The journey to The Suicide Squad, the latest blockbuster from director James Gunn, out Aug. 6, can be traced to a much more modestly budgeted, and surely disgusting, film from 2006. An irreverent homage to gross-out sci-fi horror flicks, Slither was supposed to be a spec script for Gunn, who’d found success in Hollywood as the screenwriter of a string of early 2000s hits like Scooby-Doo and Dawn of the Dead.
“I wrote Slither pretty quickly and went to two different [production companies] on a Thursday night. By Friday, both made offers,” Gunn tells THR. The more aggressive of the two was Gold Circle Films — the indie film company that made it big in 2002 with My Big Fat Greek Wedding — whose president, Paul Brooks, insisted that Gunn direct it himself. Gunn, then 39, already had some directing experience under his belt, having helmed everything from “segues to TV shows to shorts” for Troma Entertainment, the storied B-movie factory where he’d been steeped in all aspects of the biz since 1995.
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Slither, however, marked his solo directorial debut — and what a debut it was. The movie, about a mysterious parasitic species that invades a small Southern town via a meteorite and proceeds to infect locals, turning them into ravenous, meat-craving monsters, manages to blend just about every genre trope (zombies, alien invasion, body horror) while breaking every rule (animals are killed, children are harmed). The film owes much of its effectiveness to Gunn’s use of special effects, which are palpably realistic.
“There is a sweet spot where practical and computer effects meet and people can’t tell what’s happening,” says Gunn. “People didn’t know how we did it.” (He says The Suicide Squad is rife with such old-school trickery, “but it also has a walking shark — which you can’t do with practical effects.”) Slither disappointed at the box office, earning just $12.8 million total — but it has since amassed loyal followers, many of whom were drawn to it after falling for Gunn with his 2014 breakout, Guardians of the Galaxy.
This story first appeared in the Aug. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
