| Sorting Though the Gore and Goo on SLITHER with Directo James Gunn. |
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| Wednesday, 29 March 2006 | |
 BY Joseph B. Mauceri{Fearsmag} - Welcome to the Town of Wheelsy! Grant Grant (MICHAEL ROOKER) is a successful businessman, with a beautiful young wife, Starla (ELIZABETH BANKS). Things change for Grant in ways no one could have ever imagined as one humdrum evening Grant hits the local honky-tonk and encounters Brenda Gutierrez (BRENDA JAMES), the younger sister of an old girlfriend, whoís more than willing to listen to Grantís woes. Abandoning their drinks, the pair discovers something slimy in the woods behind the bar. Near the remains of what looks like a meteor, Grant and Brenda find a trail of glistening ooze and a pulsating, unidentifiable mass. Suddenly, the glob comes to life and overtakes Grant, penetrating his body with a pustule-covered tentacle. An alien parasite has infected its unlucky human host, who now must continue to infect others in order to survive. With each passing day, Grant becomes less and less human, evolving into a bloodthirsty creature driven by a primal need to kill and destroy the uninfected. Unfortunately, Grantís not the only problem. He has begun spawning scores of giant slugs that are out to inoculate any redneck. When Starla realizes what is happening to Grant she turns to her former high school beau, local Chief of Police Bill Pardy (NATHAN FILLION) to help her stop Grant. The pair gathers a makeshift crew of uninfected, including foul-mouthed Mayor Jack MacReady (GREGG HENRY) and smart-ass teen beauty Kylie Strutemyer (TANIA SAULNIER) to help stop the evil plague laying siege to Wheelsy. As the rebels attempt to avoid both the slippery slugs and their former neighbors-turned-meat-eating zombies, itís anyoneís guess as to who will stay slug-free. When the ragtag team comes face-to-face with an ancient, vengeful entity beyond all human comprehension, fierce alliances will be forged, former friends will be destroyed and a hilariously gruesome showdown will take placeóhillbilly style.  Director and writer James Gunn was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where he began his filmmaking career with an eight-millimeter camera at the age of 12. His first film was about being disemboweled by zombies and featured his brother Sean, now an actor on the WBís Gilmore Girls. Attending Columbia University in New York, Gunn applied for a part-time job filing papers at famed B-movie studio Troma Entertainment and ended up writing the screenplay for a movie called ìTromeo & Julietî instead. In 1997, ìTromeoî became a cult hit. Gunn left Troma to write and star, along with Rob Lowe, Thomas Haden Church, Jamie Kennedy and his brother, Sean, in the feature film ìThe Specials,î about a group of superheroes on their day off. He also wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Toy Collector, released by Bloomsbury Press in 2000 and the nonfiction book All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger, which is currently in its fifth printing. In 2002, the live action ìScooby-Dooî movie was released into theaters, which Gunn wrote the screenplay for. In March 2004, he became the first screenwriter in cinema history to write back-to-back #1-for-the-weekend box office hits, with the ìre-imaginedî ìDawn of the Deadî on March 19, 2004, and ìScooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashedî on March 26, 2004. FEARS: There is this uncanny connection between comedy and horror. What do you think it is about the genres that enable them to blend together so well? James Gunn: There is a certain ludicrous to horror in general, especially with the type of films that I grew up on, like ìRe-Animator.î It goes to this creepy, scary place, but at a certain point you have to laugh. Itís so out there. Secondly, there is the relief factor. There is nothing more common than when someone is really scared after a big ìbooî moment for the audience to laugh afterwards. It always happens. So I think fear and comedy are very closely aligned. Another reason why I like to make comedies and horror films, especially one thatís both, is because as a filmmaker you get to sit with an audience and you get to see the reaction, and with a comedy you get to hear them laugh. Itís great feedback. With a horror film you get to see them jumping, being afraid, and cowering in their seats. If I were to direct a drama I donít know what I would do. Iím scared of it sometimes. I do have ideas that are straight dramas and I think it would be hard because you canít really tell what the audience is thinking. Iím looking for the reaction all the time. FEARS: As I looked over your credits I was wondering what prepared you more for SLITHER, you film work for Troma Studios or your work on the Scooby Doo films? James Gunn: I donít know if either of those things prepared me from a storytellerís prospective. I think that was a cumulative effect of writing a lot of scripts and working on a lot of movies, especially ìDawn of the Deadî from a storytellerís prospective. I would say from a practical prospective, Scooby Doo helped me more than anything because I was able to be on set and produce a movie that had a lot of practical and computer generate effects, and was able to see how that was done. I was able to get a practical education about how to do big special and visual effects. That was enormously helpful to me. I could have never in a million years done SLITHER without that education. FEARS: In talking with filmmakers about physical/prosthetic effects verses computer generate effects, when it comes to horror film the over all consensus is physical whenever possible. As this is a comedy/horror film do you feel that you get away with a bit more computer effects because SLITHER is not a straight horror film?  James Gunn: I think we have way more prosthetic effects in SLTHER than any movie thatís been done in five years. One of the things I want to do with SLITHER is return to that grimy, fun, craftsmanship of prosthetic effects that we saw in a lot of the films made in the 80ís, like ìThe Flyî and ìThe Thing.î Even when these things donít look real, theyíre fascinating to watch, especially the mechanics of it. It gives the actors something to practically to deal with and ground them. I think itís really exciting. In a movie like SLITHER there is so much stuff going on there are certain things you canít to practically. We have a scene where this giant woman explodes and 27,000 slithering parasites come out of her. There is now way I could do that practically. I would have need 27,000 puppeteers to work them. That would have gotten in the way a bit. So some stuff needed to be CGI, but I did try to make it practical whenever possible. Some times we tried practical and it didnít work. We have a bunch of tentacles at the end of the movie and we originally intended for them to be practical. We tried it, it looked like shit, and so we replaced them completely with CGI tentacles. FEARS: In making a horror/comedy, a big concern is finding a cast that can run between these two emotional extremes and sell the story to the audience. What were you looking for from the actors in casting SLITHER and what about them influenced your choices in casting them? James Gunn: A blanket thing I was looking for was someone who could act naturally in the face of extreme circumstances. I wanted a person who could act like a real human being even though this was something that was extremely ludicrous that was happening. That acting style is what both the horror and the humor of this film are grounded in. Itís horrific because you see ridiculous things happening, but the people are reacting realistically to it. Itís funny because people are interacting with the stuff in a way that it is something that can be dealt with. Itís just so ludicrous. That was the first thing that I look for and than I think every role had an individual need to it, something that I was looking for, that these cast members, Elizabeth Banks, Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, and Gregg Henry, they all fit their roles perfectly. I am crazy, crazy, and crazy about auditioning as many people as possible until we find the right person. For the role of Jack MacReady, who Gregg Henry plays, I auditioned more than 100 actors. The same thing for the role of Kylie Strutemyer, played by Tania Saulnier, I auditioned actors all over Los Angeles, and Vancouver, and it turned out that the best actor we found was in Vancouver. Thatís unusual, because the better actors are usually in L.A.  FEARS: And itís great to see that you have an actor like Michael Rooker, who usually plays a heavy in the films he appears in. James Gunn: Iím glad we have him too. Heís been one of my favorite actors for a long time. I think he is completely undervalued. Heís in a lot of movies playing a bad guy, heís in a lot of movies where heís cast in a small role and heís so fantastic. He hardly shows up in ìThe Trigger Effectî or ìThe Sea of Love,î he hardly shows up but when he does he is mesmerizing. Iíd always want to work with him and write a good role for him, and I think the role of Grant Grant gives him a lot of different things to do. It gives him the ability to do some comic stuff, which he has never really gotten to do except for ìMallrats.î The character has a lot of different ways that he gets to express himself. I think for Rooker that is unusual. FEARS: Especially with the emotional of comedy and horror, and good composer can add so much to a film. Tyler Bates is scoring SLITHER, and he did one of my favorite films of last year, ìThe Devilís Rejects.î How did you decide to work with Tyler on SLITHER? James Gunn: Tyler did ìDawn of the Deadî for us, so I knew him from that. I think he is a great talent that can do anything that you need him to do. Heís always looking to stretch himself. He worked harder on SLITHER than on any score heís worked on in his life. I wanted to a modern version of an old Elmer Bernstein score, who did lots of scores for Hitchcock. Tyler was able to do that. He was onboard with me form the beginning. He did a fantastic job. I told him donít hold back, lets go as far as we can with this score. There were times people were asking for subtlety, but he just goes way over the top. I love that. SLITHER is all about extremes, in every direction be it the gore, the humor, or the score. Tyler was a great collaborator and a fun guy to work with. FEARS: Speaking of extremes, horror movies always spend more time jousting with the MPAA over ratings. Because SLITHER is a horror comedy did you have an easier time getting the rating you were looking for?  James Gunn: Yes! I also must thank my friend Eli Roth who gave them ìHostelî right before we gave them this movie. In the end we got away with more gore. We have more gore in our film than ìHostelî does, and the reason we got away with it is that we are so over the top that itís a bit more surreal, and they were able to deal with that better. FEARS: You donít think it has anything to do with what Dick Cheney said about Hollywood needing to make more horror movies because it desensitizes Americans to the violence of the war and terrorism? James Gunn: (Laughs hysterically) Yeah that might have something to do with it. In fact, he might have been sitting in on the MPAA screening. Hey, Iím all for the MPAA today because they gave us a fair shake. Listen, this is an ìRî rated movie, and I think people should be allowed to see what they ant to see, if theyíre over 17. FEARS: I have to ask; Iíve always been a big fan of the horror film ìThe Night of the Creeps.î Did that film influence you at all in making SLITHER? James Gunn: Zero, because I had never seen it until after I made this film. What did inspire was ìThey Came from Within,î aka ìShivers,î the David Cronenberg film from 1975. That was a huge inspiration to me. I saw ìNight of the Creepsî afterwards and I was astonished because there are some big similarities, but there are a lot of differences too. I think a lot of the things we took stuff from where strangely a lot of the things they also borrowed from, like ìShiversî and the ìBlob.î FEARS: I have to ask, the original or the remake? James Gunn: The original, but I love the remake. I took stuff from the remake of ìThe Blob.î I love that film and it was a really fun movie when I saw that in a theater. So, obviously we have a similar horror/comedy bent. I think we are much more darker than ìNight of the Creepsî and we lean a bit more towards the horror. FEARS: As a storyteller, at the end of the time would you go back and tell a similar tale or would you even be interested in going back and working on a sequel to SLITHER if the interest is there? James Gunn: You know, if it was in the right place and the right time, maybe. One of the bummers is that not everyone lives in this movie and I love the cast. There are a lot of reasons why I would be interested in doing a sequel, especially because I love the people I was working with so much. I donít want to do it next. But, if there is a chance to do a SLITHER 2 in a few years, and my same cast ñ the people who live at the end ñ are on board and I was dealing with my same two producers, it would be something I would definitely be interested in. FEARS: So what is up next? James Gunn: Right now Iím writing a movie about Satan! Itís coming along and itís own animal. I consider SLITHER a throw back to the funny, gory, over-the-top, fun movies of the 1980ís. And this next movie is itís own thing and weíll see where it takes us. FEARS: Doing a lot of research for that film, maybe talking to Charlie Manson? James Gunn: Iíve read more stuff about Wiccan and Satanism than you can possibly imagine! Itís great stuff! For more SLITHER information, images, trailers, and more, visit the FEARSmag SLITHER Film Page. LINK THIS ARTICLE             |
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