Slither (2006)

There are 9,000 movies about monsters that invade a small town and 3,000 of those play it for laughs. Here’s another one. It’s okay, I guess. If you like Night of the Creeps or Tremors, this won’t ruin your night. Here’s what you need to know: the creatures are these little red wormy things that jump into peoples’ mouths and wreak more havoc on a human body than the #5 on the menu at Taco Bell. They turn people into zombies lead by Michael Rooker, who looks like a burned cheese pizza that somebody dropped and the only person who can stop him is local cop Nathan Fillion, who brings all of his Firefly charisma to the role. The nice mix of digital and practical effects deserves a salute. You just know that a lesser creative team on a budget this low in 2006 would have handed Rooker’s slimy character design to the computer nerd department to figure out. Not here. They went the latex and rubber route, bless ’em. It’s the first film directed by James Gunn, who came up working for Troma and pays homage here with a Lloyd Kaufman cameo and a sensibility not far removed from his roots.