Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little review of the SLITHER DVD which hits shelves today. I was hoping to have this done by this weekend, but I ended up going on a last minute trip to Prague to visit the torture rooms of HOSTEL PART 2. I'll have my first report on that hitting in the next few days, but before I dug into that, I wanted to catch-up on a few things seeing release this week. The first of which is the SLITHER DVD. The movie fizzled in theaters, which is a shame. I guess it's the Nathan Fillion curse. Despite my disinterest in the Whedonverse, I really like Fillion as a lead. There's something very natural and effortlessly funny about the guy and I wish him well in his future projects. Was SLITHER too self-referential? Was it too funny instead of creepy? Not funny enough? I don't know what the masses wanted and while I've gone through the movie 2 or 3 times now on DVD I've noticed the movie holding up surprisingly well, for me personally. It's not the world's greatest movie, but this is what I wish our average "let's not take ourselves seriously" horror work would be. It definitely feels like a movie you'd discover on video as a kid, right next to BASKET CASE 2 and maybe the first TREMORS movie. As for extras, the DVD has plenty, but it doesn't feel overloaded with useless crap or repetition of content. Don't you hate that? When you get a DVD that has, like, 7 documentaries on it and all 7 share the same 5 minutes of EPK interviews? Luckily that's not here. What we have on this disc are these features:
-Deleted Scenes (With Optional Commentary by James Gunn) -Visual Effects Step By Step -Slithery Set Tour with Nathan Fillion -Extended Scenes (With Optional Commentary by James Gunn) -Who Is Bill Pardy? -Gag Reel -The Sick Minds and Slimy Days of Slither -The Gorehound Grill: Brewin' The Blood -Feature Commentary (with James Gunn and Nathan Fillion) -Bringing Slither's Creatures To Life
And
-The King of Cult: Lloyd Kaufman's Video Diary
Of all these features, my favorites were Lloyd Kaufman's Video Diary, Who Is Bill Pardy?, Gag Reel, the Commentary and the creature doco, Bringing Slither's Creatures to Life. The Kaufman Video Diary is pure Lloyd. For those who might now know, James Gunn started his career with Lloyd at Troma, working on the script for TROMEO & JULIET. After that, he became pretty big within the industry scripting the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and the two SCOOBY-DOO films. When Gunn finally was able to direct his own project, he brought in Lloyd to cameo. In the final version, you can see Lloyd in the background at the police station, but a scene where he was coming on to a lady cop (although, if this were Tromo, it would have been Lloyd cumming on a lady cop) was axed, and not even put on the deleted scenes. However, we do have Lloyd's personal diary, shot by him for his day going through the set. It's really funny and Lloyd knows how to stir the shit up really well. Who Is Bill Pardy? is perhaps my favorite extra... it's a compliment to the gag reel in which a running gag from shooting is fully exposed. Bill Pardy is Nathan Fillion's character in the flick and for whatever reason, he loves to look a the camera and say, "I'm Bill Pardy" whenever he mucks a line or forgets a line or just wants to set up a practical joke. This runs not only through these gag clips, but through the behind the scenes as well. For example, the whole 5 minute extra starts with James Gunn and Fillion looking at the behind the scenes camera informing us that Bill Pardy has unusually large BMs. Fillion says, "I have to break 'em apart with a metal hanger," and then the doc moves on. That's the tone of the whole thing. Gunn, off camera, "Alright... you're Bill Pardy! Action!" Fillion cracks up, gains composure, but before he starts he looks to the camera and goes, "He's right, though." That segues into who is Nathon Fillion where the cast and crew takes the piss out of him. The Gag Reel is fuckin' funny, too. Love a good gag reel. The Gorehound Grill segment is interesting, with one of the FX guys showing you how to make fake blood at home, but then it kind of turns into a little bit of bullshit because he leaves out a few key ingredients so the blood looks all watery and pink. He wants to keep them trade secrets. Why do this extra feature in the first place if you're going to puss out? The commentary is a lot of fun. Gunn and Fillion are naturally funny guys, so they always keep it entertaining. Gunn falls into the commentary trap of saying damn near every scene of the film is his favorite scene in the film, but I was surprised at how frank and honest he was about the elements that didn't work for him. He'd call out specific effects shots and effects studios that he really didn't like, which is a little more ballsy than I'm used to on commentary tracks. One thing all the DVD extras impressed upon me was just how fun it was to make this movie. I think that fun translates over to the final film... Of course, like any movie, it had its dark hours. I'll leave you with a line from Mr. Gunn spoken during one of the docs. "This movie has its dick in my mouth... and I'm gagging on it." Charming, eh? I've got some flicks to see, some more DVDs to look at, Stephen King's new book to finish and review and I've got to start on my Holiday Gift Guide... So, keep an eye on the site, squirts. Tons of goodies coming up! -Quint quint@aintitcool.com
