Directed by: Matthew Goodhue
Written by: Bradley Fowler, Cady Lanigan
Starring: Lisa Ambalavanar, Sydney Craven, Andrew Horton
Apologies in advance – this one is probably going to read a lot like my last WTF Did I Just Watch entry, Aquaslash. Slotherhouse is also rife with strangely delivered dialogue, and not nearly enough slotherhousing (just like Aquaslash was shockingly low on slashing). However, despite the dialogue, which to use the parlance of our times was, like, super fucking cringe – this movie was overall pretty fun. The titular sloth, Alpha, made the whole ridiculous thing feel worth it somehow.
“Don’t rush, die slow.”
So, the main premise centers around Emily (or Emmers if you will, but I most certainly will not), a spectacularly vapid dipshit. See, she decides that she will have a much bigger soshe-meed (social media, duh) following if she has a cute pet after she meets an absolute clowncar-of-creepy-vibes-dude in a mall food court who tells her exotic pets are, like, so totally fetch (ok, I made that part up, so STOP TRYING TO MAKE FETCH HAPPEN). And if she goes viral or whatever, she can be sorority babe-president and overthrow that bitch whatever her name was. Crap, even looking at the IMDB I can’t remember who the president was. Whatever, doesn’t matter. Because then she gets Alpha.
Well, technically she steals her. From a dead dude. See, clowncar got himself tigered. I think. Something happened because the sloth had murder in her tiny heart, and maybe she let the tiger out? If we’re being totally honest, I was really struggling to pay attention at that point. In another Aquaslash parallel, I was doing a lot of “somebody better get slotherhoused real fuckin’ soon here!” But he’s dead – that’s the point. So she just wanders inside and grabs the sloth, who is inexplicably cool with her. For now.
I wish I could insert every line of early-aughts dudebro dialogue Zenny had here – but I can’t remember a single word.
Zenny was my favorite human character. Wow, what a shitshow she was. She was basically Van Wilder, but as a butch lesbian who intentionally lowers her voice at all times and says “yo” before and after just about every other word. Is this what Serbia (where the movie was filmed, and where lots of the actors hail from – you can tell because they are occasionally heavily accented) thinks young American lesbians are like? Is she a stereotype? Lol, idk. But she’s ridiculous, and she made me laugh almost as much as Alpha.
While I wish Slotherhouse had contained a multitude more balls-to-the-walls slotherhousing (for real, I know I advocate for PG-13 horror a lot, but this one REALLY could have gone with a hard R – all that gore could have made up for a barely passable story), once Alpha found her murder-groove, it was really fun!
I mean, this girl tans, she drives a Mustang at one point, and she understands the finer points of social media. That’s legit impressive.
If you want to, you can find Slotherhouse on Hulu.
