Global Worming
I arrived at the movie theater about 45 minutes early. I was energized. Excited. It was Friday night, opening night, and I was certain every other horror fan was feeling the same way. I purchased my ticket and asked where the line was. The attendant at the counter provided me with a blank, somewhat confounded stare. He pointed me in the direction of the theater the film was playing in and, moments later, I found myself and my collection of annoyed friends standing alone in the hallway.
Slither (2006) was the first wide scale horror film to arrive that seemed to embody all of the tropes and goopy effects that I had come to so adore over the preceding years. While it utilized many of the digital tools of the modern filmmaking world, those effects were rooted in the practical and treated as more of a nuance to enhance the horrific physicality of what was being depicted onscreen rather than acting as the primary attraction.
My disappointment that we ended up being only a few of a handful of people in the theater that night aside, the film blew me away. Not only was it gritty and disturbing, it was funny and infused with levity. The characters felt lived in, real, with individual voices that added weight to the life (and death) of even the most peripheral counterparts to the story. More than that, the bizarre tonal shifts combined with the undeniable strength of the characters in the film allowed the movie to hop between people, essentially alternating protagonists as the story dictated.
The narrative strategy allowed for different perspectives and expository methods. It made for a speedy pace that allotted for a multitude of set pieces that would have been otherwise unavailable in a normal dramatic story structure. No sequence better represents the use of this methodology, or the distinctly effective combination of the gooey practical complimented by modern day CGI (something I had hitherto vilified in my mind), than that of young Kylie, relaxing in the tub as the creatures close in.
The sequence, while simply constructed, offers a complex, visual sensibility that not only heightens the tension, but brings Visual Effects Supervisor John Gajdecki’s striking creature effects work to terrifying life. Tania Saulnier’s understated, naturalistic performance as Kylie amplifies the raw, realness of the moment and James Gunn’s blocking and visual execution invites the audience to an uncomfortably intimate place, highlighting the creature’s invasive, sexually suggestive attack. The scene kicks off the tread toward the climax and does so in a manner befitting the best moments the film has to offer, generating tension, discomfort and adrenaline.
The page reflects this mentality, written in a straight forward, matter of fact manner. The drive and purposeful nature of the script not only embodies a high level of visual sensibility but a wry tonal thrust that serves to enhance what might otherwise have been considered one-dimensional gross-out exploitation (not that there’a anything wrong with that).
THE SCENE
Kylie lies in the bath. Alien worms make their way up the side of her house. Her mother calls to her, telling her to go to bed but Kylie ignores the command. Kylie’s mother instructs her two, younger sisters to go to bed as well. As they do so, more worms can be seen climbing the side of the house, entering through the windows. One enters the bathroom window, making its way across the floor toward the tub. It falls into the bath water and swims toward Kylie, her eyes closed. She notices at the last minute and struggles to get out of the tub. The worm eludes her grasp and enters her mouth. Kylie’s consciousness begins to combine with the worm’s, showcasing alien worlds and the actions of the Grant-Monster. Finally, she manages to yank out the worm and throw it against the wall. She grabs her curling iron and slams it against the creature, killing it and screaming for help.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
The scene opens with a close up glamour shot of Kylie’s toes turning the faucet off, a vision that could have come right out of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962). The action does not appear in the script, but the mood of the moment certainly does: she’s enjoying the warm water. Clearly, this is a moment to put the girl’s beauty and purity on full display.
After, the shot cuts to a medium wide of Kylie comfortably sitting in the tub, hidden beneath the bubbles. The moment is serene, light dripping of the faucet in an uneven rhythm being the only audible break in the silence of the space.
The screenplay plays out beat for beat, moving to the exterior of the home as The parasites squirm up the side of the house, sticking to the wood siding. Small details such as the stickiness of the worms as they ascend the homestead serve to further amplify the realness of the moment, allowing the reader to suspend their disbelief just a little bit more than they otherwise might’ve.
Back in the bathroom, Kylie glances out the window to see a full moon, engulfed in clouds (as opposed to the scripted crescent), the screenplay calling the view beautiful and still. As scripted, her mother knocks on the door and distracts her from the view, allowing her to miss the appearance of a parasite against the window. Kylie rejects her mother’s assertion that she’ll turn into a plum if she stays in too long and the creature moves fluidly by, streaking a moist slimy trail.
The whole moment occurs in one continuous medium-wide shot, allowing the viewer to sit just beside Kylie, fully aware of the encroaching danger and unable to warn the innocent, beautiful girl in its sight. Kylie’s annoyance at being bothered prompts her to put in earbuds, thereby blocking out the sounds of the real world and further endangering herself to the approaching threat.
The scene leaves Kylie, following her mother as she moves down the hallway, insisting that Kylie’s two sisters turn in for the night. The screenplay and finished film depicts the girls reading Goosebumps books by lamplight. The moment is a playful nod to the sort of kinder trauma that defines many horror fans of a certain age group and continues to set the oddly playful tone which permeates the terror of the moment. The kids even allude to the next day being “family fun day” in the film. The line was not scripted, but serves as yet another overt way of enhancing the onset of the inevitable tragedy.
In that same vein, the view jumps outside of the house once again. Hundreds of parasites scale the home, slithering in through the girls’ open window as their mother bids them goodnight. The description is disturbingly specific and serves as an unnerving juxtaposition against the scene we just witnessed play out: And the parasites pour in through the cracked window. They slither over the walls. Their slimy black-red bodies contrast sharply with the pretty flowered wallpaper.
In the screenplay, the door to the bathroom opens and a parasite enters. In the film, one enters through an open window, seamlessly connecting the moment to what was seconds before depicted. The script reads as though the creature were silently moving, however in the finished film there is an unpleasant squelching that amplifies the grotesqueness of the thing moving toward the tub.
The camera follows the creature in a close up, moving determinedly forward but without emotion. The screenplay reads very directionally here, without much nuance:
It arrives at the base of the tub, and crawls up the side.
Kylie continues relaxing, her eyes closed.
The film cuts back and forth between the action of the slug-like monster and Kylie’s deep relaxation, again heightening tension on a visual level but also on a character one. The viewer is endeared to Kylie- she feels real, deserving of calm and underserving of the fate that so surely awaits her at the hands of the creature.
The film deviates a bit from the screenplay here, injecting visual flare and style into the words on the page. The extent of the following actions in the screenplay plays out as follows:
She doesn’t see the parasite enter the soapy bath water at her feet.
Kyle hears a SOFT SPLASHING and peers down. She spots the creature swimming toward her between her knees.
In the picture, however, the camera follows the parasite up the side of the tub, watching it bend and twist around the lip of the basin and fall into the water with a soft, echoing PLUNK. The action causes water to splash out of the side of the tub and has an incredibly ominous feel to it, especially when considering the creature managed to fall in such a way as to not arouse suspicion from Kylie.
As the music swells the camera cuts to a top-down medium-wide shot of Kylie in the tub. The tub is perfectly centered in the frame, filling the screen. The small creature emerges from the water and begins to flick its tail rapidly, in an eerie manner like one would presume some nefarious, aggressive creature that lives in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean might do if it were resolute in its desire to consume you. The viewer is forced to hang there and watch, growing more and more terrified that Kylie may not open her eyes and realize what’s happening.
The angle changes to a medium-close shot, tracking in with the parasite toward Kylie (in an obvious and beautiful homage to the famous bathtub sequence in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street(1984)). The thing moves in between her exposed legs and toward her mouth, heightening the disturbing sexual nature of the entire encounter and calling attention to the sense of impregnation they intend to bring about in their victims.
All of this, again, gleaned from a few simple sentences- not altogether off-base from what the words depicted but tied to a larger vision and scope that was inherent within them.
Kylie’s emergence from the tub is streamlined for the film, allowing for a faster and more fluid transition. All of the action from the moment she SHRIEKS and scrambles to get out of the tub is done in close ups, making the events feel frantic. The screenplay suggests Kylie grabs the parasite with both hands before it slips through them. However, the film opts to give the parasites a bit more of an edge, showing how it effortlessly evades Kylie’s defences, diving into her open mouth while her attention is elsewhere. The script reads nearly identical to the action on screen here:
Kylie snatches the very end of the parasite’s tail. Her long, teddy-bear-spotted fingernails pinch it there, digging into the parasite’s flesh, barely stopping it from sliding completely into her mouth.
The shot moves around Kylie during this sequence, calling attention to her reflexes and unwillingness to let the creature exact its terrible desire. Although the screenplay doesn’t mention it, the film injects audible screeching, providing the creature with pain and sensitivity that begets weakness. The script insinuates this as well:
It wildly flaps its tail like a docked trout, desperate to enter her.
Again, the overt sexual nature of the words and the manner in which the creature is attempting to control her juxtaposes strongly against the way in which the girl is fighting back. The scene suggests a sense of agency in the young woman that is often absent in the sort of effects-driven cinema the film is clearly rooted in. Still, at this point Kylie’s “eyes roll back in her head” and the screen flashes to a shared vision.
The screenplay mentions a SPARKING inside her mouth to precede this moment, but the film merely flashes a spark over the frame instead. The scripted vision is largely simplified onscreen. The script calls for a grainy black and white and amber outlines and unfamiliar plant life dying out, as well as diseased beasts which feed on their own appendages.
In the film, the sequence shows creatures being consumed and combined into a sort of collective creature, much like Grant. Instead of black and white, the scene takes a maroon drenched visual approach that brings to life the scripted notion that the whole thing is like some National Geographic documentary shot in Hell.
Cutting back to Kylie in the bathroom, she tries to regain control of her mind. In the script, it says tears pour down her face but in the finished film her face is dry, marked with determination and intensity. Even in this vulnerable state, she’s empowered to remain in control of her faculties which stands as a far more endearing and important message for the character and the film.
The next vision, labeled as MANGLED INSECT POV at first, plays out as scripted, beginning with its first encounter with Grant in the woods. As the images transition to GRANT’S POV and begin to flicker by, the film actually inserts more than what is scripted. Images of the meat market jut against intimate moments with Starla, suggesting that the creature is starting to have difficulty differentiating its raw impulse to survive and thrive versus its newfound interest in pleasure and love. The first flashback is driven and uncomplicated while the second is confused and disconnected.
Its that moment of confusion where Kylie is able to succeed in her aim: With a last, desperate effort, Kylie yanks at the exhausted worm, pulling it fully from her mouth. The script calls for her to toss the creature away, but in the film she throws the thing as hard as she can against the wall. It splatters blood and lands hard on the ground, pathetically pushing itself ever forward, back toward Kylie.
The look on her face is one of disgust, fear and perhaps pity. She eyes her curling iron on the countertop and, as scripted: She grabs it, and swings it into the wormy thing.
The shot plays out in a close up. The viewer watches as the iron slams into its flesh, sort of hardening the skin a bit. Gooey, innards spill freely from the spot where the curling iron dug into its back as it flails and flaps uncontrollably, screeching in high pitched pain. In the script Kylie lifts the iron and stares at the dead thing “dangling from the metal”. In the film, the camera merely tracks up from the parasite’s carcass and holds on Kylie’s determined, embittered face as the weight of the moment finally strikes her. That’s when she reverts to her teenage self and screams out: “MOM!”
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“The parasite is entering my mouth, right? And it crawls up my back and gets inside.. and I’m just cracking up because the puppet guy is swinging its tail around…” Tania Saulnier (the actress who portrayed Kylie) recalled, laughing on the feature “Bringing Slither’s Creatures to Life” located on the Scream Factory blu-ray release (Available here). James Gunn, on the same feature, shown just after Tania, says frankly:
“I really miss the dirtiness and grime of old prosthetic effects.”
The feature goes on to explain that three different physical versions of the worm were made just for the scene where it entered Kylie’s mouth and nearly five hundred different worms were made for the film as a whole. Most of these, fittingly and disconcertingly, constructed of thermal gel developed for the adult novelty industry. On screen, most of the worms are computer generated, but for the moments where it really counted, James Gunn and John Gajdecki felt passionate about ensuring that the creatures were tangibly there.
From the moment I first saw a preview for Slither, I knew it was for me. A throwback of sorts, occupying a realm of horror filmmaking that toes the line between humor and fear, tastelessness and class and character and creature. It may not have attracted the crowds that that same year’s highest grossing horror film, Saw III, did, but it crafted something far more memorable and unique within the genre. It grounded the heightened insanity of the events in the film in people, in reality, something which made the ludicrousness of it all land far better than I could have imagined.
“I didn’t want any acting in the film,” James Gunn recounted on the commentary track from blu-ray, “I wanted people to be real.”
From the moment he put words on the page, James Gunn set out to make a picture that utilized the outlandishly unrealistic to tell a human story set in a small town with a distinct personality. Every person in the town was a character, a potential protagonist, allowing for the story to evolve and change, assimilating each individual’s story into the grander whole much like the great Michael Rooker led Grant-Monster depicted in the film.
Kylie’s exchange with the parasite in the bathroom represents this better than most. It acts simultaneously as a fantastic horror set piece while furthering the plot and adding to the complex character arc of the alien creature attempting to take over the town and, presumably, the world. The wonderful performance only served to amplify the effects which also stand as a fantastic example of how to blend the largely digital with the practical to make something all the more believable and affecting.
I’ll never forget my theatrical experience with Slither. Not only because of how much I loved the film, or how dumbfounded I was that others weren’t rushing out to see it, but also because it taught me something very important about the horror genre. Often we vilify CGI in horror, clamoring for the practical effects that comprise our favorite cinema from decades past. However, when used as a tool to compliment the practical, computer generated imagery can amplify the scope and scale of what’s onscreen, creating something that neither brand of effects could have accomplished on their own.
Still, without the story, the script and the vision behind them, none of it would be possible. Slither is a modern day horror masterpiece, one which marries the concepts of old with the tools and sensibilities of the new. The scene with Kylie in the bathroom incorporates all of these notions, serving as a perfect representation of the film as a whole. New and innovative, while classical in execution.
But if you really want to understand the mentality and the mind which wrote and conceived all of this, just listen to James Gunn’s description of the bathroom scene from the commentary mentioned earlier. In just a few words, he says what I tried to in a several thousand:
“It’s a pretty old-fashioned, cool scene.”
SliTher (2006): Written & Directed by James Gunn
