It's quite ironic that I was very slow to get around to this horror comedy, but I'm happy to say that I finally made time to enjoy the sheer silliness of this. While written and directed by a bunch of people I am not familiar with, Slotherhouse shows how much fun can be had when people commit to some entertaining stupidity, especially when the technical side of things is done well enough to keep it looking professional and made with at least some small amount of care.
Lisa Ambalavanar plays Emily, a young woman who wants to become the president of her sorority. She has a major fight on her hands to usurp Brianna (Sydney Craven), but soon discovers that a cute pet can help to win over many fans. Which starts to happen after she takes ownership of a sloth. The sloth isn't always as slow and cute as it appears though, and it's not long until the killings begin.
Writers Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan do everything they can to encourage viewers to lean into the ridiculousness of this. They start off with little moments of sloth-induced murder and mayhem, provide a montage at about the halfway point, and then deliver a third act that is all the more entertaining for being completely implausible (by the time the sloth is posting to Instagram with niche hashtags and another victim then you're either laughing or ready to turn the thing off).
Director Matthew Goodhue keeps everything looking and feeling as it should. Shot choices and framing allow for a lot of enjoyable practical effects and puppeteering, overlaid imagery use social media snapshots to deliver main character traits and developing tensions, and there are a number of fun homages throughout (some much more obvious than others, but Gremlins feels like the biggest influence at times).
While the cast is made up of lesser-known actors, I think they deserve some praise for being so game about the whole thing. They play everything pretty straight, with the humour coming more from their Mean Girls antics than the murderous sloth, and do well at either portraying a character going through a journey (Ambalavanar) or fully embracing their stereotype (Craven). Bianca Beckles-Rose is a lot of fun as the hyper Zenny, Olivia Rouyre is good as the young woman who warns our lead against the path she seems intent on walking, and Tiff Stevenson provides some extra laughs as Ms. Mayflower, the "house mother" who secretly wants another chance to have a better position in the sorority hierarchy.
If you've been as slow as me to get around to this one then make time for it now. I'm not going to say it's an overlooked modern classic, nor am I guaranteeing that you will chuckle as often as I did, but it's a lot of fun, and I would definitely watch Slotherhouse 2: Locked In The Zoo.
7/10
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