It was a crappy week for new releases, so I had to go digging through some older titles to find a match for The Messengers. I settled on Slither, which at least had the promise of Nathan Fillion to counteract any potential suckage. I guess Dylan McDermott was supposed to fulfill the same function in The Messengers, but he just doesn’t have the charm of Captain Tightpants.
Slither is the kind of movie I’d like to watch with my dad and my brother over chili cheese nachos and a six pack of beer. Its part Invasion of the Body Snatchers, part Night of the Living Dead, and totally gross. The plot is really simple: alien slug monster lands in a small town and the requisite dashing cop, local beauty and plucky teen have to save the world from slug domination.
Slither doesn’t waste any time with backstory or character development. The meteorite carrying the sluggy alien hits right away and, within minutes, implants itself in local rich guy Grant Grant, who proceeds to grow tentacle thingies, get squidy, kill livestock, eat raw meat and, in general, be disgusting. Shortly after that, he infests the town with baby slugs that implant themselves in human brains, turning their hosts into alien zombies.
There’s guts and goop and slime all over this movie, but its also really funny, and not in an unintentional way like so many other horror movies. As an added bonus, Slither stars Nathan Fillion, and you can’t really go wrong with him, no matter what the Fox network says.
The Messengers had a promising start, with a nice family getting slaughtered by what seemed to be an angry ghost. Shortly after, we meet the Solomon family, who are moving into the same haunted house. Why do city folk think it’s charming to buy run down houses in the middle of nowhere? Have they ever been to a real live small town? I have. It’s charming for a minute, until you realize that the grocery store closes at four and the only nightlife is the cattle and livestock auction behind the Motel 6.
The Messengers is derivative of several other ghost stories (including The Devil’s Backbone, The Ring, Stir of Echoes, and The Amityville Horror ), and it tries too hard to have a subplot with a struggling family from Chicago- they manage to have an out of work dad, a teenage girl with a DUI behind her, and a mute little brother – trying to make it work on a sunflower farm in North Dakota. But, I kind of liked it anyway because there were a few creepy scenes and it did make me jump a lot.
I really had a problem with Dylan McDermott as Roy in The Messengers. First, he doesn’t pass as “rugged farmer dad”; he’s way too model-y for that. It’s like watching Derek Zoolander try to raise sunflowers. Then, when John Corbett walks up out of nowhere, Roy hires him and gives him a place to stay on the spot. He’s seriously going to hire a random guy wandering the countryside on foot with a shotgun? Shouldn’t a guy from Chicago have better street smarts than that? No wonder Roy couldn’t find a job for two years; he’s an idiot.
The ghosts have a serious communication problem. If they’re trying to warn the Solomon family, why do they keep attacking the daughter? Pulling me into the basement doesn’t say “hey, look out!” or “this house has bad karma for struggling families!” It says “we want to kill you” or “we’re not really sure what our purpose is in the movie, but we’re dead, so we may as well scare you.”
The ending was a total cop out and I felt like I had been mislead when the fate of the previous family was revealed. It’s not what the opening scene makes it look like. Don’t draw me in with “ghost story” and give me “murderous farmer man”.
Wow. Now that I’m actually talking about The Messengers, it really kinda sucked. Slither wins.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Yay Slither!
I LURVE Slither!! It is one of my top 5 favoritist movies ever!
Plus those 2 little sisters are the creepiest kids in a horror movie since The Shining!
Enjoy your Family Fun Day!!