Talk:Slither (2006 film)

Page Control issues

It would seem that a combination of Slither fans have been locked into a war with a group of sockpuppets (or one sockpuppeteer) regarding contributions on this page. Rather than wander into that struggle, I would like to focus on the dispute over content itself. Consensus or not it would seem some valuable information is being omitted from this page for no other reason than it offends fans of this film. Much press and media exists to support the aforementioned contributions. Those contributions can co-exist alongside the rest of the article without contradicting existing contributions. It seems the edit war has zeroed in on disputes on what or which film has influenced the filmmaker and whether or not this film was successful at the box office. Both versions of the article concede that the film was influenced by multiple films. So the omitted information is being removed without merit despite being well-sourced. The consensus in the press is that the film was a bomb at the box office, with several sources referring to this film as a "box office bomb." So omitting that information is without merit. It would seems that there are simply a couple of editors on this page who want complete control of this page and refuse to let anyone other than them contribute information to this page that could cast this film in a negative light. Clearly this is an objectivity violation. Lighten up and allow the readers to have all the facts and information rather than carefully omitting information that may be embarrassing to the fans of this movie. It doesn't hurt the article and we should let the readers be the judge about whether they think the omitted contributions reflect negatively on the film itself. Personally I liked the movie but that personal opinion has no place on this page. Neither should your personal opinions. I expect a civil dialogue and I will not align with one side or the other. So please do not assume that I am a sockpuppet or attempting a page control violation. Let's keep this civil.24.9.121.185 (talk) 02:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You won't align with one side or another, despite the fact you just reverted the page without bothering to form a consensus, and without leaving an edit summary describing your edit accurately? Hmm. I'm sorry, but your words and actions don't match. It would seems (sic) that there are simply a couple of editors on this page who want complete control of this page and refuse to let anyone other than them contribute information to this page that could cast this film in a negative light. - Clearly aimed at Cuchullain and myself, but you won't actually say it because you're trying to appear neutral. Good one.

The assertion in the lead that Slither was influenced by Night of the Creeps. It's not supported by either source (here and here). One says fans will see close similarities to older staples like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Tremors, Night of the Living Dead and especially Night of the Creeps, and the other I bring this up not because I think Slither--which is a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of at least a dozen '80s horror films--could really be considered a rip-off of any one of them.. Neither one, much to the horror of those IPs and users who have resorted to sockpuppetry, personal attacks, edit warring etc, says that Gunn ripped off NOTC. Neither one states Slither was even influenced by NOTC. One says If you really want to see where Slither came from, though, see Shivers, Basket Case (1982), Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn (1983), Xtro (1983) and Society (1989). Neither says Slither was influenced by NOTC. The sources say there are similarities, parallels, etc, which is in the article later on. So, actually, you've got a bunch of users purposefully minterpreting what two sources say in order to paint the film and director in a bad light, and you've just done the same thing, and are on the talk page actively encouraging such usage. Whoops!

As for the financial info, there's plenty there that states clearly that Slither was most definitely not a financial success. The link to the box office bomb article is just put there by editors seeking to accentuate the negative.

I also find it odd, 24.9.121.185, that you mention Cuchullain and I, but you don't mention those other users. Those other users who have been banned for sockpuppetry, left idiotic lies as edit summaries, come back to this page time and time again to edit war and lie. Again, I just think its odd how someone avowedly neutral can be so one-sided. Geoff B (talk) 16:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me? horror comedy film, since when?

Yeah there's like, 2 3 funny times in the movie, all the rest is gross and creepy. Every horror movie out there (at least the ones from today) has at least 1 funny moment to break the tenseness in the audience. Shaun of the Dead and The Cottage, those can be considered examples of the comedy horror genre. (190.12.153.187 (talk) 00:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC))

That's your opinion. In a quote in the article, which you can read for yourself, it says I think that because it was comedy-horror instead of pure horror.... Geoff B (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

if the criteria is based on comparisons to other films, i would even argue for a closer match to comedy; compared to other contemporary horror films the gore is rather light.

i'm not going to make a change to the page since the wikinazis will shit themselves, but there are several sequences that make it rather clear that the vilan's attachment to Grant's wife, while possibly influenced by Grant's feelings as characterized in the article, are more precisely the result of she being the first to show him love and compassion rather than fear and violence...i thought this was a rather important aspect of the movie.-rh

If you could elaborate I would be happy to try to include it for you.--CyberGhostface (talk) 23:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

-There is a sequence in which Starla describes to a co-worker a sexual encounter with the being(in Grants body). She likens his behavior to that of a sexually awakening youth. This seems very humanizing to me. But disregarding my assumption if this intent, she states that he seemed to be discovering her body specifically for the first time, suggesting the inception of a bond between the creature and Starla that is at least to some degree separated from Grants memories. If the creature is so strongly tied to Grant's consciousness, Starla would have sensed the same complacency she had come to expect from her husband.

-The creature professing that it acts only on the dictates of it's biology is initially a way to justify it's behavior and dismiss the contempt of the other characters, but the idea returned with a more sympathetic angle in the final sequence. Again this interpretation is largely speculative, but not unreasonable given the music cues in the scene.

-Starlas remark about the creature having been 'alone for so long' in the final attempt at manipulating him was surely an appeal to the emptiness of his life of interstellar travel and violent hunger for destruction. Grant has only been 'alone' with his secretive parasitic ordeal for a matter of days. The appeal surely worked because it spoke to the more dominant consciousness of the parasite, never having known such empathy.

My main concern is that there no sense in the article of any sympathetic facet to the parasites character. My impression is that the initial sexual encounter with Starla introduced the creature to compassion and love, resulting in Starla becoming the only entity that has (probably ever) been spared from his relentless desire for consumption; a classic 'love is redemptive' theme. The details i mentioned are likely too specific to clutter the article with, and my interpretation is admittedly speculative and based partially on devices such as music cues, so I won't argue that the synopsis should impose these conclusions on the reader. However I do feel that the suggestion in the 4th paragraph of the plot synopsis ("Its consciousness, however, is tampered with by the real Grant's memories and his love for his wife, Starla.") is a misrepresentation of the characters of Grant and the parasite, as well as an oversimplification and flattening of film's narrative.

The article is skillfully concise, so i dare not tamper with it unless someone agrees that my concern is particularly valid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.26.198.158 (talk) 18:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

What I would recommend is to ask James Gunn on Formspring (his Formspring account is formspring.me/vonspears) about your interpretation or you could rent the DVD and listen to the commentary as that *might* have been discussed. The line about it being tampered by Grant's consciousness came from Gunn when I asked him on his Formspring here.

It's been a while since I saw the film and my memories on it are vague, but the only issue is whether or not this comes from your interpretation or something made clear in the film itself.--CyberGhostface (talk) 20:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

His reply does suggest explanations i had not considered. The emotions i was perceiving could quite logically result from the biological humanity of the host and not necessarily any inherent humanity in the paracite. I felt the sentence in question (especially "tampered") might suggest to some readers that Grant was somehow heroic or spiritually responsible for helping to overcome the creature, but the phrasing seems to be in line with the statement from the director. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.26.198.158 (talk) 21:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

dart, tentacle, leech

I wonder whether it would be worthwhile for the article to distinguish the three ways the monster preys on native animals (including humans) (other than eating): the dart thing that takes over Grant (and the cat), the tentacles that impregnate Brenda (and wound Bill), and the oral slugs that get most others. It's a bit odd to call all three modes "infecting" when they have different effects.

I think only Brenda, Jack, and the others Jack sees in the basement mention their great hunger, so can we assume that Jack and the basement people are impregnated? —Tamfang (talk) 10:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

'Controversy' section.

Just checked some of the references for the controversy section. They seem to mostly either not support the assertions they're attached to, not be WP:RS, or be misleading in how they're used.

The first ref for the section here is a blog.

The next ref here is used twice. The first assertion it's attached to ending with "both films sharing a trick ending where a domesticated household pet is infected by a surviving alien parasite, the only difference between the two films being that Slither changes the pet from a small dog to that of a cat", despite this being entirely unrelated to anything at that link. I can't see how that's a supporting ref for that. The second use of the ref is for a cherry picked truncated quote that omits the point it was leading up to. Then describes the rest of the article in misleading terms, saying it goes on to 'directly compare' them, implying that it asserts similarities in line with the asserted controversy, rather than the conclusion of the article being the exact opposite of that.

The reference for claiming Dekker "commented on the controversy" here, is explicitly false. He's says of his own film, that it's "already a remake and a rip-off of so many other things. Making a remake of a rip-off is just plain ridiculous", and merely references Slither in the context of discussing the possibility of NotC being remade to make the point that there probably wouldn't be much audience interest in the general idea.

The next reference here, again has nothing to do with the assertion it is attached to "Further controversy ensued after Gunn, who is a self-proclaimed cult horror fan, claimed he never saw Night of the Creeps until after he made Slither, a claim that was greeted with a backlash, challenged as dishonest by several critics and horror film fans, especially when it was pointed out that the likelihood that Gunn never heard of Creeps when surrounded by, and working with, hundreds of cast and crew also familiar with the film suggested he was covering up his knowledge of the film" The next group of refs, all attached to this "In his defense, Gunn has stated, however, that both Cronenberg's Shivers and his 1979 film The Brood were the two biggest influences on the story in Slither, along with the 2000 manga Uzumaki by Junji Ito." The first doesn't appear to be on the site it points to anymore (which is a problem itself), but looking at it on Wayback here, doesn't say anything about Night of the Creeps, so mentioning a range influences isn't 'in defense' of this at all, so that's a bit WP:SYNTH. The same goes for second ref. here, only mentions Night of the Creeps when the interviewer mentions people have told him Slither is reminiscent of it (not asserting a rip-off or anything similar), which Gunn answers by making a general point about wanting to harken to movies of the 80s rather than do films similar to current trends.

The next one, the entire site it was on no longer exists (again a problem in of itself), looking on Wayback again here, there's nothing mentioned in the context of a 'defense' since no assertion about made about it to defend, merely him again mentioning influences and similarities.

The last one there is a second separate link to the same article mentioned earlier (should be fixed) by Steve Palopoli on Metroactive, and is the only one there that arguably supports the claim that he defended the allegation by talking about other influences, but again ignores the conclusion of that article.

The bit about the worms behavior is unreferenced, appears to be WP:OR, and the part about the homage to Troma films at the end seems unrelated to the subject of the section. So there's problems with WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, WP:POV, WP:UNDUE (it's a large section for what comes down to a side point), dead links, and references not supporting the assertions they're provided to support. Number36 (talk) 22:01, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I remember this controversy, but it was mostly among cult horror fans. The whole section is really overblown and undue. I would just nuke it and replace it with a neutral summation. Palopoli is a good source for these sorts of things, as he writes about cult films fairly often. Bloody Disgusting also commented on the similarities: [1], [2]. According to this article, Dekker and Gunn are Facebook friends. The controversy exists mostly in the minds of outraged fanboy bloggers. The Hero Complex blog in the Los Angeles Times might also have covered this. I would personally rewrite this section, but I feel lazy, and I'm honestly a bit tired of this controversy. When I saw the initial trailer for Slither, I was one of those outraged fans who yelled, "Ripoff!", but ten years makes a big difference in how much you care about inconsequential ephemera. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Number36, I concur with NinjaRobotPirate. You can go ahead and take out the section and perhaps instead put in a sentence summarizing the comparison made to Night of the Creeps. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:41, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

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Guardians of the Galaxy connection.

Guys there's no denying that the slug aliens in this movie appears in the MCU film Guardians of the Galaxy. I edited to add that point, but was removed because no reliable source, but here is a screenshot from the movie: http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Collector's_Museum?file=Slugs_Collector.png

That doesnt mean Slither is set in MCU, but the aliens of the slithers (as a character) exist in the MCU, kinda like how Quicksilver co-exist in both seperate Xmen and MCU universes (only the difference is Slither is not Marvl to begin with, but creation of James Gun, who directed Guardians of the Galaxy). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.252.184 (talk) 01:41, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Is this based off the book by Edward Lee??

Hmm 67.185.238.57 (talk) 04:11, 22 November 2021 (UTC)