward to the Long One's hunt of the town, and allusions to the Darwinism ideology). Before Brenda can scream for help, Grant violently dominates and holds Brenda down, and two tubules emerge from his torso. Brenda tries to scream again, but Grant's hold is so strong, she can't do anything as the tubules borrow into her. You're literally watching a rape scene unfold.
- While one tubule pumps the unfortunate victim with the slug eggs (the other one isn't explicitly described as to what it does), allowing for Horror Hunger to help the embryos grow. That Horror Hunger is a twisted take on strange pregnancy cravings (Not to mention how said slugs infect their victims via Orifice Invasion). And when the eggs are transplanted into her, he makes expressions akin to orgasmic pleasure (it's the same scenario where he tries to do the same with Pardy, except you see the fused people reacting in orgasmic pleasure).
- All of this makes The Long One the most sexual horror-themed movie monster since the original Alien, and just like the Face-Hugger, men aren't exempt from impregnation either. H. R. Giger would be proud.
- If you're an animal lover, chances are that seeing all those dead animals will no doubt scare you. Seeing Roscoe being the first victim is scary enough as is, but it's when Starla accesses the basement that it's much, much worse. All those animals, in the basement, in the ranches, killed in that fashion, it's beyond gross and horrific.
- Brenda's situation after Grant impregnates her with the embryos. At first, she's chained inside a barn and is forced to eat meat to provide for the developing slugs. Seeing her eat raw meat out of desperation to survive, and Grant acting caring and nurturing is quite the stomach-churner.
- Not helping is the lack of lighting. While her stomach is distorted and bloated, you only get to see Grant's face, her face in close-up, and her eating the raw meat. It provides a lot of tension.
- Then the posse finds her, and she resembles more an oversized breast than anything, making the whole thing nauseating beyond belief.
- When Brenda explodes, dispersing thousands of slugs all over the posse. Also, all of those nice, quirky lovable characters that populate the movie? Infinitely scarier when they turn into alien zombies.
- Another note-worthy thing is that her screams of pain eerily mirror a mother giving birth. Jesus...
- How the slugs infest unlucky victims. They crawl on you, then they literally go inside your mouth. When they go inside you fully, you'll convulse into seizures and eventually die. But then you're reanimated into the Hive Mind of the Long One.
- When they wake up, you'd be relieved that they're okay. But when Wally utters, "Hi sugarplum.", and talks about what Grant did to Starla recently, you get the idea that something is not right, and those boils on his forehead...
- It gets much worse in a later reveal. Wally gets his head blown off with a shotgun, and the slug is inside the brain. If they successfully get in your head, they crawl into your brain, and you can't do anything about it. And if the slug is unharmed by the headshot, it'll just slither away looking for a new vessel to invade.
- While Brenda's baby is claimed to be safe (while it's assuring before, during the slug infestation makes that claim uncertain), the same cannot be said for children. In fact, there's an on-screen moment of Kylie's younger sisters suffering seizures as they get infected with the slugs.
- The process whereby humans are turned into breeders for the slugs is nightmarish enough when the womb is implanted in the abdomen, as usually happens. MacReady gets one implanted in his shoulder, and in not more than a few minutes has a basketball-shaped growth covering most of his neck and right shoulder. Worse still, it's implied that the pain from this is enough to override the insatiable desire to eat that most breeders have, and lets him beg Pardy for a Mercy Kill. Pardy complies without a second thought, not wanting him to experience an ungodly amount of pain any longer.
