Joining the annals of nature versus humans movies that includes the Sharknado series (2013-2018) and Cocaine Bear (2023) comes an unexpected addition to the bloodthirsty animal antagonist genre in Slotherhouse directed by Matthew Goodhue and written by Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan. That’s right, a creature known for its lack of haste has received the slasher treatment and has been transformed into a cunning and violent apex predator. Think Chucky, but with fur.
Emily Young (played by Lisa Ambalavanar) is a sorority sister intent on becoming house president, overthrowing the current reigning tyrant. In order to gain popularity amongst her housemates, she makes the rash decision to steal a sloth from an exotic animal poacher and adopt it as her sorority mascot. When the comfort of Alpha the sloth is threatened, the creature soon begins to pick off the sorority sisters one by one.
Slotherhouse is a film that is fully self-aware in all its ridiculousness, and therein lies the fun. Watching the cutest sloth alive amble around a sorority house, electrocuting a whole shower room full of people, as well as somehow developing the ability to drive a sports car to a hospital where she also remarkably takes a selfie with a victim before uploading to social media, is truly what saves this film from being another instantly forgettable farce. The film does a good job in entirely justifying the actions of a homicidal xenarthra with a light commentary on the poaching and further exploitation of animals, particularly through the lens of the social media obsessed.
Whilst the film’s strength lies in how hilarious the premise of a killer sloth is, the set-up of popularity obsessed college girls suffering from a lack of substance and morals, whilst obviously a spoof of the typical creature-feature horror representation of women, doesn’t quite stick the landing and so presents itself as just another hollow characterisation of a certain type of woman. Slotherhouse also lacks in really relishing in its violence and kills, instead choosing to gather all of the scenes, which most audiences would revel in, into a short montage.
When comparing Slotherhouse to other films within the same scope like Bernie Rao’s Killer Sofa (2019), it just misses the point by not fully leaning into the parody style humour. Despite this, Slotherhouse is still an easy watch, forgoing the usual terrible acting and nonsensical plot development that usually plagues the b-movie creature feature genre.
3 screams out of 5
SLOTHERHOUSE will be available on Digital Download from 12th February
By Ygraine Hackett-Cantabrana
3 screams out of 5
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