Videos
[Kill of the Week] Sliced Up the Middle in ‘Slither’
Every week, we spotlight a kill that we just can’t get enough of. This is Kill of the Week.
James Gunn, if you think about it, has had a career path very similar to both Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. Like Raimi and Jackson, who started out making gory gross-out horror movies like Evil Dead and Dead Alive, Gunn began his career writing films for Troma, before making his directorial debut in 2006 with the creature feature Slither.
James Gunn has of course gone on to become a major player in Hollywood, writing and directing both Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel’s cinematic universe.
But before all that, it was Slither that really showed us what Gunn was made of as a filmmaker. The horror-comedy, a throwback to ’80s monster movies, starred Michael Rooker and Elizabeth Banks as husband and wife; Rooker’s Grant Grant gets infected by an alien parasite, turning him into a hideous monster, while Banks’s Starla fights for her life against alien slugs, mind-controlled zombies and, eventually, her own husband.
There are a handful of moments in Slither that certainly qualify for “kill of the week” shout-outs, including one particularly memorable scene wherein a woman’s body has been blown up to ridiculous proportions after being impregnated with massive amounts of the aforementioned slugs, eventually causing her body to completely explode.
In another moment, our chosen “kill of the week” for this week, the mutated Grant whips a gun-toting man with one of his tentacles, surgically splitting the man’s body straight up the middle and causing his guts to spill out all over the ground. Gunn’s choice to make this one a “time-release” kill, delaying the gory moment, makes it all the more fun.
Video Games
Inspired by 80s Slashers, Short Horror Experience ‘Dead Stop – No Vacancy’ Launches August 13 [Trailer]
Fresh from their work on last year’s Beneath, developer Camel 101 has announced that their next title, a short, standalone first-person horror experience in Dead Stop – No Vacancy, will launch on Steam on August 13. Accompanying the announcement is the release date trailer, which thanks to the narration, is appropriately hammy.
Players in No Vacancy step into the shoes of Nancy, a hard-edged investigative reporter whose journey to the town of Crestfall takes an unexpected turn. Stranded without directions or a GPS signal, she arrives at the remote Paradise Motel just as daylight begins to disappear. What initially appears to be an inconvenient stop soon becomes an investigation into the motel’s dark history, and whatever may be hiding beneath it.
No Vacancy is the first entry in Dead Stop, a new anthology of short, standalone horror games inspired by classic horror stories and unsettling places. In this case, the game takes inspiration from 80s slasher films.
Rather than relying on cutscenes to tell its story, No Vacancy‘s has the player discover the story through the various objects you examine in the game. As such, you’ll also be dealing with various environmental puzzles built around the motel’s dark history. Completing the vibe is the game’s throwback graphics, which don’t quite have the typical PS1-era aesthetic, but it’s enough to give you that old-school feel.
Ahead of the game’s launch, you can also check out the demo via the Steam page.