Slotherhouse

Animal horror films have been around for a very long time in Hollywood. You have everything from attacking alligators, wolves, grizzly bears, dogs, sharks, the list could go on forever. What i think have made films such as these fun for the horror audience is the fact that people know that there are a lot of dangerous animals out there, no matter if we are talking about a jungle, a forest or even in the ocean, you never know what animal could attack you when you least expect it. I have seen quite of few animal horror films over the years and i do have some personal favourites such as the 1975 classic Jaws from legendary director Steven Spielberg. But then i have some animal horror movies that´s more seen as B movies that i enjoy such as the 1976 animal horror film known as Grizzly. It´s not one of the greatest films in this genre but i still feel that Grizzly found a concept that worked with the plot. The film takes place at a national park where two female hikers are brutally killed and the national park´s Chief Ranger, Michael Kelly ( Christopher George ) can tell that these murders were done by a large animal. As the investigation goes on more people will become victims that is caused by a large grizzly bear. Grizzly especially worked thanks to fun pracitcal effects and had some fun animal attacking scenes. If you are going to make a horror film about a grizzly bear you should use cheesy attack scenes like they do here in Grizzly. The acting is a very mixed bag but director William Girdler still deliver a simple and enjoyable 70´s horror film worth checking out on DVD or Blu Ray. Speaking of animal horror last year i was reading online about a horror comedy called Slotherhouse where a sloth muder people. I was planning to watch it around Christmas time but plans changed so i picked up a blu ray copy recently to check it out. Is this one of the better horror comedies in recent years or is Slotherhouse a disaster from start to finish just like Marjorie Taylor Greene´s biographical book MTG turned out to be?

Emily Young ( Lisa Ambalavanar ), is a senior who wants to be elected as her sorority´s president. She adopts a cute sloth that all the girls at the sorority house loves who is named Alpha. What Emily doesn´t know is that Alpha have a past of hurting people, especially with the help of the claws.

If you are making a horror film combined with comedy you have to be able to make both of these genres work well together. It worked really well in classics such as Shaun Of The Dead and Zombieland. When it comes to Slotherhouse i would say that the horror elements works better than the actual comedy scenes. I didn´t find myself laughing that much in this film and it is clearly trying to joke about a sorority house. The idea itself regarding a sorority house is not a bad idea, we have seen comedies in a sosority house work well in films such as the 2008 comedy The House Bunny where actress Ana Faris did one of her funniest comedy roles as the blonde bimbo Shelley. Unfortunately it feels like the sorority house idea falls pretty flat in some scenes in Slotherhouse, as they didn´t want to make this film too wild because this is a PG-13 film. I think this was a big mistake since they could have really gone crazy and used the sorority house in a much more creative way. But let´s get into some details that i do enjoy about Slotherhouse and the puppet sloth named Alpha does bring some charming scenes where the creature attack the sorority girls. Since it is a PG-13 film you don´t really get to see that much blood but i do enjoy some attacks anyway where they turn out to at least being creative. Even if the design of the sloth may have some flaws it is still a fun idea having it attack human beings. My biggest problem ( outside the comedy issues that this film have problems with ) is the annoying character Zenny played by actress Bianca Beckles-Rose. I am sure shes a wonderful woman in real life but the acting of this character is really bad. In fact every scene we get with this character is not working at all. Zenny is the kind of woman who tries too hard to look cool but fails miserably. Lead actress Lisa Ambalavanar is ok in the role as Emily. It´s too bad they focused more on the comedy scenes than making the horror scenes more effective, because there is a fun idea surrounding Slotherhouse. Director Matthew Goodhue have not made a terrible film, but with such potential for a fun plot it feels like Matthew didn´t try really hard to make this film work. Only watch Slotherhouse if you want to, otherwise i would highly recommend Shaun Of The Dead instead.

Rating: DD