October 10th, 2012 
Dane Sager 
Of all the holidays celebrated worldwide, no one day is more loved by the UTG staff than Halloween. With the arrival of October, the time has finally come to begin rolling out a plethora of features and special announcements we have prepared in celebration of our favorite day, including the one you’re about to read.
31 Days Of Halloween is a recurring daily feature that will run throughout the month of October. The hope and goal of this column is to supply every UTG reader with a daily horror movie recommendation that is guaranteed to amplify your Halloween festivities. We’ll be watching every film the day it’s featured, and we hope you’ll follow along at home. If you have a suggestion, contact us and we may include your favorite scarefest in an upcoming column!
DAY 9: Slither (2006)
Remember 2004’s Dawn of the Dead? Zach Snyder’s breakout hit that not only solidified him as a box-office draw, but the movie that started his slow motion boner that has popped up in everything he’s done since? That was written by a little known filmmaker named James Gunn, a writer more commonly associated with Troma Entertainment. Troma is known for their ridiculous and awful movies that thrive on their ridiculousness, their low budgets adding another layer of humor on top of the mess they keep putting out.
But what were to happen if you were to take a Troma styled movie, a surreal B-Grade exploitation horror movie, and produced it on a Hollywood budget? That’s where you get Slither, James Gunn’s directorial debut, a movie that absolutely would have never been distributed by Universal without the success of Dawn Of The Dead.
Slither was a combination of zombie movies, alien invasion movies, and comedy movies. One more time for the kids at home: this is an alien invasion zombie comedy. Starring cult favorite Nathan Fillion (of Firefly fame) and Elizabeth Banks just before she decided to be in every single movie released after Slither. The movie is a hilarious science fiction horror movie that I honestly have problem believing that anyone dislikes. There is a sequence in this movie where the lead has to fight a zombie deer. A zombie deer, you guys. That actually happens.
There is absolutely no way I could make a list of great horror movies and not include this. James Gunn will continue to blow up with his next movie, 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, a movie to be tied in with 2015’s The Avengers 2, and none of this would have been possible if it weren’t for this quirky underrated gem.
You can buy the DVD of Slither here or you can get a digital rental here! You really should just buy it though.
Editorial by Dane Sager
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