I throughly enjoy campy horror that knows it’s campy and isn’t trying to be something it’s not. This is leagues better than the first in story telling and acting, neither of which are really all that important to this kind of movie but boy does it help. Sure, it’s dumb. If you didn’t know that going in and are upset it didn’t live up to your standards, that’s on you.
This was decent fun, in a similar vein to Happy Death Day and The Final Girl. The joke gets a little long in the tooth after a while but it never stops being enjoyable and lighthearted. Good fun, and I like this trend of taking older film premises and putting a horror spin on them. If Happy Death Day was the horrification of Groundhog Day, this is the horrification of Back to the Future. Not bad at all.
There have only been a few times when I truly have been in disbelief over what I’m seeing on screeen; for example, the portals scene in Avengers: Endgame, or all of the actors they got to reprise roles from years ago for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And now, Slotherhouse.
Now, is this script good? Not by a longshot. Is the acting good? Nope - abysmal. This is, by all accounts, a terrible movie. A murderous and inexplicably literate sloth (that survives more violence than Michael Meyers does in the original Halloween) operates a computer, a motor vehicle, runs a social media account and wields a sword while terrorizing a sorority house. Characters seem to teleport between scenes, and for a supposed slasher movie, the kills are very tame. This movie is a mess.
And yet, I can’t help but recommend it. Purely for the ludicrous but entertaining (and maybe camp?) nature of what I just sat through. This is probably best in a group setting where everyone knows exactly what they’re getting into and is ready to just go with it. I think it’s worth a spot on your October watchlist!
"Are you ready to get rushed? ... Yeah, maybe you aren't rush material, you ugly bitch! U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi!"
You know what you're getting into with that crazy opening scene! Slotherhouse demands you leave your logic and common sense at the door to be appreciated. When making these movies you have to fully embrace the absurdity and squeeze in as much comedy and be as entertaining as you possibly can. It has a bit of a hard time sustaining itself for the entire 90 minute runtime but overall it achieves that fun campy B-movie factor!
Alpha the sloth has charisma, she's funny and love the use of a puppet over CGI, keeps it real even though it reduces the movements that are possible. Made me think of Chucky a lot (before he was mentioned in the movie) because of the puppet, the fact that it's small, looks harmless at first sight and it's clearly influenced by it.
Takes a laugh at social media and teens/YA with their slangs. The characters are entertaining but empty shells. The ideas for the kills are good but they're cut short a lot of the time which is a shame and there isn't much practical effects or gore to be shown. I'd take a sequel of this for sure but put more love into the kills next time!
TIL sloths can do a lot more things than I thought they could.
