March 31, 2006
slither
After four days, we can barely recall a single detail from Slither — this, perhaps, summarizes its charms. Rarely has a movie been so indifferent to distinguishing itself, and so easy-going as a result; like discussing politics again down at the local, it's the relief of having a loaded conversation as if it didn't matter at all. This lack of self-importance is perfectly embodied by "star" Nathan Fillion, who played a similar role in Serenity; screwed by his handsomeness (he looks like a weathered Jason Bateman) into a lead role (both in the movie, and in the movie's town of Wheelsy), he graciously makes the least of it at every turn. Only occasionally does his witty recalcitrance reveal itself as an actual annoyance that he has to be the guy to take care of this shit.
Slither is a bit like Scary Movie (et al.) without the self-aware irony; it follows the program like a structuralist at a genre convention. The genre is one we have referred to elsewhere as "the narrative of ideological terror" — in which arises some non-human force whose pure drive is not absolute destruction but absolute homogenization (wherein all human bodies become mere automata, non-conscious extensions of a collective will), which is perforce resisted by the final survivor(s), possessor of "the last free consciousness, as yet untainted by ideology."
The classic form of this film is the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the incessant remaking of which faintly screams repetition compulsion: "We might say it is America’s national story, the one it remakes in times of crisis — akin to the Japanese film community’s habit of refilming the story of the forty-seven ronin cyclically, most famously in Mifune’s Chushingura (1962)."
[An an aside, we note that the narrative of ideological terror is what renders science fiction an important screen for the cultural unconscious of the United States — but shouldn't be limited either to sci-fi or America. In a chapter of the 1983 book Signs Taken for Wonders, literary historiographer Franco Moretti identifies one locus classicus of this narrative in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and in the general idea of the zombie. For the moment, we wish to note only that the film Death House (1987), also known as Zombie Death House, features a character named...Franco Moretti.]
From the position of industrial history, the only remarkable thing about Slither is that it was made by James Gunn. His previous film, the stealthily odd and thrilling remake of Dawn of the Dead, starred class act Sarah Polley (along with Ving Rhames, etc). What's more, it made meaningful money, famously besting Mel Gibson in its opening week ("Zombies Knock Off Jesus," said Variety) and ending up with a worldwide gross of above $100 million on a $28 million budget. Meaning that, with an intent more pointed than anything else about Slither, Gunn elected to move backward, away from whatever was offered him in the wake of success, to make an even more decisively pulpy film, without any box office names. Everything about Slither is largely free of the anxiety and banalization that haunt every object that wishes to succeed; the whole film is pervaded by a sense of relief, which for a horror film is curious indeed.
Posted by jane at March 31, 2006 07:48 AM | TrackBack